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Passport Files of Presidential Hopefuls Snooped
CNN is reporting on the widening brouhaha that began when Barack Obama's passport file was accessed illegally on three occasions beginning in January. Now it seems that John McCain's file was also snooped; and that last year Hillary Clinton's file suffered the same fate. Ars Technica nails the real importance of these breaches, saying that the Presidential hopefuls are "...currently providing the country with a very public lesson in why the 'privacy advocates' who oppose initiatives like Real ID and the executive branch's domestic surveillance programs should really be called 'democracy advocates.' In short..., the entire incident shows exactly why citizens' privacy is critical in a country where citizens compete with one another for control of the government."
I see it as a reason that all passport information should be freely accessible to anyone who wants it. After all, it's owned by the public already. Full transparency is a more effective solution than full opacity because it's both easier to achieve, and eliminates abuses by making them uses.
And how does passport records (assuming it is just entry & exit times) relate to Real ID in any fashion? Real ID is an attempt to eliminate the cartoon-drawing Driver's Licenses that some states hand out. Real ID is an attempt to eliminate the Mexican Government from "assisting" in getting Driver's Licenses to illegals.
The government folks are snooping goverment records all the time anyway. Just ask Hillary about the FBI and IRS records for political foes the last time she lived at the White House.
This was news a few days ago, and there are sites a lot better than AT that can cover this type of thing.
Government has unprecedented data gathering and search capabilities, and is seeking increases in those capabilities. These capabilities are hard to prevent; even if Real ID and similar programs get turned back increased capabilities are the inevitable result of easy to create networks, increasing computer performance and data storage capacity.
Along with that should go greatly increased penalties for the abuse of these capabilities. Firing a contractor seems hardly sufficient. Anyone performing this sort of act should serve significant jail time, financial penalties, and so on. If repeat offenses occur the company for whom the contractor works should be banned from future government related contracts.
.. is how terrible Hilary's passport photograph is.
...that the actual culprits (of the most recent "oopses") were an employees of a contractor run by an Obama adviser, John O. Brennan. The previous one was a trainee who was instructed to test the access with a family member's name. I'm neither for nor against Obama, but he crowed the loudest and it was people answering to someone in his camp, not from "the administration". ...interesting...
(I find it sad that in America, private property is often guarded with deadly force, but private property is replaceable, whereas privacy has no protection at all and privacy can never be replaced. Once privacy is lost, it is lost forever.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Soon Hilary, John and Obama will be receiving precision targeted advertising based on their credit card purchases.
that the program that caught them was one designed to track the access of the records of "high-profile Americans?" Because it doesn't matter if the rest of us have our passport files snooped? What do you need to do, exactly, to be "high-profile?"
Yeah, the rule used to be strictly at least one full week.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
According to the article, if they hadn't looked at famous people's records, they wouldn't have gotten caught. In other words it's common for these contractors to look at various people's passport records, only these few were stupid enough to choose to snoop after famous people besides their usual routine of checking on their neighbors, unfaithful spouses, the girl they're stalking, etc.
What you said and the Contractor was the "goat". Hey everybody, we fired someone over this! And I agree with everything else.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
That's another thing, they used to dupe stories within 3 days of the original posting, sometimes on the same day. Sometimes you would see a front page consisting of nothing but the same story by the same contributor repeated over and over again. Ah, the good old days.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
Makes you feel good about RealID, doesn't it? :)
Oh God Yes!!! I agree so much with that statement.
I don't know about you, but there's no way in hell I could walk into a bank and say that I'm Barak Obama; regardless of the documentation I have (I'm short and all white.) Or Hillary for that matter - I'm male. But, I could walk in with any one of other hundreds of thousands of identities and wreak havoc. My banker told me that she gets at least one person a week trying to steal someone's identity. Hence the endless questions when opening an account. It's also for the (non) PATRIOT Act bullshit - but that's another topic.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Would Obama be pushing as hard for an investigation if it had been Joe Shmoe's passport that had been compromised? It's nice to know that he's willing to spend the U.S. citizens' money for his own personal interests.
At the beginning of the week, Stanley, the outsourcing services providing who employed the contractors responsible for the snooping, was awarded a $600 million five year contract to continue providing services for the State Department.
Am I the only one who finds it a bit convenient that word of the snooping wasn't released until two days after the contract was awarded, over two months after the first snooping against Obama occurred? You'd almost think they had some friends in high places who made sure it didn't become public, since that's the kind of revelation that could have put a big roadblock on their contract award.
