Two contract employees for
the State Department have been fired and a third disciplined for
inappropriately looking at Democratic presidential candidate Barack
Obama's passport file, and the department is investigating whether
political or other motives were involved, senior officials said
Thursday.Spokesman Sean McCormack said that for now it appears that
nothing other than "imprudent curiosity" was involved in three separate
breaches of the Illinois senator's personal information. It is not
clear whether the employees saw anything other than the basic personal
data such as name, citizenship, age and place of birth that is required
when a person fills out a passport application.The breaches occurred on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14, and
were detected by internal State Department computer checks, McCormack
said. The department's top management officer, Undersecretary Patrick
Kennedy, said certain records, including those of high-profile people,
are "flagged" with a computer tag that tips off supervisors when
someone tries to view the records without a proper reason.The State Department would not release the names of those who
were fired and disciplined, or the names of the two companies they
worked for. The department's inspector general is investigating."We believe this was out of imprudent curiosity, but we are
taking steps to reassure ourselves that that is, in fact, the case,"
McCormack said.The firings and unspecified discipline of the third employee
already had occurred when senior State Department officials learned of
the breaches. Kennedy called that a failing. SOURCE OF THIS STORY