[ISN] Celebrity Passport Records Popular

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/03/AR2008070303799.html

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
July 4, 2008

Government workers repeatedly snooped without authorization inside the 
electronic passport records of entertainers, athletes and other 
high-profile Americans, a State Department audit has found. One 
celebrity's records were breached 356 times by more than six dozen 
people.

The audit, by State's inspector general, was prompted by the discovery 
in March that three of the department's contract workers had peeked at 
the private passport files of Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain and 
that a State Department trainee had examined the file of Sen. Hillary 
Rodham Clinton.

The report documented a widespread lack of controls on the personal data 
of the 127 million Americans who hold passports, finding numerous 
"weaknesses, including a general lack of policies, procedures, guidance 
and training." The State Department had maintained that its system 
worked when the candidates' passport breaches were discovered.

"This is unacceptable. The report makes it clear that the private 
information of over 100 million Americans is vulnerable to unauthorized 
access," said Sen Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.).

[...]


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