Passport Backlog Put Data More in Hands of Contractors

The contract employees who snooped into the passport files of two presidential candidates this year were part of a private workforce that has increasingly assumed responsibility for processing the sensitive documents, State Department and industry officials said yesterday. The department began farming out the work to private firms nearly two decades ago, but the ratio of contractors to government employees exploded in the past year when passport applications suddenly began to overwhelm the State Department. Read more...

Related:
Rice Apologizes For Breach of Passport Data
The passport files of all three major presidential candidates were breached by unauthorized searches by four employees, the State Department said yesterday, prompting apologies from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, outrage from the candidates and calls by lawmakers for further probes.

Posted by Editor at March 26, 2008 11:34 AM