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Return to Article: Passport system breach highlights shortcomings in agency privacy practices

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  High profile people receive the white glove treatment, VA loses data and vets finally receive a form letter saying not to worry it isn't a big deal.

  Anyone think Condi will give you that personal touch if your info is breeched? This is just another load of manure from this corrupt bunch of carpet-baggers.

  Cracked & Wired Posted March 25, 2008 11:03 AM
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  Lets see the NIH has had a computer missing for over a year with 2500 patients names and entire health records. The VA has lost computers a number of times the State Dept lost classified computers out of their offices. Hopefully Waxman will get the names published on all the civil servants involved, you know come to think about it not 1 CS was let go, yet we're getting a lot of pious people posting here today

  dan ketter Posted March 24, 2008 11:03 PM
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  Quite interesting. Let's open the files on these three buffoons to determine exactly what they are hiding. If you want to be president, you have to cough up the truth. Bill's "I didn't inhale" just won't cut it.

  Jimmy Posted March 24, 2008 1:07 PM
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  The government has become completely overrun by contractors these past 7 years. There's very little oversight and nobody really knows what they're up to. Existing laws, policies, and ethics rules often don't apply, e.g., security contractors in Iraq. Snooping on passport information is just the tip of iceberg. There much more crazy stuff than that going on ALL the time. Be worried.

  Fed Posted March 24, 2008 11:33 AM
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  I work for the DoD and Privacy is a very big thing there. I'm a secrtary and if anyone's home/work phone, address, full name and rank,is on a lettr it must have a privacy act statement on it. Also, if anyone does ask for that info no-one is to pass it on.

  That is just sloppiness in for having such info in the waste bins, they are to be destroyed (rules and regulations)!

  I'm sure anyone working at the DFAS who's personal info was used in a illegal manner (ID Theft) would rais heck about it. Well that accounts for other peoples info as well.

  I sure hope no overseas company will be taking care of sensitive info like that.

  DoD Civ Posted March 24, 2008 10:42 AM
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  Personally, I would like to know WHY contractors are processing passports in the first place. If ever there was an inherently governmental function, this has to be, if not the top, then very close to the top of the list. No wonder so many terrorists and terrorist suspects are getting passports! It would have to be one of the easiest things in the world to infiltrate terrorists into the contractors doing the passports!

  Larry R. Doane Posted March 24, 2008 8:09 AM
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  I'm sorry. You don't really think that history warrants trust in Rice do you? It is hard to believe anything or anyone in this administration, they have lied so much. Could it be that Cheney ordered the info to see what damages he could do to the dems when compared to McCain? Until they are all gone, I don't trust anyone with any of my private information and I work for the government.

  disgusted in PA Posted March 24, 2008 7:24 AM
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  "Passport system breach highlights shortcomings" The shortcomings are note at Passport Services. Self centered Jaguar driving executives who travel most of the time and spend the few days they are in the office ranting is not leadership or management.

  Bill Matrix Posted March 22, 2008 3:32 PM
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  State Department Watch has been following the security breach of passport information for some time on Senator John S. McCain III.

  Mr. McCain from the information was born in the Canal Zone in August, 1936 (DATE REDACTED to protect privacy). He was born an "alien" to American parents and was naturalized on the effective date of Title 8, Section 5d, United States Code,(Act of August 4, 1937, c. 563, Section 1, 50 Stat. 558, entitled: "The Act Relating to the Citizenship of Certain Classes of Persons Born in the Canal Zone or the Republic of Panama.)

  The data clearly shows that Senator John S. McCain III, would be unable to be "eligible for the Office of President", under the Constitution Article II Section 1.

  It should also be noted that 7 FAM 1116.1-4(c.) states: "Despite widespread popular belief, U.S. military installations abroad ... are not part of the United States within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. A child born on the premises of such a facility is not subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and does not acquire U.S. citizenship by reason of birth."

  Therefore release of data from Mr. McCains passport applications could have a major effect of obtaining the nomination by the Republican Party, if that data was made public.

  Mark Seidenberg Posted March 22, 2008 1:48 PM
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  When I had an office at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, Denver, Colorado, only 2 years ago, I was often astounded by the sensitive, personal information of military members and civilians that I found placed in the local waste bins placed in the hallways throughout the DFAS building by DFAS and Air Force Personnel Reserve staff. Our complaints to management resulted in their obtaining waste bins bearing Privacy Act warnings. What a joke! The news headlines grabbed by a few nosy persons' invasion of the privacy of these Presidential candidates hardly compares to the threat for identity theft posed by the routine careless handling of sensitive personal data of no-so-famous people like myself.

  Retired DoD Audit Manager Posted March 22, 2008 10:27 AM
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  This type of breach is more and more common. I question why contractors are allowed such access. Are the perpetrators of this crime American citizens? Contractors have not always been cleared through as stringent a background investigation process as federal employees. Exceptions are often made when there is a "rush job" such as was required with the backlog in passport processing.

  What would only make this worse is if we discover that privacy data of American citizens has been outsourced overseas, where the privacy and electronic crimes laws are not as stringent as American laws.

  Govexec, please stay with this issue.

  Don Posted March 21, 2008 8:12 PM