I wonder what those involved in suppressing the information will be receiving from Stanley? A cushy job or consulting contract? Campaign contributions for high ranking State Department staffers who might be thinking about a run for Congress in 2010 should the republicans lose the White House?
OK, one last time, democracy and freedom have no inherent connection to one another. What you want is a liberal, accountable government which would make you a "liberty advocate," not a "democracy advocate."
I could care less about the "state of democracy" in America. What I want is the state of the Constitution, something that often is sacrificed by public approval.
Guess some one is going to be regretting that little trip to Mistress Mandy's Island of Pain now aren't they.
How dare they NOT snoop Ron Paul's passport records? He's still running for president, you know. http://ronpaul2008.com/
So we're concerned about the relatively innocuous data that is found in passport files? Thank god they don't keep track of our health records! Oh wait... that may be coming next.
--------========+++Dont Feed The Lab Techs+++========--------
We should judge a person by their actions and not their words. The fact that Obama choose Mr. Wright as his spiritual teacher for 20 years and included Mr. Wright in his election staff speaks well for Mr. Obama's thinking and actions. Words are easy to manipulate and it is unlikely that Obama's recent speech was written by Mr. Obama anyway. Mr. Obama has a powerful and power hungry staff including his wife that will do anything to get him elected to power.
But clearly this man Mr. Obama is not to be trusted with the future of our great country. And regardless that he is 'fashionably black' and that many of you have some desire to prove to yourself or to others that you are not prejudice and that you like 'black people' with an attitude of 'See, I like black people, I'm voting for a black person,' such an attitude of voting for a person because of their race is the definition of prejudice.
If Mr. Obama had a lighter skin tone, there is no way he would be tolerated in as much he is aligned with a violent religious group, and never says anything substantial. He is partly running on 'a premise of guilt' that if you don't vote for him, it is because you don't like black people. A manipulative premise that is certain to have disastrous consequences for America and the world, for we should have as our country's leader someone with wisdom and knowledge, not someone hungry for power.
When it happens to Commander Taco or Cowboy Neal, nobody even notices.
The issue illustrated is that clerks can get anything stored. Governments and companies like to pretend they are better than others when they keep things they should not. Improper access proves the lie, not that passport records are inherently damaging.
The issue is really about what records should be kept and who owns them. The public does not own the record of my travel unless I'm doing public work. I'm the only person who should be able to make that kind of information available when I chose. The state should not waste money tracking things which can only be abused.
Transparency is not a a substitute for doing whats right in the first place. It's not an equalizer when there's a power difference because it only removes one tiny piece of the difference. Your boss can still fire you, your school can expel you and so on and so forth. When someone does not like you and they have information about you and they can make rules that harm you, they will.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The real question to me is, what is actually in there that is so helpful, or harmful, to other people besides idle curiosity? Unless some candidate outright lied on their application, how useful really is this information in the first place?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
My current license is RealID-compliant, the old one was 10 years old, had a renewal sticker that had worn off the renewal date, and I only got a new one because a store return clerk refused it. DMV accepted it, though, and now my portrait resides in some computer database. Wonder if they run these things through a facial recognition thingy to find the bad guys.. Guess they didn't knock my door down, so I must be a good guy, or never posed for pictures during my misdeeds.
The passport file only contains basic biographical information name, address, country of origin, etc.
What these contractors looked at was hardly "sensitive".
Again the media and politicians blows this stuff out of proportion.
Minimum-wage clerks at any credit bureau have access to far more.
All three people who accessed the information were employees of contractors. Some were fired immediately by the contractor before the State Department learned about it. The others the State Department specifically asked that they NOT be fired so they had some leverage to get them to cooperate with the ensuing investigation. (If they were fired, they wouldn't have to do anything unless actually subpoenaed.) Apparently if the state department had not intervened, the contractor would have fired them already. (The exception being the trainee who looked up Hillary instead of a family member during the training exercise - that was (probably properly) viewed as a training error and that employee just had the error explained.)
Regardless, while this is private information, it's not exactly SENSITIVE private information. There's really nothing in these files that isn't a matter of public record (when you applied, where you lived when you applied, name, birthdate) or isn't going to be terribly interesting for any political reason (SS#).
It's pretty safe to assume these breaches were merely the result of idle curiosity, as there's really no other reason to even bother looking at these files with such uninteresting information. That would also explain the fairly wide access thousands of people have to these files.
