# Obama's Passport File Breached. Big Deal? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 21, 2008, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165 "2008-03-21T00:38:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/1 "2008-03-21T00:38:11Z")
Breaking as I type this OP is news that Obama’s passport file at the State Department was breached three times in the last three months, January 9, February 21, and March 14. The people in the first two were contractors that have been fired. The Obama campaign has indicated that they basically just learned about this today. Is this a big deal or a two-day (at most) scandal? I think it’d depend on whether it was politically motivated or just three guys stupidly looking at a personal file for kicks. But what really hurts the State Department in this is the apparent gap of more than two months before even Obama was informed of the breach. ---
**Author:** ![Anomalous\_Reading](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b3f665/32.png) [@Anomalous\_Reading](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anomalous_Reading)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/2 "2008-03-21T00:42:27Z")
This, too, shall pass. It sounds right now like these were curious people. If you worked in a position where you could see… would you not be tempted at least? If the administration is lying… THAT will be the story, not just this. Obama might whip it up some and it certainly serves his purposes… I do think his response sounded just a BIT like tilting at windmills… unless he knows something we don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/3 "2008-03-21T00:47:26Z")
I think heads should roll at the State Dept., but I’d think that if it was Dick Cheney’s passport or Joe Shmo from Tupelo. However, I can’t think of anything that highly confidential in the file. (I’m trying to remember if your SSN is on your passport- if so that’d be the most damaging thing). ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/4 "2008-03-21T00:56:53Z")
[QUOTE=Sampiro] I think heads should roll at the State Dept., but I’d think that if it was Dick Cheney’s passport or Joe Shmo from Tupelo. However, I can’t think of anything that highly confidential in the file. (I’m trying to remember if your SSN is on your passport- if so that’d be the most damaging thing). [/QUOTE] Well, I think the thing is that it is _potentially_ using government apparatus and security clearances to find out things about his life. It’s not his passport, it’s his passport records. What does this mean? I am not sure, but it seems that it’s a bigger deal than obtaining a copy of his passport. What is it for Obama? Well, it’s at the very least a MAJOR distraction from what has been ailing him. If there’s any wrongdoing, then he can trump the charges up and use it to paint Bush and McCain as criminally wrong. Now, it could indeed just be some curious people. But there was a pattern by three seperate people. It wasn’t a one-off thing. The good thing about it for Barack Obama is that he’s gotten lucky. He got his word out on the Jeremiah Wright thing, and did as good a job as he could have done. So now we have this which will surely get rid of the “IS IT ENOUGH?” screams at Faux News along with the constant repetition of the quotes from him which started all of this in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/5 "2008-03-21T02:08:10Z")
According to [this story](http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080320/NATION/541139809/1001), the breaches triggered a system that monitors the files of “high-profile” individuals, so I guess we wouldn’t know if it had been Joe Shmo from Tupelo. Interestingly, a similar thing happened to Bill Clinton’s files when he was running against the elder Bush. ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/6 "2008-03-21T02:16:03Z")
Picked this up off of DailyKos… > **[Obama's European problem - Salon.com](https://www.salon.com/2007/12/29/obama_europe/)** > > The senator may have traveled widely, but the critically important subcommittee on Europe has languished under his leadership. > [@](#): > > Doubts about Barack Obama’s presidential credentials have crystallized during the past two weeks over his stewardship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on European Affairs, which has convened no policy hearings since he took over as its chairman last January. That startling fact, first uncovered by Steve Clemons, who blogs on the Washington Note, prompted acid comment in Europe about the Illinois senator’s failure to visit the continent since assuming the committee post, and even speculation that he had never traveled there except for a short stopover in London. They go on to later mention that it is questionable if he’s ever been to Europe for more than just a short stop-over. It goes on to suggest that he release his passport records in order to clear the matter up. Don’t know if it’s important but there it is… ---
**Author:** ![The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/9fc348/32.png) [@The\_Flying\_Dutchman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Flying_Dutchman)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/7 "2008-03-21T02:26:02Z")
[QUOTE=Merkwurdigliebe] Picked this up off of DailyKos… > **[Obama's European problem - Salon.com](https://www.salon.com/2007/12/29/obama_europe/)** > > The senator may have traveled widely, but the critically important subcommittee on Europe has languished under his leadership. They go on to later mention that it is questionable if he’s ever been to Europe for more than just a short stop-over. It goes on to suggest that he release his passport records in order to clear the matter up. Don’t know if it’s important but there it is… [/QUOTE] Does the EU have a spy agency ? ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/8 "2008-03-21T02:31:45Z")
_Hypothetical_ No, the point was that it could possibly be linked to Hillary, or maybe McCain for the general in a way to play gotcha-politics. Whoever was planning or thinking this was either inspired or planted the story. I’m just posting it because it mentions that Obama should release his passport records because of these charges. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/9 "2008-03-21T03:22:40Z")
The real problem is whether or not the required investigation(s) will occur, as required by administrative rule and/or federal law. After all, if the passport records of a current United States Senator cannot be kept confidential, what hope is there for anyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/10 "2008-03-21T03:31:06Z")
