Claims of dirty tricks after security breach on Obama passport details

[DoYouEverWonder]

21 March 2008

A major security breach has occurred involving Barack Obama's confidential passport details. Two State Department employees have been fired and another suspended following an investigation, which began after it was learned that his computer file had been accessed.

The security breach has echoes of other Republican dirty tricks operations. Mr Obama's confidential files were first accessed after he defeated Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucus at the beginning of January.

There were three separate breaches of security detected; the most recent last Friday. "This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy," Mr Obama's spokesman Bill Burton said last night, warning the Bush administration that it had a responsibility and duty to protect private information and not use it for political purposes.

"We demand to know who opened Senator Obama's file," he said, asking why it took so long to reveal the breach. There were calls last night for an FBI investigation and the possible appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the case.

A senior State department official said that "curious" officials opened the file and that there was no malicious political intent involved. The Democrats dismissed this explanation as improbable.

In 1991 a similar security breach occurred when Bill Clinton's passport details were improperly obtained at the time he was challenging George Bush's father for the presidency. That was accompanied by a request for assistance from Britain's Conservative government for details about Mr Clinton's time at Oxford. The security breach also has echoes of the Watergate break-in during the Nixon administration.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...ls-799035.html

Four days after one of the breaches, the picture of Obama in Kenya wearing traditional robes was released by the Clinton Campaign.

[leftchick]

I have no doubt the clintons are behind this.

[spacebuddy008]

the State Department official in charge
was an Ambassador under Clinton

After the news broke Thursday that two employees of the State Department had been fired and a third disciplined for accessing passport records of Sen. Barack Obama, MSNBC noted a Clinton connection to the story. The network reported that Maura Harty, the State Department official in charge of the Bureau Of Consular Affairs during the first two breaches of Obama's passport, had served as an ambassador under Bill Clinton.

"Harty was a consular affairs chief until the end of last month when she retired from foreign service work. Before her stint as the assistant secretary of state of consular affairs, Harty was an ambassador to Paraguay under President Bill Clinton," MSNBC reported.

Harty served as Clinton's ambassador to Paraguay from 1997-1999.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/0...t_n_92693.html

reading behind the lines on the collapse of the revote
effort in Mich and Fla, and seeing how bad HillBill wanted it,
leads me to think Democratic insiders are applying pressure
to torpedoe her unseemly trajectory of destruction...

[seemslikeadream]

not that I wouldn't wish this on Hilbil


http://www.state.gov/secretary/forme...2002/14852.htm

Maura Harty was chosen for her current position as the Executive Secretary of the Department of State by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell in May 2001.

Ambassador Harty entered the Foreign Service in 1981 after receiving a bachelor’s degree from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Following an initial assignment to the American Embassy in Mexico City, Ambassador Harty returned to Washington and immediately participated in the United States’ rescue mission to Grenada. Ambassador Harty and another State Department officer flew in with international military forces to lead the search for endangered American students and retirees. She later served as a Watch Officer in the State Department’s Operations Center and was promoted to Senior Watch Officer during that assignment. In 1987-1988, Harty was a Special Assistant to then Secretary of State George P. Shultz.

Harty returned overseas in 1988 by volunteering for service at the American Embassy in Bogota, Colombia at the time judged to be among the most dangerous assignments available. As chief of the visa section, she pioneered new ways to identify drug traffickers and to establish legal means to impede their travel, as well as the travel of family members who benefited from the proceeds of narcotics trafficking. Ambassador Harty subsequently served as Consul at the American Embassy in Madrid. During that time she was also drafted to assist in the opening of the American Embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania.

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=9359805

http://www.cis.org/articles/2002/terrorvisapanel.html
And they actually just spent $3 million giving bonuses to over 200 foreign service officers, including Mary Ryan and Mora Hardy and the other people responsible for the policies that gave us the terrorists in this country on legal visas. So not only did no heads roll, but they actually rewarded people like Tom Furie, the person who was Consul General at Riyadh when 14 of the terrorists received their visas, and Mary Ryan and others, and they gave them bonuses of $10,000 to $15,000 each, for a total cost of $3 million.

