Centerfield

And all too many of those safeguards that do exist are merely a matter of an agency finding a way to check off a box on their audit report. Actually working safeguards are a lot less common. And even those are generally more a matter of making it inconvenient to get at data, rather than actually protecting it. At best, they provide an audit trail (as apparently happened in this case) so that someone can see after the fact who has been accessing the data.

I suspect that since Auchi is a concern to the State Department and even our intelligence services, his connection to Rezko and indirectly (maybe directly) to Obama probably means Barak's passport files been checked. I wonder if the Rezko trial or the investigation into whether favors were given might bring up Obama's travel records. In order to establish quid pro quo, one might have to see if travel plans brought him near any meetings with Rezko and Auchi abroad.

There is a big difference between the IC and Politican Parties having a look. I do think there must be a good firewall to stop the latter. I also think it is fair that the voters know when and where their candidates traveled, but that should be voluntary. We do demand open financial records and we ought to keep candidates honest about where they went to meet world leaders or press causes.

Responding to another thread: notice the split on the left over nuclear energy and clean coal. See Pelosi oppose China in Tibet and say little about Darfur or the terrible plight of women in fundie societies. Then note the moonbats beat each other over Hillary and Obama. Listen to Leftists battle over Peru's claims and whether FARC is a terror group. The Left Side only seemed a singular force because HATE BUSH was so powerful a uniting factor. Rove could not have triggered a bigger Democratic meltdown and kudos to Tully for predicting the Perfect Storm.

I first came here almost three years ago predicting Democrats would implode using the Dean/Pelosi/Purge-the-centrists attitude. Nothing surprises me except how accurate my thinking was. Pogo's quote prevails with the help of media.

Only in America. Now if the Democrats conducted foreign policy with their ability to get elected, we are going to have some very rough going.

This particular teapot tempest is amusing to me. Privacy in the digital age just does not exist. I am not surprised one bit at this. Probably more surprised it has not happened more often.

Electronic voyeurism happens a lot in our society. Most of the time, it is strictly someone wanting to look for curiosity sake. I spent 20 years working for a large insurance companies computer systems. In the early years, there were no policies on looking at records. If we were testing systems or bored, there would be no second thought at throwing the name of a public/famous person in the system to see what came up. Heck, I remember throwing Bill Clinton's name into the computer system in 1992 just to see what came up. [Yes, stuff did come up] However, the policies against doing this are now pounded into employees heads. However, I am sure people still take a peek sometimes.

Now I know in today's society, everyone has to come up with some kind of conspiracy. The KISS method is almost dismissed from the get go this day. Yes, it was against policy and the employees deserve whatever punishment they get. As far as setting safety measures goes, if a persons job means they have to be able to pull up an application to get or verify information from time to time, it is hard to say they can pull up some but not others without adding a new level of complexity and/or bureaucracy or creating a new step that decreases the overall efficiency of the process to prevent the one in a few million abuses. Sometimes you just have to trust your employees and make sure they are punished if they break the rules.

I suspect when everything is said and done, we will waste a couple of tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of dollars to tighten the system and decrease the efficiency of the passport system in order to correct this "problem."