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Obama's passport file breached
21/03/2008 09:37 - (SA)
Washington - The heated Democratic campaign for the White House took on a bizarre wrinkle on Thursday with word that two State Department contractors were fired for inappropriate access to Barack Obama's passport file.
The State Department was quick to characterise it as an "imprudent curiosity" but vowed to investigate, while the Obama campaign accused Republican President George W Bush's administration of an "outrageous" breach of privacy for political ends.
The Democratic Illinois senator, who is locked in a tight race against rival Hillary Clinton for the party's nod, issued a scathing statement admonishing the Bush administration for showing "little regard" for citizens' rights.
Two contractors were dismissed and a third was disciplined, department spokespeople said, declining to give details about the type of information accessed or the identities or political affiliations of the employees.
"These unauthorised accesses were detected by the State Department and they were immediately acted upon," said undersecretary Pat Kennedy, adding that the incidents took place at separate times in January, February and March.
"However, we are taking immediate steps to be able to assure ourselves that it is nothing more than imprudent curiosity," he said.
State Department officials were to meet with staff from Obama's campaign on Friday to discuss the matter.
'Outrageous breach of security'
"This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years," said Obama spokesperson Bill Burton.
"This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach," he said.
"Our government's duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes."
Spokesperson Sean McCormack also said the department's initial take was that it was a matter of "imprudent curiosity," but added: "We are not being dismissive of any other possibility."
Kennedy said that "in two cases the employees were immediately terminated, the third was disciplined."
He gave no details on what was contained in the files other than that they "normally ... would be an application for a passport," and refused to disclose the locations where the breaches took place.
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