And to the GP:
Yes, an Obama campaign supporter (donated $2,300) runs one of the contractors whose employees looked at the files. But a Clinton campaing supporter (donated $1,000) runs the other one. Pretty much a wash, unless you're McCain.
paintball
I miss the old Slashdot. You miss week old news?
I'm not saying this to be funny, but I've been around Slashdot since 2000, and this was ALWAYS a complaint.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
The single most elementary premise upon which a free society is based is that the state has absolutely no right to interfere in any way whatsoever with a citizen who is going about his legal business. None. Any infringement on this standard is the beginning of the end, because it places the welfare of the state above the welfare of the people who are supposed to be its masters.
Yes, sometimes terrorists and common criminals will take advantage of this freedom to inflict damage. That's part of the price you pay. If you aren't willing to pay, or even have your children pay, then pack up and move to Communist China. You and your children will be safe there, as long as you keep your mouths shut.
I can go on for ages with reasons why people who are supposed to be your servants, like politicians, cops and bureaucrats, are always so anxious to persuade you that just a little tiny surrender will save the children and kittens and puppies. It won't, and they'll want more. And more. And more.
And never forget that this one of those cases where mutual accommodation is possible in only one direction. If I impose rigorous privacy laws, I can agree that you don't value privacy and leave you to whatever lifestyle pleases you. You aren't affected in any way, because you can still give as much information as you want to anybody you want to have it. On the other hand, when you impose your anti-privacy laws, there's no room for me to be left alone with my choice.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Indeed, it's been a complaint for a long time, even though Malda and his gang don't claim to publish the latest news in the fastest time possible. In fact, they would rather sit on a story and see how it unfolds so that the discussion can have some perspective.
In fact, there's even a FAQ entry addressing this topic. If you want the latest news as soon as it happens, there's other sites to visit. Like others have said, go to Digg for the links, and come to Slashdot for the discussion.
Yes, "In Soviet Russia, frist psot runs Natalie Portman's Linux" is more insightful than what you read on Digg.
:q!
Why should anyone running for a public office (or holding one) have any assumption of privacy for a US passport?
I would think entry/exit data should be public information, as well as each country visited using that passport, which after all, was provided at public expense, backed by the tax payers, carries with it an expectation of the US government using its influence to secure the safe travel of these people who are de-facto targets of people who would harm the US.
I could make the same case for anyone, really, why should you expect your world travels to be a private matter? What could be more public than world travel?
At most these workers would seem to have violated an unauthorized use of computing resource rules. The fact that it was a political candidate LESSENS the infraction in my opinion.
The fact that they WERE ABLE TO access the information means heads should roll, but not their heads. Why aren't the IT folks being keel hauled instead of these drones? What kind of security does this agency have where the biggest impediment to access is a "thou shalt not"?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
This could give people more reason to want private information stored centrally.
We've got three candidates for Presidential candidates with, as far as opposing voters are concerned, questionable pasts. It's media-fueled. Barack may be a closet Muslim, Hillary has a role in Clinton administration conspiracy theory, and McCain could be fudging his military service ala Kerry and Bush. The more info, the better, right?
"Transparency" is a hot issue. People may welcome this, especially since it's not their information being mined. Why should Presidential candidates have anything to hide? I'd bet most people think they should be scrutinized more than regular citizens are. People will accept, then demand, that candidates should have less privacy than average folks.
Then they'll think that about anyone running for office. Then teachers and anyone working with children. Then doctors, power plant employees, stock brokers, garbage collectors, and finally all the way down to you and me.
Better to know who's living next door, right?
I do not want some bloated, mis-managed, government agency to have all of my medical records, employment records, or business records. If anybody thinks some sub-contracted flunky at a keyboard will be happy snooping through the passport records of his fellow citizens after their medical records become available as part of some similarly unsecured, poorly engineered, unsupervised federal bureaucracy, you're kidding yourself. This stuff is rapidly spinning out of control and the only way to put the brakes on it is to head back toward what the country started with: a small, tightly focused federal government that keeps records on its citizens to the minimum degree practical.
This situation was bad enough when the idiots in government had our data. It gets worse now that government is outsourcing work to non-government people who will never be properly held to account; it opens the way for outside entities to gain access to the data by hiring people to do temporary data harvesting jobs, injecting those people into those outsourced government positions, then acting shocked and "firing" them when they get caught (with bonuses and options to be re-hired later by another division...) That may not be what happened here, but it will happen as the government gets more of our data and that data becomes more interesting/valuable to outsiders.
