Breach, Obama

[xor]

Politics as usual or something more? Doesn't sound like they have any clue about who accesses your private information. Damm I need to get mine to for a wedding. Just fills me with confidence in our government. Sounds like the GAO needs to do a audit.

(CNN) -- On three occasions since January, Sen. Barack Obama's passport file was looked at by three different contract workers, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

Sen. Barack Obama's passport file was breached three times since January, the State Department said.

The contractors accessed information in the file in an unauthorized way, he said.

Two contractors were fired and one was disciplined by the contractor's company, McCormack said.

He said the contractors are not linked.

The State Department hires contractors to design, build and maintain their systems and help employees with searches. McCormack said two of the contractors in the Obama case were "low-level" personnel and the other was in a mid-level position with no management role.

The breach seems like "imprudent curiosity" among the contract workers, said McCormack, adding that senior management at the State Department was not aware of the incidents until Thursday afternoon. Breaches occurred January 9, February 21 and March 14.

Full Story
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/...ort/index.html

xor

[Thorn]

Re: Breach, Obama

Politics as usual or something more? Doesn't sound like they have any clue about who accesses your private information. Damm I need to get mine to for a wedding. Just fills me with confidence in our government. Sounds like the GAO needs to do a audit.

(CNN) -- On three occasions since January, Sen. Barack Obama's passport file was looked at by three different contract workers, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

Sen. Barack Obama's passport file was breached three times since January, the State Department said.

The contractors accessed information in the file in an unauthorized way, he said.

Two contractors were fired and one was disciplined by the contractor's company, McCormack said.

He said the contractors are not linked.

The State Department hires contractors to design, build and maintain their systems and help employees with searches. McCormack said two of the contractors in the Obama case were "low-level" personnel and the other was in a mid-level position with no management role.

The breach seems like "imprudent curiosity" among the contract workers, said McCormack, adding that senior management at the State Department was not aware of the incidents until Thursday afternoon. Breaches occurred January 9, February 21 and March 14.

Full Story
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/...ort/index.html

xor

My impression is that these types of thing are probably more about curiosity on part of the individual contractors than it is motivated by politics. There was a repost this morning on NBC that all three breeches seemed to have occurred following a major news story about Sen. Obaoma. Very likely, the contractors saw or read a given story, were curious about him, realized they could access the file and then did so.

If you took a random sampling of celebrity and/or political names in the news, I'd be willing to wager that file accesses of this type are not uncommon, and have a much higher occurrance than your average John Q. Public's passport file. That doesn't mean that isuch actions are correct, but people are curious and will look at things that are available to them.

[theprez98]

Re: Breach, Obama

If you took a random sampling of celebrity and/or political names in the news, I'd be willing to wager that file accesses of this type are not uncommon, and have a much higher occurrance than your average John Q. Public's passport file. That doesn't mean that isuch actions are correct, but people are curious and will look at things that are available to them.

There was just such a story about this a while back about nurses being suspended for looking at George Clooney's medical record.

http://wcbstv.com/entertainment/Geor....2.341489.html

[streaker69]

Re: Breach, Obama

There was just such a story about this a while back about nurses being suspended for looking at George Clooney's medical record.

http://wcbstv.com/entertainment/Geor....2.341489.html

...and Bratney's records.

[Sereyna]

Re: Breach, Obama

Having worked medical records at a major hospital near ScreenGems Studios, I can vouch for the fact that curiosity would get the best of some staff members, as we had *many* actors come in, including one rather well-publicized on-set accidental death.

'Course, I had legal access to some of these same records, being in charge of copying them for insurance companies and attorneys. To all the curiosity seekers out there, you can learn as much by doing a Google about whatever incident took place. Jack-squat goes in those charts.

[xor]

Re: Breach, Obama

Clinton's and McCain's passports have also been breached according to CNN and the State Department. Maybe we should change the name from the State Department to the Well Spring of Private Information for Government Contractors. Oh wait, the DoD already has taken that name. :-)

xor

[DaKahuna]

Re: Breach, Obama

All of the passport access was done by insiders. See what curiosity gets you.

Is it just me or is it not strange that as soon as word got out that Obama was not not singled out the newsworthiness of this incident died!

[Thorn]

Re: Breach, Obama

Is it just me or is it not strange that as soon as word got out that Obama was not not singled out the newsworthiness of this incident died!

Nope, it's not strange. As soon as the news services figured out that it's fairly common and not a political conspiracy from the opposition, it lost any newsworthiness.

[barry99705]

Re: Breach, Obama

Nope, it's not strange. As soon as the news services figured out that it's fairly common and not a political conspiracy from the opposition, it lost any newsworthiness.

Even though it's still news, it's not "news". A cub scout resuscitating his scout master is news, but that would end up on page four of the news paper. The headline would be about something stupid like Paris blowing some dude on video, or Britney getting drunk (again) and acting like a moron. The "news" isn't news any more than that crap at the check out with Batboy shaking W's hand while eating lunch with Osama.

[streaker69]

Re: Breach, Obama

Even though it's still news, it's not "news". A cub scout resuscitating his scout master is news, but that would end up on page four of the news paper. The headline would be about something stupid like Paris blowing some dude on video, or Britney getting drunk (again) and acting like a moron. The "news" isn't news any more than that crap at the check out with Batboy shaking W's hand while eating lunch with Osama.

In case you haven't heard, the Weekly World News went out of business a few years ago. :)

No, I'm not going to admit that I knew exactly which rag you were talking about.

[erehwon]

Re: Breach, Obama

In case you haven't heard, the Weekly World News went out of business a few years ago. :)

No, I'm not going to admit that I knew exactly which rag you were talking about.

I really miss the Weekly World News, there used to be some really good infosec scoops posted there every so often!.

[xor]

Re: Breach, Obama

What gets me is the fact they tell trainees to look up a family member. That's great "family values" there, it's ok to look up private info on family members, but it's not ok to look up info on people whos lives are absolutely transparent to the public.

xor