Privacy violations at an election..What else is new?

News that the American presidential candidates passport files have been breached comes as no shock really, despite the screaming headlines of practically ever national paper. Do people really think that this elections drama has already played out? Certainly not, the Americans never fail to surprise with what new depths (or rather lows i should say) that some people are willing sink to in attempts to try and disrupt an election.
The announcement that the breachs occurred only surfaced after two State Department workers had been dismissed and a third was disciplined for improperly accessing Mr Obama's passport file on three occasions this year. But he wasn't the only victim here, Hillary Clinton and John McCain were also under close scrutiny. The fact that the presidential hopefulls are under close watch is not new news, however the apparent lack of security in the State Department, especially at a highly politically charged moment as this, is.
These revaltions raise questions not only of security but whether they were politically motivated actions, and if so then why it took anybody so long to find out about it. The first time when Obama's file was accessed was January 9th - that's 71 days before any senior officials were even alerated. As if that wasn't bad enough for the State Department to deal deal with, Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, announced that Hillary Clinton's files were also "improperly" accessed last year as well.
All i can say is that if its so easy to access private files and go undetected for so long then we should all be worried about the lack of security were other private and sensitive data is concerned at the State Department.
It's also satisfying to know that the braches were only spotted by Dr Rice's office because of a journalist's enquiries on thursday afternoon. The Secretary of State told reporters that she telephoned Mr Obama to apologise herself due to the frequency of breaches concerning his files. Bill Burton, a spokesperson for Barack Obama, has called for a series investigation into the matter. (Hmmm, wonder how long this one will take!)
While making the usual rounds on news sites i came across the Online Times' covergae of the whole affair(http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article3598509.ece). If you go to the end of the article they have his break out describing other times when the State Department has been breached concerning presidents. After reading it i realised that unauthorized access to private files seems like an everyday occurrence across the water. Reminds me of our dear governments incompetence concerning private data leaks a while back.
(originally posted March 22, 2008)