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...itroom.04.html
We are also obviously working to secure the office and to get to it as quickly as possible. But, yes, I've been in touch with both the director and the deputy director. And Mora Hardy from Consular Affairs has been very actively engaged and working on this problem.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven...-_b_92673.html


Senator Obama's Passport Records Broken Into: We Must Learn The Truth
Posted March 20, 2008 | 09:41 PM (EST)

Breaking News from MSNBC:

The passport files of Senator Barack Obama were inappropriately accessed on January 9th, February 14th, and March 14th of this year by contract employees of the State Department.

!The facts being presented on MSNBC (or perhaps I should say "information being presented as fact") as coming from the State Department is that the fact of these breaches of Senator Obama's files was not reported beyond the mid-level managers who first learned of these events until this afternoon. In other words, Secretary of State Rice -- we are told by the State Department -- did not learn these facts until yesterday. And we are told that Senator Obama's office was not told about any of this until today.

However, the State Department's Inspector General has NOT conducted an investigation. So, all that MSNBC has to go on is the State Department's own statements. An investigation WILL be conducted.

Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger is telling MSNBC (by phone), "It's pretty clear to me that this was not done for political purposes."

Sorry, Secretary Eagleburger, but you have no more ability to know why Senator Obama's files were broken into than I do.

What I will hold out for is verifiable truths resulting from an independent, absolutely impartial investigation.

I will hold out for verifiable truth regarding not just how this happened and who knew about it and when... but also why it happened.

I hope you will all do the same.



Olbermann: Passport Breach Coverage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kak15GbiZTA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjP3vZ7PW6Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ytyx73NGyjI


Marc Grossman, a George W. Bush administration undersecretary of state who helped implement a $4 billion counter-narcotics effort known as Plan Colombia, said DynCorp’s eradication operation was well worth the taxpayers’ money. He now serves with Gen. Barry McCaffrey on DynCorp’s board of directors.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcont....3b3cdf08.html


The contract employees were from
Computer Sciences Corporation a subsidiary of DynCorp
http://www.csc.com/newsandevents/news/153.shtml




http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...ls-799035.html


Claims of dirty tricks after security breach on Obama passport details

By Leonard Doyle
Friday, 21 March 2008


A major security breach has occurred involving Barack Obama's confidential passport details. Two State Department employees have been fired and another suspended following an investigation, which began after it was learned that his computer file had been accessed.


The security breach has echoes of other Republican dirty tricks operations. Mr Obama's confidential files were first accessed after he defeated Hillary Clinton in the Iowa caucus at the beginning of January.

There were three separate breaches of security detected; the most recent last Friday. "This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy," Mr Obama's spokesman Bill Burton said last night, warning the Bush administration that it had a responsibility and duty to protect private information and not use it for political purposes.

"We demand to know who opened Senator Obama's file," he said, asking why it took so long to reveal the breach. There were calls last night for an FBI investigation and the possible appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the case.

A senior State department official said that "curious" officials opened the file and that there was no malicious political intent involved. The Democrats dismissed this explanation as improbable.

In 1991 a similar security breach occurred when Bill Clinton's passport details were improperly obtained at the time he was challenging George Bush's father for the presidency. That was accompanied by a request for assistance from Britain's Conservative government for details about Mr Clinton's time at Oxford. The security breach also has echoes of the Watergate break-in during the Nixon administration.

[seemslikeadream]

http://deepbackground.msnbc.msn.com/...21/794799.aspx

Passport scandal leads to Virginia contractor
Posted on Friday, March 21, 2008 4:07 PM PT
Filed Under: Politics
By Jim Popkin and Libby Leist, NBC News

Two of the government contractors who allegedly took a peek at Sen. Barack Obama's passport records worked for a Virginia-based firm called Stanley, Inc., according to U.S. government officials with knowledge of the State Department passport controversy.

Stanley, Inc., is headquartered in Arlington, Va. and is employee-owned. The State Department awarded it a contract for $164 million in 2006. The contract calls for Stanley to print and mail millions of new U.S. passports.

NBC News contacted a Stanley, Inc., spokeswoman this afternoon, and informed her that two sources had confirmed that employees at her firm were involved with the scandal. The spokeswoman would only comment: "We've been directed by the State Department to direct all media calls to them."

The government officials tell NBC News that Stanley Inc. fired the two workers. A worker at a second contracting company, not related to Stanley, Inc., also allegedly took a look at the Obama files and those belonging to Sen. John McCain. That person has been disciplined but not yet been fired, State Department officials say.

