Breach
They say that this was not political in nature, but when three government contractors rifle through Barack Obama’s passport files at the State Department on three different instances over five weeks, it stinks to high heaven. Here’s where the Bush/Republican campaign to politicize the government bureaucracy has its damaging effects: considering how ardently partisan all aspects of the government under the Bush administration have become, it is impossible to see such a thing as this and not assume that there were partisan political motives involved–especially with a candidate who has lived overseas before, and whose enemies have been trying to cast him as some sort of Muslim terrorist. The fact that it took two months for this to be reported makes it even more suspicious.
On the crass, cynical political strategy level, this could be good for Obama–on the upswing after two strong speeches, this could generate sympathy and make people less liable to take criticism against him as seriously, as it is now apparent that people are illicitly rifling his personal records for damaging info.
Josh Marshall points out:
A few more details about the Obama passport breach. According to a new piece out in the Post from Glenn Kessler, the breaches occurred Jan. 9th, Feb. 21st and March 14th.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.
On the one hand, that makes it even more suspicious. On the other hand, it would be hard to pick three dates out of those two months and not come out close to some significant landmark, there being so many.
In case it sounds to you like this wasn’t something done to damage Obama politically, one should remember that a similar thing happened to Bill Clinton in 1992. SOP for RNC election strategy?
Luis, maybe you could explain to me how this issue matters. I understand that it’s all over the internet, but I still don’t understand how this matters. What is in those records that makes this a big deal?
Isn’t merely where he has traveled to the last ten years? Is there anyplace that he’s been that’s not already known or part of the public record?
I’m not sure what the big deal is, or what information would be there that isn’t known from other sources.
I’m not saying that it is right, I’m just wondering how it matters. My big thing is worrying about his personal safety, which will be an issue right up until after the day he steps down from office. But I don’t see how this affects his safety.
TIm Kane,
How do we know that his files weren’t altered? Why didn’t the governemtn tell him about this breach the first time it happened, curiosity or not.
What if someone wanted to find his social security number or address or personal phone number to assign it to some other document or use this information to cause him harm? Who would want that information and why?
This is a public official and there should be some sort of rule that people do not get to look at your personal information. If elected officials wanted this info, all they would have to do is ask. The passport file includes not only information about where you have travled, but what offcials you’ve talked with and notes about such meetings.
This could be simple curiousity by contract employees, fine, but it was done not only once but three different times and he wasn’t notified. That makes it suspcious to me.
Tim: There are several issues in question here. First and foremost is the apparent invasion of private files for partisan political attacks–kind of along the lines of what the Nixon administration was known for. While this is not as bad as using the IRS to audit your political enemies, it is in that general class–using government agencies for political purposes. For a government worker to delve into a candidate’s personal records–taxes, social security, passport activity, etc.–is a huge no-no.
There are other issues as well, such as identity theft or other skullduggery; as Veronica points out, we don’t know what was done with those files–were they read-only accesses, or could anything have been changed? But just getting Obama’s personal data, including SS# and other stuff, means that the people in question could then use that data to get into his personal bank records and other stuff not in the passport files. Had Obama been notified immediately, he could have taken steps to notify all his resource holders–banks, insurance companies, etc.–not to give out info unless special measures were satisfied. He could have upped his security and protected himself from further invasions and possible attacks. Instead, the Bush administration kept him in the dark for more than long enough for extensive information raiding and other questionable stuff to be gotten away with clean.
That is the other point Veronica notes–that nothing was done about it for a long time. The first breach happened in January right after Obama had shown potential to win, strongly suggesting a partisan political reason to access the files; this alone should have provoked an internal investigation–instead, it was kept quiet. The breach was not acted upon, and the Obama campaign was not informed. Instead, it was allowed to happen again (when nothing was done even after two successive breaches), and then again after that… and then a month passed before anyone did anything about it. In fact, two of the people involved were released, possibly in such a way that shields them from questioning about the affair. That carries the fingerprints of Republican dirty tricks–they have a long history of breaking laws but then taking advantage of loopholes and obstructionism to avoid people finding out what happened.