Your privacy, like your reputation, is not a physical thing; once you hand it over or damage it, you can never get it back.
Everything I have read states that the names of the contractors who did the search and the companies they work for have been withheld. What evidence do you put forth that an Obama paid advisor was also a contractor at the State Department and was responsible for querying the records? Since you provided no evidence it would seem likely you do not have any.
So GWB BF'ed HS Chart-Off, who BF'ed TAC CEO who BF'ed "Nominal Nothing Employee" ... to do a bit of snooping that any otherwise rational human being with an IQ above 90 (this knocks out GWB and HS Sec) would just laugh at and fart a narly.
I'm looking forward to the CNN live cam on the Mall giving the shots of GWB, Cheney and the other Cabinet Ofcrs being arrested, shackled, and carted off for execution at GitMo.
LOL, what a day that will be!
Toodles
No, seriously, this just keeps coming up and it's retarded. Slashdot readers are anything but a representative sample of American (or any) society. Of course we don't reflect it, let alone the full range of the political (left-right) spectrum.
When the editors post a good story, we get between two and five hundred posts discussing how and why this is alarming, what the possible implications may be, etc. Once moderation is applied we end up with a very high signal to noise ratio. Dissenting views are pretty much always modded up, except when they're trolls or flamebait (and even then, people often take the time to read them and reply). Other sources are often quoted or linked to, and those posts get modded up too. In other words, we get a good, interesting (possibly insightful, or informative, sometimes even funny) discussion.
When the editors post something stupid, we get between two and five hundred posts pointing out the error and ripping on the editor that put it on the front page. Occasionally, a thread or two spawns discussing some tangentially related subject that ends up being interesting on its own merrits.
As far as I'm concerned, the system is working as intended. Seriously, who would you rather discuss politics with? The Digg crowd? The people that leave comments on Youtube? Seriously, answer that question and go there. Then come back and tell us what you find. Haven't you noticed slashdot becoming more of a political "tool" then a place to discuss news for nerds. No. Most of us are capable of independent thought. That's why we're all here, sharing our thoughts and adding the insights of others to our own. At the very least we're sharpening our ideas by arguing against those we disagree with.
The fact that we often agree in large numbers speaks more to the fact that we're a self-selected group than anything else. The fact that the editors pander to us says more about their lust for precious ad revenue than their political views. Not all herds are made of sheep. And even if they were, kdawson (it's him everyone bitches about, right? I honesty don't pay attention to the editors' names) sucks at playing sheep-dog.
I wonder how many times Brittany Spears' or Heath Ledger's passport record was 'illegal' accessed?
Let's not take our eyes of the ball people. Don't forget the real problems here. Barack is a racist (quite possibly a Marxist). McCain simply has no balls (yes... much respect for Vietnam) and is directly tied into BAU. Hillary is a socialist (not bad if you like that sort of thing) and may be even more tied in to BAU than McCain.
We Americans are screwed.
3cx.org - A truly bad website.
Oh, you can do a lot of nasty things with passport records besides ID theft. For instance, you can have your HR department datamine it to keep out, er, undesirables. And their children too, to the (oh, I don't know, let's say) tenth generation, just 'cuz. What, you've never met anyone that has a thing against immigrants, legal or otherwise?
I'll stop having something to hide when the rest of humanity stops judging people on their birth place, race, gender, and anything else they have no control over. That and when theives stop favoring the homes of those who've gone on vacation.
Kind of a non-story for me. Reading articles on this it really seems like it was a curious employee who wasn't paying enough attention to the warnings given and or consequences about private data. Honestly I blame our celebrity lifestyle for this. Everyone is so wrapped up in famous people they forget about what they are authorized to do. I find it hard to judge someone for letting their curiosity get the better of them.
If you were given the power, how many of you would resist the urge to look up Natalie Portman's [insert your favorite opposite sex celebrity here] passport?
That's what most of the information is pointing to. (Unless of course this is what they want me to conclude.) Now if it's politically motivated such as Nixon era privacy breaching I'd probably feel differently about it.
That's the first I've heard of this. Can you supply a link?
Translation: Utterly and completely without cause I'll put in some unrelated hot-button stuff and then try to pretend I didn't.
Translation: Utterly and completely without cause I'll put in some unrelated hot-button stuff and invoke scary scenarios forwarding my own agenda.
Etc... Etc...