...

After the State Department awarded the contract to Stanley in 2006, the firm announced it would build a new facility in Hot Springs, Ark., to handle the massive contract. Arkansas governor and former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee expressed his delight that the new building would be located in his state.

"We're excited to welcome the State Department and Stanley to Arkansas. After working with the company for the past year to secure this contract, we believe this will be a successful long-term public and private partnership with the people of Arkansas," Huckabee said at the time.





Arkansas, BeeBe?? Still connected to DynCorp??




DynCorp
Charles S. Ream is on the board of directors for both companies


http://www.zoominfo.com/people/Ream_Charles_403119.aspx

[DoYouEverWonder]

Nice way to let everyone and his brother spy on us.

Stanley, Inc.
3101 Wilson Blvd., Ste. 700
Arlington, VA 22201
Company Web Site
Phone: 703-684-1125
Fax: 703-683-0039


Stanley isn't afraid of big government. The company provides IT services -- including consulting, systems integration, logistics, outsourcing, and engineering -- primarily to military and civilian agencies of the US government. Its clients have included the Library of Congress, the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Department of State, NASA, and the Smithsonian Institution. Stanley was started as a consulting firm in 1966 by Admiral Emory Stanley.

IPO Information
Date Went Public: Oct 18, 2006
Filing Date: May 12, 2006

Proposed Offer Price: $12.00 to $14.00
Actual Offer Price: $13.00
First Day Open: $16.50
First Day Close: $15.50

Shares Offered (mil.): 6.30
Offering Amount (mil.): $81.90
Post-Offering Shares (mil.): 19.96

Underwriters:
Citigroup Global Markets Inc.; Wachovia Capital Markets, LLC; Raymond James & Associates, Inc.; Cowen and Company, LLC; Stifel, Nicolaus & Company Incorporated

http://moneycentral.hoovers.com/glob...ml?COID=126880

Interesting family history. Lemuel Stanley moved to WI in 1847 and went into business with someone named SKINNER. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

Term: Stanley, Lemuel Castle 1828 - 1909

Definition: businessman, lumberman, banker, b. Canandaigua, N.Y. He moved to Wisconsin in 1847, settling on a farm in Dane County. From 1853 to 1862 he operated a mercantile business in Baraboo, and from 1862 to 1869 was a partner in the mercantile firm of Stanley and Skinner in Chippewa Falls. In 1869 this firm became Stanley Brothers, with the purchase of Skinner's interest by Fred and Emory Stanley, and in 1876 L. C. Stanley retired from the business. He was mayor of Chippewa Falls (1881) and from 1882 until his death was president of the First National Bank of Chippewa Falls. In 1873, with T. C. Pound (q.v.) and W. P. Bartlett, Stanley was instrumental in building the first railroad into Chippewa Falls, the Chippewa Falls and Western, later part of the Wisconsin Central R.R., and in 1881, also with Bartlett, he platted the village of Stanley. Turning his lumber and real-estate interests to the West after 1888, Stanley purchased extensive timberlands in Oregon. Baraboo Republic, Sept. 28, 1909; Chippewa County (2 vols., Chicago, 1913).

http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/dict...keyword=Public

[spacebuddy008]

check this old post from 2005, just spent an hour snooping for it...
good night.

A QUICK COMPILATION OF THE BEST ARTICLES FOUND, SO FAR ON THE
DOMESTIC SURVEILLANCE FLAP.

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/15...1.MZZZZZZZ.jpg
In the past, when information collected on an American citizen failed to turn up any criminal activity, FBI policy called for such information to be destroyed.

But President George W. Bush in 2003 reversed that long-standing policy and ordered the bureau and other federal agencies to not only keep that information but place it in government databases that can be accessed by local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

On October 25, 2005, Bush also signed Executive Order 13388 which expands access to those databases to “appropriate private sector entities” although the order does not explain what those entities might be.
http://www.progressiveindependent.co...4&mesg_id=1034

The Best Reporting on this is from the WashPost. article excerpt below

HERE IS ACTUAL LAW FROm Federation of American Scientists website www.fas.org

[greencrow]

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/...les/index.html

As I predicted a month or so ago in a Rovian paraphrase:

"By the time we're finished with Obama, they'll think he drives a flying carpet."

They are really hitting new Rovian heights on this one.

gc