State Department Reports Still More Passport File Breaches

After yesterday's report noting that two contract workers were fired and a third suspended for unauthorized access to Presidential candidate Democrat Barack Obama, we have learned today that other individuals engaged in the same conduct with regard to Democrat Hillary Clinton's records and Republican John McCain's records.

Rice expressed concern over the privacy violations as well as the fact that they weren't reported right away. Rice said the incident "should have been made known to senior management. It was not to my knowledge and we also want to take every step we can to make sure this kind of thing doesn't happen again."

Rice said the State Department will launch a "full investigation." Spokesman Sean McCormack said the probe wiould include checks to see whether the records of Clinton and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., were also breached.

McCormack said the three employees involved in the unauthorized looks into Obama's personal records do not appear to be connected and were in three different passport offices in the Washington, D.C. area.

This morning McCormack said Acting Inspector General Bill Todd has been in touch with the Department of Justice "so they can proceed together" in case the IG's investigation determines any laws were broken.

In a hasty late-night conference call Thursday, embarrassed officials of the State Department acknowledged that two employees had been fired and a third disciplined for improperly accessing Obama's passport file.

Today McCormack said he wasn't trying to suggest anything other than the initial assessment that the employees were anything other than curious Obama fans but was not dimissive of other possibilities.

The State Department has a serious problem on its hands with unauthorized access to these records. Damage control efforts are underway, but if someone could access those records, they just as easily could be looking at other records of the average joe, and use them for more nefarious purposes.

UPDATE:
Sen. Obama now wants to get Congress involved and have them investigate the State Department. He says that it's to keep the investigation from being a purely internal matter. It should be an open investigation, but Congress will do what it always does - grandstand before the cameras.

UPDATE:
Also following the story: Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, and Stop the ACLU.

UPDATE:
Meet the companies whose employees are responsible for the security breaches:

Two of the government contractors who accessed Sen. Barack Obama's passport records worked for a Virginia-based firm called Stanley, Inc., the company said in a statement. A third contractor who looked at passport information for Sen. Obama and Sen. John McCain worked for a company called The Analysis Corporation, the State Department said.

"Two Stanley subcontractor employees were involved in the unauthorized access of Senator Barack Obama's passport files," a Stanley, Inc., spokeswoman said. "In each of these instances the employee was terminated the day the unauthorized search occurred."

"While this is a rare occurrence, we regret the unauthorized access of any individual's private information," Stanley spokeswoman Joelle Pozza added.

Stanley, Inc., is headquartered in Arlington, Va. The State Department awarded it a contract for $164 million in 2006, to print and mail millions of new U.S. passports. Stanley announced on Monday that it was awarded an additional $570 million contract to "continue support of the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs/Passport Services Directorate."

One Stanley, Inc., contractor looked at Obama's passport records on January 9, and then a second Stanley employee accessed similar Obama records on February 21, U.S. officials familiar with the controversy told NBC News. The Stanley spokeswoman would not identify the workers or explain why they had accessed Obama's passport data. The State Department Inspector General is now investigating.

Another contractor, who worked for The Analysis Corporation of McLean, Va., gained unauthorized access on March 14 to the passport records for Obama and McCain, a State Department spokesman said. That employee's employment status is pending.