And really, that's the whole point of this [Ars Technica] 'news' story - not to tell the news, but to slant it and spin it until it is no longer recognizable and then to attach editorial comments unrelated to main story. If Faux News, CNN, or one of the other big networks did this, Slashdot and the rest of the blogosphere would be up in arms about such journalistic misbehavior.
> it was our presence in the Middle East that Bin Laden was pissed about.
Ur, last time i checked, he also doesn't believe in democracy. Let's stop that craziness and then we'll be perfectly safe, right?
The Wikipedia article on the McVeigh bombing states that the prosecution's hypothesis was that he was driven by hatred of the US because of various things including: tax increases, the Waco siege and Ruby Ridge. After that bombing, you immediately supported the elimination of tax increases and FBI raids on paramilitary organizations, so you would be safer, right?
Learn to stop cowering in fear. Life has risks and major terrorist attacks are not very high on that list.
And each of those is a reason, although certainly ridiculous, for some voter to believe they need that information.
So pre-production work (still being kept a secret) and similar scenarios would be harsher.
But I don't think the RIAA lables would make any money off their product while keeping it secret. THEY Want people to have it. They just want people to pay for it first.
I'm fairly sure that Obama isn't demanding that anyone reading his passport pay him first.
I have nothing to hide ... but that IS completely beside the point.
... one day I will give a shit. One day. Today, I do not. I think it is funny and their information should be freakin' published. I personally want to know where each and everyone of them has been, when, and why.
I'll give a shit about this when I can pick up the phone and not think it is already bugged or being listened to.
I'll give a shit when I can see the records of the numbers that were bugged in this country WITHOUT A WARRANT.
I'll give a shit the day I can use my computer and not worry about the links I click on.
Trust me
You obviously have NEVER gotton a pasport AC!
It holds quite abit about your lifes history, Not just Name, Address, Phone number, country of origin. But SSN, your mother and fathers information, copies of your BIRT HCERTIFICATE, copies of 2 forms of photo ID. So anyone wanting to oh say engage in identity theft, pasport files are a one stop shop!
The Truth is a Virus!!!
"I wonder what the Ars Technica/privacy zealots who oppose RealID protection will say when the next hijacked airliner is crashed into a building."
Probably not a lot since if everybody has a "RealID" it solves nothing since the "bad guys" will have a RealID as well.
Or did you think they were going to do screening just to make sure only the "good guys" have RealID?
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
" Chief of firm involved in breach is Obama adviser"
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/22/passport.files/index.html
* Story Highlights
* Source: John Brennan advises Barack Obama on foreign policy, intelligence issues
* The passport files of three presidential contenders were improperly accessed
* A contractor for the Analysis Corp. has been disciplined
* Two contractors who worked for Stanley Inc. have been fired
From Kate Bolduan
CNN
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The CEO of a company whose employee is accused of improperly looking at the passport files of presidential candidates is a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign, a source said Saturday.
John O. Brennan, president and CEO of the Analysis Corp., advises the Illinois Democrat on foreign policy and intelligence issues, the source said.
Brennan briefed the media on behalf of the campaign this month.
The executive is a former senior CIA official and former interim director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
He contributed $2,300 to the Obama campaign in January.
When asked about the contribution, a State Department official told CNN's Zain Verjee, "We ethically awarded contracts. Political affiliation is not one of the factors that we check."
On Friday, the department revealed that Obama's passport file was improperly accessed three times this year, and the security of passport files of the two other major presidential candidates -- Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican John McCain -- had also been breached. VideoWatch the secretary of state apologize for the breach
Three contract emplyees are accused in the wrongdoing, including the one who works for Analysis Corp. and who was disciplined. That contract employee accessed McCain's file in addition to Obama's. None of the contract employees was identified. Learn more about the companies involved
The other two contract employees worked for Stanley Inc. They were fired.
The Washington Times, which broke the story Thursday night that Obama's records had been improperly accessed, reported Saturday that the State Department inquiry is focusing on the Analysis Corp. employee. Also, the investigation by the department's inspector general will include polygraph tests for supervisors in the passport section to find out whether there was any political motive.
The department spokesman said Saturday that he would not comment on whether the department was administering polygraphs to employees in connection with the investigation.
"While this is a rare occurrence, we regret the unauthorized access of any individual's private information," the company said Friday in a statement.
Stanley has had contracts with the department since 1992 and was recently awarded a $570 million contract to continue providing support for passport processing. Its CEO, Philip Nolan, contributed $1,000 to the Clinton campaign. VideoWatch how contractor execs are linked to campaigns
The department official said the three contract employees worked in three offices in the Washington area. One office does consular work and visas on evenings, holidays, weekends and overnights; another office issues passports; the third office scans and files materials.
