Breach

Earlier today I was talking about federal agencies as a campaign outreach arm. Apparently they're part of the oppo research shop, too.

Two contract employees of the State Department were fired and a third person was disciplined for inappropriately looking at Democratic Sen. Barack Obama's passport file.

Spokesman Sean McCormack Thursday night confirmed instances of what he called "imprudent curiosity" by the State Department employees.

McCormack said the department itself detected the breaches, which occurred separately on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14.

The three people who had access to Obama's passport records were contract employees of the department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, NBC News reported.

A senior official told NBC News there was "no political motivation" to the incidents, adding that the three were low-level contract employees doing administrative work and accessed Obama's records out of "curiosity."

Riiiight.

The same thing happened to Bill Clinton's passport records in 1991, and then as now, two State Department employees were fired. The Obama campaign is calling for a full investigation.

My question is really what kind of information you can get from a passport file, which is a larger question about how much personal data is stored all over these federal agencies, ready to be swooped up at a moment's notice. And these are the people we're supposed to "trust" with a program of warrantless wiretapping.

In a surveillance state, none of your data is particularly safe. And with this Administration, that means it will be espied, downloaded, and used.