Breaches of Obama, Clinton and McCain Passport Files: Just Bush Incompetence or Something Worse?

Posted by Steven Reynolds, The All Spin Zone at 10:18 AM on March 21, 2008.

Update from Matt Corley @ Think Progress:

Yesterday, it was revealed that Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) passport files breached three times in the past three months. Today, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told “Sen. Hillary Clinton that the security of her passport file were breached in 2007.” In a State Department press briefing today, spokesman Sean McCormack said that Sen. John McCain’s passport info had also been accessed by one of the people who looked at Sen. Obama’s file.

Update: Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) sent a letter to Rice today requesting the name of the companies that hired the contractors that breached the files.

Update: According to MSNBC's David Shuster, the employee who accessed both Obama and McCain's files was only suspended, not fired. Two other contractors were fired for accessing Obama's files.

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First, it is inconceivable that the breach of a private file belonging to a Presidential candidate could happen without an alert going immediately to the federal department charged with holding that file private. That would be the State Department, right? And, no, this isn’t just about safeguarding anyone’s privacy. We know the Bushies don’t credit that as worthy of their time. Indeed, they’ve thrown privacy out the window over the last few years. What I want to know is why the Secret Service wasn’t notified immediately. No, there’s no information there that could be used in an operation against a Presidential candidate, but the protection of Presidential candidates is a fundamental mission for any government, whether Republican or Democrat. If for no other reason, we need to see why the Secret Service wasn’t notified.

OK, I’ll calm down a bit. Here’s the story from the San Francisco Chronicle:

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

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

It is not clear whether the employees saw anything other than basic personal data, such as name, citizenship, age and place of birth - information that is required when a person fills out a passport application.

Bill Burton, spokesman for the Illinois senator’s campaign, called the incidents “an outrageous breach of security and privacy.”

He called it “a serious matter that merits a complete investigation,” adding that the campaign will “demand to know who looked at Sen. Obama’s passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach.”

Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy, in a hastily arranged conference call with reporters, said he has asked the State Department inspector general to open a broad inquiry into the matter. He also said he will brief Obama.

Kennedy said he did not know yet whether any laws were broken or whether the employees shared the information with others. He said that the incidents, which occurred at three offices, on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14, should have been “passed up the line” much sooner, and that officials were seeking to determine why they had not been disclosed earlier.

Clearly we’ve got more of the Bush brand of incompetence going on here. The systems that are supposed to alert people to such security breaches have failed miserably. But I suspect once everything is investigated we’re going to find out that the underlings who perpetrated the breaches of private files, and their supervisors, are so cowed by the Bush Administration culture of employee reprisal, that they decided not to report up the line as they were obligated to do. The reports say that the files were breached because someone was curious, but we’ve got no explanation why systems that have been in place since 1992 did not work. Man!

Another report comes in that there may be a Clinton connection to the breach of those private files. This comes from Capitol Hill Blue, though I’m inclined to discount it:

A State Department official in charge of the department during two of the three breaches into the passport files of Sen. Barack Obama occurred has a direct tie to Bill and Hillary Clinton and department officials are investigating whether she furnished information to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Maura Harty was in charge of the Bureau Of Consular Affairs during the first two breaches of Obama’s passport. Former President Bill Clinton appointed her to an ambassadorship during his Presidency.

Harty retired last month from the State Department. She joined the State Department in 2002 after serving as ambassador to Paraguay for two years of Bill Clinton’s Presidential term. Sources within the State Department told Capitol Hill Blue this morning that revelations of the first two passport breaches surfaced only after Harty left her State Department job.

Again, I’m inclined to think this is someone at the State Department shrugging off responsibility onto the Clintons. I guess we’re all used to the Clintons being blamed for every bad thing that has happened in the Bush Administration, haven’t we? Still, as this is the only indication that something political may be involved here, this is further reason for an investigation by an independent prosecutor, as happened when Bill Clinton’s private passport files were accessed in 1992.

The bank of trust the Republicans have tried to access for the last seven years has collapsed long ago, far before the excuses for invading Iraq collapsed, far before the response to Katrina collapsed, far before Bear Stearns and the housing market collapsed. We all need adults in charge of the executive branch, and have needed for a long, long time.

Steven Reynolds is a regular blogger for the All Spin Zone