..."Last summer, the State Department brought in hundreds of contractors to process U.S. passports to ease a backlog forcing Americans to cancel vacations. Currently there are 1,800 employees working within the Office of Passport Services. There are an additional 2,600 contract employees working in the office...
McCormack cited an incident last summer when a trainee had unauthorized access to Hillary Clinton's passport file. It was part of a training seminar in which people usually ""are encouraged to enter a family member's name," he said. The individual was ""immediately admonished,"" he said.
The State Department this year also detected that one of the people who accessed Obama's file also accessed McCain's, McCormack said. That individual was disciplined.
The State Department's inquiry began yesterday after a reporter inquired about the breach of Obama's records. After senior management researched the incidents surrounding Obama, they decided to examine whether Clinton's and McCain's records had been breached. This morning, it became clear that they had, McCormack said.
McCormack said the State Department was still trying to determine if any laws had been broken.
"We must await a final determination of the facts to determine what precise laws may have been violated,"" he said.
Obama, Clinton, McCain Passport Files Breached (Update4) By Janine Zacharia and Kristin Jensen
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Note: Senator Obama's file was accessed on three separate occassions Jan. 9, 2008; Feb. 21, 2008 and March 14, 2008. See my 20 Mar 08 - 11:14 PM post to this thread regarding the possible political significance of those dates.