The source said there has been no problem in the past with the Analysis Corp. employee, who has "extensive" experience. The worker has been with the company for years and has always worked under a State Department contract.
Explaining that the department had "complimented" this person for work in the past, the source said the individual is considered a "terrific" employee, except for this one instance, characterized as an "aberration."
The department asked the Analysis Corp. not to take any administrative action against the employee whi
Full transparency is a more effective solution than full opacity because it's both easier to achieve, and eliminates abuses by making them uses.
In general, full transparency is not a solution to privacy problems, though, because not everyone has equal power given the information. If a public official knows my name and address, he can look me up on all kinds of databases and, more to the point, make entries on all kinds of databases that may ultimately cause harm to me. If I know his name and address, what am I going to do, go stand outside his house with a sign saying "Abuser of power!"?
I read a much better articulated version of this argument a little while ago, possibly written by someone like Ross Anderson, but I'm afraid I can't find it now. If anyone has it, please do post the link.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Yes the US is a Constitutional Republic in which our representatives are democratically elected. We are not a democracy :-)
I wish more people understood that. Ignorance in this country is widespread and it's largely due to government schools.
Libertas in infinitum
First off, yes, snooping of this nature is wrong. However, the final summary sentence, "In short..., the entire incident shows exactly why citizens' privacy is critical in a country where citizens compete with one another for control of the government."
Who's perspective? As a candidate, you're damned right I don't want you to know everything about me. That makes me less likely to be able to compete and win the leadership post I seek.
But as a VOTER and CITIZEN... HELL YES I want to know what these people have been doing. These are the people whose inconsequential decision on what to have for dinner while meeting with foreign dignitaries could start a war. (Probably not; they pay the staff well to make sure that doesn't happen. But it's in the realm of possibility that the President serving pork chops to the Ayatollah could have some bad results.) So what about fair competition; these are people I expect to make good decisions for all of the people they are leading. If you choose to live your life in public service, your life is going to be public. Don't whine and moan that you lost your very public job because some enterprising report found out you had an office broken into and evidence destroyed. And don't complain that people are invading your privacy; if you choose to seek public office, expect it and know that it will happen.
Look at it from the prospective consumer model. I'm looking to buy a car, I expect the dealer to be forthcoming about things that may impact the performance of that car. (For example, it was picked out of a flood, and the interior was replaced. In fact, aren't there laws about that kind of information?) Likewise, I'm investing my vote in a product; the leadership qualities and policies of a politician whom I'm about to hand the power to wage war, tax, and regulate. I, as a "consumer", want to know EVERY detail I can about the person so that I can make a better choice.
Granted, most of the voting public isn't remotely that responsible with their vote. And this only applies to people I am ceding my autonomy to; I don't care to know who's having sex with Paris Hilton this week.
... is that Ars Technica is apparently attempting to compare a high profile bureaucratic mishap to a hypothetical one on a much grander scale involving the current anti-terror surveillance program, which they so cleverly refer to as a "domestic surveillance" program. The logic seems to be that if the government can't even protect our passport data, how do we expect it to protect our data collected on a much grander scale. Assuming that the government is illegally monitoring American's private phone calls and emails. Of course, if we're to believe that this surveillance program exists in the dark sinister form they insist upon, then don't we have much bigger problems to be worrying about? I'm just saying the comparison appears to be a cheap ploy by Ars Technica to make a political point.
> .. is how terrible Hilary's passport photograph is.
:) ...
Surprisingly, it looks just like her.
Yeah, I'll wait for the implication of that to sink in... But you can't prove I meant it, because I didn't say it outright!
Now the candidates get to feel what it's really like to be an American in 2008- no privacy from the gov't!
Tibbon
tibbon.com
NOT GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES Its pretty sad, but this is how it works. - State Dept hires a contractor for millions - Contractor does some hiring itself of local people - Contractor also uses temp agencies to find people By the time it hits the temp agencies the job is something like $10 an hour, no benefits offered, must pass credit and criminal check. The pool of candidates looking for a temporary job with no benefits and $10 is pretty crappy. These people have access to very sensitive information like passport data daily. In a nutshell, you can get a job at a passport center within weeks of applying, sit in training for a day, look up whatever you need to look up, and quit. All this in a matter of weeks. Yes, its pretty sad.
You still don't know the name of my favorite pet. If that ever gets out, I'm toast.