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The scheming of would-be plumbers searching for vulnerabilities in the possible Democratic presidential nominee's past? Or three bored cube rats who were just looking out of "imprudent curiosity?"
So far, everything beyond that simple data point is unclear. The State Department refuses to release the names of the contractors (there are apparently two) or the employees -- two of whom have been fired, one "disciplined."
what information, exactly, they accessed -- "whether the employees saw anything other than the basic personal data such as name, citizenship, age and place of birth that is required when a person fills out a passport application." The verdict of a "preliminary investigation," the State Department says, is that they were motivated by "imprudent curiosity." And at this point it's unclear who will do more than a preliminary investigation.
say that the breaches came to light as a result of a reporter's query yesterday afternoon (it's not clear exactly what that query was). The Department's database flags the access of the files of "high profile" people, so it was easy to discover the breaches once they were looking for them.
"I will fully acknowledge this information should have been passed up the line," Kennedy told reporters in a conference call Thursday night. The contractors, Kennedy says, do work like data entry, customer service and other administrative tasks for the Department. The whole thing compels a comparison to 1992, when Steven Berry, a Republican appointee at the Department, was discovered to have pulled Bill Clinton's passport records.
According to a new piece out in the Post from Glenn Kessler, the breaches occurred Jan. That would be the day after the New Hampshire primary, the day of the Democratic debate in Texas and the day the Wright story really hit." one might be, but three notable dates means someone is deliberately looking for dirt to add to the dogpile.
Permalink avatar I'm really not sure what to make of this story but the Clinton-connected conspiracy theories really give me pause. But I can't see this as anything more than Bush Administration "scandal." A previous Bush Administration has searched passport files before and was caught. You'll recall that the whole US passport program was in disarray at the end of 2007 because the Bush Administration failed to plan for the Canada-Mexico-Carribean travel changes. It's possible these offending contractors may have been brought in to fill the gaps that the Bush Administration allowed to happen. You'll also recall that Condi Rice refuses to take even symbolic responsibility for the day-to-day management of State.
Someone at State knew and didn't report it up the chain. If a system was installed to track this information, then surely SOMEONE thought it to be important. So where did the info stop, or who suppressed it and why? Was getting a lot of badmouthing yesterday on Kos and CNN. He's a careerist, one of those folks the Bushies are trying to run out of government. Some were trying to make the case he was a Clinton plant. But his biggest jobs have come during the Bush Administration - first, he was the #3 at the UN. Then, he was the Admin coordinator for the newly created office of Director of National Intelligence. He may be a bad manager, or he may be willing to clean up all the Bush poop, but he's not a Clinton plant. The lady who used to be an Ambassador to Paraguay under the Clinton Administration. Her posting to Paraguay was as a career staffer at State - not as a political appointee. Administratively, yes, it's accurate to say Clinton appointed her - because that's the statuatory job of the President. But that's just like saying that Clinton made Maj Joe Bob a colonel in the US Army. The President "signs off" on all officer military promotions too. But this lady should be dinged for running a loose ship. Copies of old passports issued (you have to send in your old passport for review when you apply for a new one). That just tells me that just like those 1992 Bushies that looked through Clinton's papers, the perpetrators were wholly ignorant of what would even be in the files. And AS ALWAYS, it's the coverup that gets you in trouble.
You'll remember Victoria Toensing from her splendiud performance "defending" GSA Administrator Lurita Doan during the whole Hatch Act "let's help our Republican candidates" episode.
Permalink avatar Last night I watched Keith Olbermann's "first" Countdown @ 8 pm EDT, and then his second @ 10 pm, which was live rather than a repeat of 8 pm. On the second, I believe, he interviewed Eric Holder, who's with the Obama campaign, and who, as I recall, used to be in the US Attorney's office in DC. Holder had a series of questions that should be investigated about this.
It's better than the shorter pieces that are up on YouTube, but it doesn't contain the Holder interview. A link to any of Olbermann's coverage last night would be welcome;
Try waiting until the facts come out rather than giving unsupportable, irresponsible accusations. Who is this Clinton appointee you claim is in the mix and what did they allegedly do?
a nice rundown, but I am pretty certain that the foray into Clinton's files was directly connected to a trip to Moscow he took while studying abroad in England. Some Clinton critics were making a fuss about what he did on that trip and who he met with and if I remember reading his biography correctly, the snooping was directly related to that. As it relates to the Obama situation, it's possible that whoever these people were, they were looking for something as specific as the Clinton case, not blindly grasping at straws.
Permalink avatar We need their names, we need their contract agencies, we need their every-damn-thing-we-can-find. As the old saw has it, once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. We also need the server logs to see exactly which pages from his file were accessed, the email archives to see if anything was sent, and any printer logs to see if that happened. And I just might be willing to relax my universal condemnation of waterboarding to obtain this information.
Permalink avatar US passport applications changed on 1 February. Even if you've hold a passport and a have proof of citizenship, you are now required to list your parents names', DOB, and citizenship/country of origin, even if they are deceased. You are also required to list the info about current and former spouses. What are the chances Obama renewed his passport between 9 January and 14 March?
Knowing that our illustrious government is an equal opportunity employer which hires previous and future extortionists, child molesters, murderers, larcenists, etc. especially knowing that this same government has access to all my records, including bank accounts and social security records. Also realizing that unless an outside source is investigating, no breaches will be pursued by those folks gathering my information... Perhaps we should all just post our entire lives in the Sunday paper... at least we then wouldn't have to worry about the info getting out...
Permalink avatar Yes, the Clinton snooping incident did appear to be an ill-fated expedition to dig dirt on the Russia trip. There is another NYT article out there (from 1992) that probes the subject deeper. The two ringleaders of the search were Bush political appointees (a 37 year old and a 30 year old).
Here's the article A State Department official who carried out the two-day search of passport files for information about Gov. Bill Clinton said today that he had resigned, just 48 hours before Federal investigators are expected to issue a report criticizing the search. The official, Steven M Moheban, was a top aide to Elizabeth M Tamposi, the Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs who was dismissed last week by President Bush for her role in the search of files on Mr Clinton, his mother, Virginia Kelley, and Ross Perot, the independent Presidential candidate. "I resigned Monday," said Mr Moheban, a 30-year-old native of Nashua, NH, Ms Tamposi's hometown. Mr Moheban said he had not been asked to resign but had stepped down voluntarily to "pur...
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