[QUOTE=Merkwurdigliebe] _Hypothetical_ No, the point was that it could possibly be linked to Hillary, or maybe McCain for the general in a way to play gotcha-politics. Whoever was planning or thinking this was either inspired or planted the story. I’m just posting it because it mentions that Obama should release his passport records because of these charges. [/QUOTE] There’s basically two possibilities. It appears that all three of the incidents were by three separate individuals, all of these individuals were contract employees working for the State Department–not employees of the State Department. (Two were described as lower-level contractors and one was described as a higher level contractor with no management responsibilities.) One possibility is someone from one of the other Presidential campaigns paid one of these people to look into the files. The other possibility is these people just looked at the passport files on a lark. I have no idea which it is–but I will guess that it’d be pretty easy to catch if it was a scheme by one of the other campaigns. The State Department already knows who these people are, an investigation can probably look into their financial records and any “unusual” payments would come up–from there they’d have to find out who made those payments. Personally if they were paid to do this as some sort of effort to get Obama’s travel information to use against him, I wonder why it was done three times. I imagine these are IT workers who as a necessity of doing their jobs had to have access to some confidential files (they obviously abused that trust), so it should only take once to get all the information needed. Just making assumptions based on what I know about databases, there’s not many scenarios I can imagine for needing multiple looks at the same file unless you were interrupted while accessing it. ---
**Author:** ![ZebraShaSha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/eada6e/32.png) [@ZebraShaSha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZebraShaSha)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/11 "2008-03-21T03:35:15Z")
[QUOTE=Merkwurdigliebe] Picked this up off of DailyKos… > **[Obama's European problem - Salon.com](https://www.salon.com/2007/12/29/obama_europe/)** > > The senator may have traveled widely, but the critically important subcommittee on Europe has languished under his leadership. They go on to later mention that it is questionable if he’s ever been to Europe for more than just a short stop-over. It goes on to suggest that he release his passport records in order to clear the matter up. Don’t know if it’s important but there it is… [/QUOTE] It’s been pointed out before that this committee is largely ceremonial and goes a long, long time between meetings. European affairs are handled by a larger, more important committee. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/12 "2008-03-21T03:51:26Z")
From the [Chicago Tribune](http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2008/03/obamas_passport_records_rifled.html): > [@](#): > > This time, the State Department said today, only now is the inspector general going to look into a case which first involved some illegal “curiosity’’ in January. > > But diGenova said in interviews with MSNBCand CNN this evening that the fact that two employees of outside firms have been fired will prevent State’s inspector general from forcing them to talk because they are no longer government employees. > > The former independent counsel also suggested that a failure to start investigating the newest breach sooner suggests “gross incompetence.’’ DiGenova told CNN: "This looks like, for the moment, big government gone wild at the lowest levels.‘’ ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/13 "2008-03-21T03:52:04Z")
I think I’d be inclined to believe it was people just looking because they could. I’m going to asuume that it was just an ille advised expression of human nature unless and until any evidence surfaces to indicate the involvement of either campaign. I’m sure the Clintons would have had to know that peeking would set off alarms. So would McCain, probably. If there was any bribery, I would actually suspect someone the media before I’d suspect rival campaigns. If exyernal entities were involved , it was probably some douchebag tabloid or website. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/14 "2008-03-21T14:02:18Z")
Until another memo pops up saying “HRC wants this”, I think we can assume it is just employees letting their curiosity get the better of them. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/15 "2008-03-21T14:17:55Z")
Even though HRC would be no better placed than you or I (well, no better placed than any other Democratic U.S. senator, at any rate) to access Obama’s passport files, I just **knew** the [Freepers](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1989228/posts) would find some way to put this on her! ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/16 "2008-03-21T14:36:32Z")
[QUOTE=Shodan] Until another memo pops up saying “HRC wants this”… [/QUOTE] Surely not even Condi is incompetent enough to allow dem moles to run ops in _her_ department? If not simply curiosity times 3, Occam comes down on the side of Republican chicanery. Not that there’s any precedent for _that_. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/17 "2008-03-21T14:52:55Z")
In eight years surely the Clintons got to know some career civil servants in all federal departments. I don’t think it’s inconceivable that they got one of them to tell them who the contractors were and the Clintons could have been behind it. I think there’s a 10% chance of that, 90% that it’s just people snooping for fun. ---
**Author:** ![Phlosphr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Phlosphr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phlosphr)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/18 "2008-03-21T14:55:18Z")
[QUOTE=BobLibDem] In eight years surely the Clintons got to know some career civil servants in all federal departments. I don’t think it’s inconceivable that they got one of them to tell them who the contractors were and the Clintons could have been behind it. I think there’s a 10% chance of that, 90% that it’s just people snooping for fun. [/QUOTE] People snooping for fun is looking at where Tom Cruise Vacations, snooping for a presidential candidate [front runner no less] smells of political nastiness. Or US Magazine 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/19 "2008-03-21T15:54:02Z")
[QUOTE=BobLibDem] Clintons could have been behind it. I think there’s a 10% chance of that, 90% that it’s just people snooping for fun. [/QUOTE] So, no chance _whatsoever_ that Republicans are looking to use confidential information for political gain? That seems a trifle naive. ---
**Author:** ![Siege](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@Siege](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siege)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2008, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165/20 "2008-03-21T16:49:07Z")
[QUOTE=Phlosphr] People snooping for fun is looking at where Tom Cruise Vacations, snooping for a presidential candidate [front runner no less] smells of political nastiness. Or US Magazine 🙂 [/QUOTE] Not necessarily. After all, how many of us in GD post in political threads for fun? Right now, Barack Obama is much more interesting to me than Tom Cruise. By the way, according to the coworkers behind me, not only was Obama’s file looked into, but so were Clinton’s and McCain’s. Can anyone give me a cite for this? My money’s on idle curiousity. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obamas-passport-file-breached-big-deal/442165.md?page=2)