This all stinks to high heaven, indicating in a variety of ways that indicate this was a corrupt inside job to try to milk Obama’s private government files for ammunition to use in smear campaigns. God alone knows what they got, and what they were able to use that data for in the two months in which that Obama was unable to protect his personal information.
Now they’re reporting that Clinton’s and McCain’s passport info was looked at as well. It looks like there’s less to this “conspiracy” than meets the eye.
The thing is, this stuff is very common. As long as you have a confidential record, someone in a hospital, school, workplace or wherever is going to snoop, and it’s usually nothing more than low-level employees who are being more curious than they should be. For some, it’s just in their nature. None of this excuses them. They should have been fired, maybe even charged with something, and this should be investigated. I’m sure they’ll find other public figures have also had their passport info viewed at by these same people. It’s a serious matter, not least because someone could pass sensitive information along to the tabloid media. But there doesn’t seem to be any usual sign that a conspiracy was involved, so it’s probably nothing more and nothing less than what it looks like, a bunch of snoops. Again, it doesn’t excuse them. But it would explain why the newspaper headlines you posted aren’t as outraged as you would like them to be. It’s because they didn’t want to jump to any conclusions until they had more information.
As for not informing anyone, since it looks like it was done very casually I suppose that explains why there was no sense of urgency in response. Anyway, it doesn’t look like Obama was specifically targeted for any political gain.
Cc: see my post from today. The Clinton breach was casual, unimportant, and completely divorced from the current issue, thrown in wholly to create the impression you have obligingly taken, and the McCain breach completely unexplained. Even if you discount the one person who accessed both McCain and Obama, there are still two breaches, by employees of the same company (which is owned by a Republican contributor), beyond the ability of the inspector to investigate fully, the details of which were not even touched on by the new report. The news you have taken as being exculpatory is, if anything, even more suspicious than before.
Owned by a Republican contributor? The CEO is an Obama supporter!
Cc: First of all, your link has no address and so no citation is in your comment. Second, The CEO of Stanley, the firm in question, is Philip Nolan; Nolan gave to Republican candidates (Republican Senate Candidate Susan Collins and Republican House candidate Thomas Davis), a PAC which gave money to Collins, and to Joe Lieberman, a virtual Republican. While I have seen reports that he gave to the Clinton campaign, I find no corroborating evidence of this in donor databases. But if he did, then he is not alone among right-wingers–he reportedly contributed to Hillary in late February, at a time when Limbaugh and many others were strongly urging Republican support for Hillary as a way of derailing the Obama nomination and helping the Republican cause. All his contributions before then were Republicans, so the idea of this guy being a Democrat is far-fetched, at best. And, finally, there is no mention anywhere that he gave to Obama. At this time, it looks like Stanley’s CEO is firmly a Republican.
Care to clarify your claim?
Sorry, there was supposed to be a link in my message but I’m not so good at these things. Here:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/22/passport.files/index.html
CC:
First: the guy you link to is not involved in Stanley Inc., the corporation you referred to (I said that the company with two separate breaches was “owned by a Republican contributor,” to which you replied that he was an Obama donor). The guy you are referencing runs a different company; the company we were both talking about has a Republican CEO, and is the company with the more questionable breaches.
Second: The company the guy you linked to run was one which, according to The Washington Times and them alone, had the breaches of Obama’s and McCain’s records. It’s also the one I discounted in my post above, that being before the reports came out of the possible Obama connection. It’s the only one with two different candidates involved and thus the less likely to be dirty tricks.
And third, as far as I can determine, the report that the firm “Analysis Corp” was the one with the cross-breacher has so far not been officially announced or confirmed–instead it has been reported by The Washington Times. CNN ran the piece you linked to, but they based that report on the Times article–which has not been confirmed, and few outside the right-wing media-and-blog sphere have reported on that… only CNN and Bloomberg, that I can see at this time as shown by a Google News search. I find it even more dubious considering the fact that the government decided not to reveal the name of that corporation–forgive me for not trusting a right-wing media outlet for such details, no matter if they broke the story first or not.
