Obama’s Passport file was breached! Two firings at the State Dept.

Crooks and Liars:

MSNBC is reporting that there was a breach of Barack Obama’s passport file that led to two firings at the State Department and a suspension…

Two contract employees of the State Department were fired and a third person was disciplined for accessing passport records of Sen. Barack Obama “without a need to do so,” State Department officials confirmed to NBC News…

A monitoring system was tripped when an employee accessed the records of a high-profile individual,” a department official told NBC News. “When the monitoring system is tripped, we immediately seek an explanation for the records access. If the explanation is not satisfactory, the supervisor is notified.”
Does this surprise anyone of us that has followed the Bush administration for all these years?

Statement from Obama campaign:

“This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an Administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years. Our government’s duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes. This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama’s passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach.

Update: The State Department asserts there was "no political motivation" for the breach. Spokesman Sean McCormack said the department itself detected the instances of "imprudent curiosity."

Hmmm don't tell me the three State Department employees were: the night janitor, the guy who refills the water cooler, and the vending machine lady.