Last week, it was reported that presidential candidate Barack Obama's passport had been inappropriately viewed by State Department contractors. Over the weekend, news came out that sneak peaks of Hillary Clinton's and John McCain's files occurred as well, triggering a flurry of apologetic phone calls from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and promises of investigations by spokesman Sean McCormack.  While this seems to eliminate the original paranoia that Obama had been targeted for political reasons, it does raise new and troubling questions about activity within the State Department.

While contractors are not subject to the same disciplinary requirements as federal workers, it was reported that the original two contractors caught accessing Obama's file were fired, apparently without due process, despite the fact that it appears only their "imprudent curiosity" was the impetus for their action and that no laws may have been broken.  

It is troubling that these two contractors were fired quickly and therefore will not be compelled to participate in any further investigations into passport file viewing procedures.  By taking such hasty actions, how are supervisors to learn what happened and what new policies, procedures, and training are needed to prevent future breaches without having access to these individuals?

Finally, the ever increasing role of contracted employees in sensitive areas of government is quickly becoming a timely political and federal staffing issue. As any regular reader of ours knows, our work experiences in government include both the perspectives of government contractors and that of federal employees. With the current federal staffing problems, we have seen first hand how government contractors get valuable work done for the government, but we are also aware of the vulnerabilities of our dependence on contracting services.  Watch for future articles on this important issue and please let us know your thoughts.