Big-Name Passport Snooping Not Isolated

Review Turns Up 20 High-Profile Passport File Reviews, Including Anna Nicole Smith's

(AP)  State Department workers viewed passport applications containing personal information about high-profile Americans, including the late Playboy playmate Anna Nicole Smith, at least 20 times since January 2007, The Associated Press has learned.

That total is far more than disclosed last week with the news that presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama had been victims of improper snooping.

An internal department review has found the additional instances of department employees or contractors looking at computerized passport files of politicians and celebrities, according to preliminary results.

It has not been determined if the new cases also involved improper peeking, officials familiar with the review said Wednesday. Smith's case, however, seems legitimate, the officials said. The review is not complete and the exact number of cases was not yet clear.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because the review is going on at the same time as the department's own watchdog investigates passport record security related to the breaches involving the White House candidates.

Smith, 39, died in February 2007 death from an accidental overdose in Florida and was buried in the Bahamas, where she had moved in 2006. The review of her passport file appears to have come after a legitimate request from the U.S. Embassy in the Bahamas for information needed to complete her death certificate, the officials said.

Supervisors recorded each instance a file was viewed because the applications in question belonged to members of a select group of several hundred citizens whose passport files were "flagged" for extra protection due to their visibility, the officials said. Among these people are government leaders, movie stars and athletes, the officials said.

The list maintained by Bureau of Consular Affairs has included as many as 500 people at any one time, they said. The list is kept secret partly to deter workers from making unauthorized inquiries into high-profile records. Although there are no formal criteria for inclusion, people on the list are deemed to warrant special consideration because of their public status, the officials said.

The investigation begun by the department's inspector general after last week's disclosure covers some of the same ground as the internal review but also will examine whether the searches of the candidates' records were politically motivated. Thus far, officials say they believe that snooping resulted from "imprudent curiosity."

Two contractors were fired and a third disciplined for breaching Obama's records three times and McCain's records once. A department employee who looked at Clinton's file as part of a training exercise was reprimanded.

The companies that provided the contractors — Stanley Inc., of Arlington, Va., and The Analysis Corp., or TAC, of McLean, Va. — have said their employees' actions were unauthorized and not consistent with company policies.

Accessing any of the flagged files triggers an automatic notification that the record has been viewed. That allows supervisors to check whether it was done for a legitimate reason, such as an official request for verification of information contained in an actual passport.

The review being conducted by Patrick Kennedy, undersecretary of state for management, is expected to result in increased security measures for the passport files of flagged individuals, the officials said.

The most likely step would mean special security for those records, making them accessible to passport employees only after they get permission to view them from a supervisor, the officials said.

That restriction now applies to the files of the three candidates. Kennedy hopes to have it cover all high-profile records before the inspector general's report is completed and ahead of congressional hearings on passport security, the officials said.

In addition, Kennedy wants to expand the list to more than 500 individuals, they said.

But that is unlikely to pre-empt calls for a separate Justice Department investigation into whether the breaches of the candidates' files violated federal laws. Nor would it address concerns that the files of millions of people not considered high-profile enough for the extra protection may also have been improperly accessed.

It is unclear what the contractors might have seen in the candidates' records. Passport applications typically contain only basic personal information such as name, citizenship, age, Social Security number and place of birth. The files generally would not list countries the person has traveled to.

But Passport Services maintain other records that can include information such as marriages overseas, court orders, arrest warrants and medical and financial reports. Further, outside "users" — including other government agencies and foreign governments — may be given certain information.

But the department says extraneous information would be included in passport application files only under rare circumstances, such as suspected fraud. Also, foreign governments are not given access to the U.S. electronic system that contains the files, it said.

[libsrweak]

impeach these criminals

Posted by joyous88 at 11:57 PM : Mar 26, 2008
+ report abuse

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you lack the balls and the intelligence to do it..

"The files generally would not list countries the person has traveled to."=========May be true but "curiosity seekers" wouldn''t necessarily believe that. Besides, to stop "peeking" on the basis of an assumption that the government wouldn''t make a mistake and include something it shouldn''t flies in the face of bureaucratic bungling we have come to know so well. As a general rule, wouldn''t "flagging files" be on a par for discouraging scrutiny as puttting a "wet paint" sign on a door or telling a 13 year old boy not to look inside the girls'' restroom or telling adolescent foreign language novices to definitely NOT look up the dirty words? I have a question: outside of a specific governmental regulation prohibiting "unauthorized" inquiry, since when do "public figures" have an expectation of "privacy?"

[dowjones20k]

Surely this is nothing new ... I can recall police departments in LA having the same issue .. and implementing termination policies if records were accessed for curiousity.

It would only take a few sacrificial lambs to stop this. One has to wonder about the supervision of these folks.

Certainly to flag only certain individuals is business as usual when ALL record reviews should be considered private and accessed on a need to know basis.

Finally its getting attenetion.

[spinster2]

Barak Obama gets all bent out of shape because somebody was eyeballing his passport. Come to find out it was his own people checkin him out. They finally decided maybe they should know something about him. ROFL! And, of course that was just a diversion...they were in there checking out Hillary''''s passport the whole time! ROFL!


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Posted by RowdyTexan2

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LOL, that''s exactly what happened!

[joyous88]

What a Joke!

the bush crime family and their neo-con stooges

are in every bedroom in america

impeach these criminals

[kansas1946]

Yessir. We can be confident that we are safe in the hands of government. Don''t worry about warrantless wiretaps, secret searches, etc., the government would NEVER abuse its power. No sir.

[brianbwb-2009]

A list should be made easily available of all people who have their privacy invaded without a search warrant, then all concerned should file a class action suit against and the State department.

Ms. Rice, the buck stops in your office.

[gce65]

I don''t think anyone ever believed it was an isolated case. As soon as Condi Rice said it was, we instantly understood the translation of Bush-speak: it''s a common occurrence.

[alphaa10-2009]

CBS reports, "... (certain Department of State passport) files were "flagged" for extra protection due to their visibility, the officials said..."

Protection? What protection? Apparently, flagging is not nearly enough to stop snooping. A flag, in and of itself, is a reactive, not proactive measure.

In the same vein of official assurances which offer no assurance at all, Bush and Gonzales have insisted repeatedly that information NSA obtained by clandestine means on American citizens is regarded as "confidential" and is secure. Perhaps, flags protect these files, too?

[rowdytexan2]

Barak Obama gets all bent out of shape because somebody was eyeballing his passport. Come to find out it was his own people checkin him out. They finally decided maybe they should know something about him. ROFL! And, of course that was just a diversion...they were in there checking out Hillary''s passport the whole time! ROFL!

[rebelscout]

Just another example of the dubya boy''s and their McCarthy way of thinking! You have written your legacy Dumbya and set it in stone!