Intellectual Property Law

The State Department said on Friday that the private passport files of all three candidates running for president had been inappropriately accessed.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice apologized to senator Barack Obama on Friday over a passport snooping incident.
Photo: J. Scott Applewhite, Associated Press.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in a Friday press briefing that the department made the discovery after conducting a separate search for such unauthorized activity.

The department acknowledged on Thursday that senator Barack Obama's passport file had been snooped on by some contract employees.

The department is launching an investigation into the incident. It's also asked the Justice Department to look into the matter separately.

"We have invited them to participate in a way that they see fit," McCormack said during the press briefing. "It's just a way of ensuring openness and transparency."

Secretary  of State  Condoleezza Rice said Friday that she'd called Obama and apologized. She also acknowledged that the incident raises the questions over privacy and security issues related to all American passport holders' sensitive personal information that resides at the state department.

"We have been in contact with the senator's office, and indeed will provide briefings concerning this incident, but none of us wants to have a circumstance in which any American's passport file is accessed in  an unauthorized way," she told reporters at a press briefing.

"In this case, it should have been known to senior management, and it was not, to my knowledge, and we also want to take every step we can to  make sure that this kind of thing doesn't happen again," she said.

"I've talked to the senator.  I told him that I was sorry, and I told him that I myself would be very disturbed if I learned that somebody had looked at my passport file and that therefore I will stay on top of it and get to the bottom of it," said Rice.

McCormack said during a separate briefing that he wasn't able to say what kind of information is in the files of the candidates.

"If I can provide a general answer to that question, I'd be happy to do it," he said, promising that he would follow up.

The state department fired two contract employees and disciplined another for their unauthorized access to Obama's file.

McCormack said in the press briefing that there were three managers who were aware of the incident but did not forward the information up the management chain.

Contract employees in the State Department's passport office outnumber full-time employees. The department employs 2,600 contractors and has 1,800 full-time staff. The office issues 18 million passports a year.

McCormack made it clear during the press briefing that it was the management that was to blame. The state department  has implemented a computer system that monitors access to  passport holders' files. The system checks for unauthorized access to passport holders' information.

"There's a system whereby you can flag files and if there's an unauthorized access, it's very easy to detect, and it's flagged immediately," McCormack said.

In addition, every time someone logs onto the computer system with the passport information, the screen flashes a Privacy Act reminder to the computer user, McCormack said.

The Privacy Act says that the government must tell citizens what information is being collected about them, and what it's being used for. In addition, the law mandates that the government has to inform citizens if the purpose of the use of the information changes.

The State Department has not identified the nosy contract employees or their company. Undersecretary of State for management Patrick Kennedy said in a Thursday pres briefing that he had no plans to do so.

California Democrat Henry Waxman, who's the chairman of the House Committee on  Oversight and Government  Reform, on Friday asked Rice to release the information and make it publicly available.