So, as I said in the post above, I will wait on more details being officially announced concerning the Obama-McCain breaches. If the company run by an Obama advisor was behind the third breach, then let the investigation of that also run its course.
In the meantime, my original post was 100% correct–there are still two unexplained breaches of Obama’s records only, by employees of the same corporation, which removed both the employees in a way to remove them from being investigated, and the company IS run by a man who IS a Republican donor.
Again, care to clarify?
Maybe it is politically motivated. Then again, maybe two people in a company that’s owned by a Republican contributor just happened to look at Obama’s records for no politically motivated reason at all, and the party affiliation just happened to be a coincidence. That’s what it looks like to me, and that’s what it’s looking like to an increasing number of people including those liberal blogs you refer to. Nothing more than some curious low-level contract employees not bright enough to know that any breach would be traced back to them. (I assume a regular government worker would know better than to pull off such a stunt and risk their job, pension and benefits.) I wouldn’t be surprised if they breached Britney Spears passport file, too.
If congress wants to investigate further, that’s fine. If it’s simply a matter of curiosity, which is what it looks like to me, then the employees have nothing more to lose by testifying. Frankly, instead of this tempest in a teapot, shouldn’t we be more concerned about how easy it is to breach ANYONE’S file? And by anyone, I mean people who happen to not be politician or public figure, and who won’t set off any internal alarms when their files are breached? Again, these things probably happen every day in most departments where confidential records are kept, including government agencies, schools, hospitals, businesses, etc. So it should be of no surprise that a few snoopers wanted to peek into a high-profile candidate’s file, with no motive behind it other than their own stupidity.
Cc: I included the “just curious/coincidence” in the post, and made note in another post that liberal blogs have started seeing it another way… but mostly because the irrelevant instance of the Hillary breach was added along with McCain report so as to give the unrealistic impression that there was nothing much suspicious. My point in that other post is that if you just look at these two instances, it’s a lot less easy to see things that way.
One should also note that such convenient coincidences often mean there is no coincidence at all. For example, if you happen to erase several million emails, that could be an error. But when you conveniently erase the backups of those exact same emails, that’s far less likely an error. And when you then just happen to accidentally destroy the hard drives they were on, the idea of coincidence is so laughable that you really can’t propose it anymore without people being offended at your gall.
Similar thing here, but maybe not as obviously blatant an instance of corruption as the emails case. One person, accessing a passport file when they knew it would cost them their job? Sure, maybe. Two people risking losing their jobs, benefits, and pensions so they could satisfy a curious whim? Um, really? Would you do that? What are the chances of two people doing that? Both of those people just happening to work for the same company, and just happening to access the files of the same candidate (when the field had six viable candidates, remember), and just happening to do it near politically sensitive dates for that specific candidate? And the head of the company just happens to be a Republican when the candidate being viewed just happens to be the emerging Democratic frontrunner?
That’s a hell of a lot of “just happens,” my friend.
You point out that it seems improbable they would risk their jobs, pensions and benefits unless they were stupid (I didn’t know that people who work for contractors are congenitally stupid; perhaps you hear “contractor” and think “inexperienced Manpower Temps,” but they could just as easily be long-term employees), as if that does not add to the coincidence–two people stupid enough to risk their jobs, pensions and benefits while looking up the same Democratic presidential candidate and both working for the same company run by a Republican boss? That just strains credulity even more, especially when they risked their jobs, pensions and benefits for a “curious peek.”
Which is why I want to know who those two people were. Why is that? To see what job they landed in after they were let go from Stanley Inc. Remember, being let go from the contractor is what gets them out of the scrutiny of the inspector’s investigation. If they “just happened” to land in a better job working for someone who is also a Republican businessman, then that would absolutely break the camel’s back and you’d have to be an idiot to think it was all just a long string of coincidences.