Passport files of 3 candidates breached

THE passport files of all three US presidential candidates — Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain — have been breached, the US State Department confirmed yesterday.

A State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the breaches of McCain and Clinton’s passport files were not discovered until yesterday, after officials became aware of the privacy violation regarding Obama’s records, and a separate search was conducted.

Last night it emerged that the two contractors fired for snooping into Obama’s passport records worked for a Virginia-based company called Stanley Inc.

Earlier this week, the firm won a five-year, $570-million contract to support passport services at the State Department.

McCormack said the individual who accessed Obama’s passport files also reviewed McCain’s file earlier this year.

In Clinton’s case, an individual last summer accessed her file as part of a training session. McCormack said the one-time violation was immediately recognised and the person was admonished.

The incidents raise the question of whether the information was accessed for political purposes.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke with both Obama and Clinton yesterday and also plans to speak with McCain, who was in Paris yesterday. He said any breach deserves an apology and full probe.