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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."
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.
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?
"I wonder what the Ars Technica/privacy zealots who oppose RealID protection will say when the next hijacked airliner is crashed into a building."
I'm sorry, "RealID protection" I fail to see how having an ID is protection at all. The topic of course is about peoples private information being looked at. We currently don't know if it was given to anyone or what purpose the access was done. But I suspect that the passport information contains things like passport number and SSN and other identifying information. Well identity theft is a serious costly issue to all of us, now isn't it. I would imagine that the information in the passport file would contain some lovely information that could be used for identity theft. That of course would be rather dumb for the celebrities this article is about, but it seems that only some of the more important names were flagged for the type of alert that caused this to be exposed. Who knows how many others have had their information comprimised, illegally I might add.
Now lets all get a database of information on everyone. That will solve the problem, require everyone to have an ID that they will be required to carry, that solves the problem doesn't it. Wait a minute what was the problem, identity theft? If someone has a fake ID that looks good, well then they are that person, if they have the background information like the ssn, address, and those little numbers on the back of the card, well then they are that person. Substituting an external tag for a person, substituting a copyable, forgable, piece of identification for a living breathing person, does not solve a problem, it only says we trust and ID more than we do a person, we trust our information database more than a living breathing citizen. If someone wanted to blow up a building, they can forge the documents, and pictures and the building will be history. Better to find out why anyone would want to blow up a building and see to it that the reasons don't exist. In the case of 911, it was our presence in the Middle East that Bin Laden was pissed about. That presence cost us the trade towers. We (the country leaders) of course wanted to be there and had no fear, because we are the super power, so there, bring it on.