Privacy Maven

Privacy, Security, and Preservation of Integrity, Liberty, Freedom and Civility

Nonpartisan Snooping? Passport Breach Hits All 3 Presidential Candidates

· Data Breaches, Public Figures and Privacy

What’s a Presidential candidate to do, other than issue statements and demand investigations?

The State Department said on Friday that it was investigating several incidents in which the passport files of all three presidential contenders were improperly accessed by employees.

The breaches involved electronic files that contained personal information about Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain. A State Department spokesman declined to say what was in those files, but he said they were likely to contain biographical information and passport applications.

Mr. Obama’s passport file was breached on three separate occasions earlier this year and as recently as last week, by three employees working for independent contractors who did not have authorization to access the information. The breaches occurred on Jan. 9, Feb. 21, and March 14, according to The Associated Press.

The State Department’s computer system had flagged each incident, but senior department officials were not informed until they looked into the matter, after receiving inquiries from a reporter on Thursday, a department spokesman said. “That information didn’t rise up to senior management levels,” the spokesman, Sean McCormack, said at a Friday news conference. “That should have happened.”

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Obama Passport Breach: Rice Apologizes for “Imprudent Curiosity” of Her Staff

· Data Breaches, Public Figures and Privacy

The State Dept. called it “imprudent curiosity.” The Obama campaign called it “an outrageous breach of security and privacy.” Caught between adjectival phrases, Secretary of State Rice apologized to Senator Barack Obama.


More coverage at Hot Air. As the Washington Post reports,

Two State Department employees were fired and a third has been disciplined for improperly accessing Sen. Barack Obama’s passport file, the State Department announced last night.

Senior department officials said they learned of the incidents only when a reporter made an inquiry yesterday afternoon. They said an initial investigation indicated that the employees — all of whom worked on contract — were motivated by “imprudent curiosity.”

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Confessions of a Governor and a First Lady: The Patersons Admit to Affairs

· Public Figures and Privacy

Call it preemptive confession. It will save reporters hours of investigating. The same day New York Governor David A. Paterson was sworn into office, he and his wife, Michelle Paterson both revealed the extramarital affairs they have had.

David Paterson and Michelle Paterson

The thunderous applause was still ringing in his ears when the state’s new governor, David Paterson, told the Daily News that he and his wife had extramarital affairs.

In a stunning revelation, both Paterson, 53, and his wife, Michelle, 46, acknowledged in a joint interview they each had intimate relationships with others during a rocky period in their marriage several years ago.

In the course of several interviews in the past few days, Paterson said he maintained a relationship for two or three years with “a woman other than my wife,” beginning in 1999.

As part of that relationship, Paterson said, he and the other woman sometimes stayed at an upper West Side hotel — the Days Inn at Broadway and W. 94th St.

He said members of his Albany legislative staff often used the same hotel when they visit the city.

“This was a marriage that appeared to be going sour at one point,” Paterson conceded in his first interview Saturday. “But I went to counseling and we decided we wanted to make it work. Michelle is well aware of what went on.”

The article and the confession continue. More coverage on the confession at the New York Post.


UPDATE. Here is the video of the press conference in which David A. Paterson and his wife, Michelle Paterson confess their affairs.


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