Re: Breach of Obama's Passport Information Leads to Firings at U.S. State Dept.

[Gadi Evron <ge () linuxbox org>]

On Fri, 21 Mar 2008, Paul Ferguson wrote:
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> Hash: SHA1
>
> Via MSNBC.com.
>
> [snip]
>
> Two contract employees of the State Department were fired and a third
> person was disciplined for accessing passport records of Sen. Barack Obama
> "without a need to do so," State Department officials confirmed to NBC
> News.
>
> The three people who had access to Obama's passport records were contract
> employees of the department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, NBC News has
> learned. The unauthorized activity concerning Obama's passport information
> occurred in January.
>
> "A monitoring system was tripped when an employee accessed the records of a
> high-profile individual,” a department official told NBC News. "When the
> monitoring system is tripped, we immediately seek an explanation for the
> records access. If the explanation is not satisfactory, the supervisor is
> notified."
>
> [snip]
>
> More:
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23736254/

When I first got drafted, I stayed for a short while with the recruitment 
office in Jerusalem. I remember that if you tried to look up some known 
model's details on your acount, you'd get into trouble.

I was too nice, it didn't even occur to me to search. Little did I know of 
what I will be able to search and won't in future positions, with 
different types of acounts.

Where people are involved my experience tells me they will abuse their 
power, especially when it's as easy as one click away. At one position I 
felt stupid for being the only one who doesn't--doesn't means 
INTENTIONALLY.

You can't control everything, but you can be smart about what you do 
control or monitor. Even the best people will see stuff they are not 
supposed to.

        Gadi.

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