More from that passport scandal involving Obama, Clinton, and McCain:
The State Department official in charge of U.S. passport services stepped down yesterday amid investigations into security breaches in the document records and overcharges for blank passports.
In the latest blow against the agency, court documents show a State Department employee provided personal information from passport applications for use in a credit-card fraud scheme.
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Passport Services Ann Barrett left her post yesterday, a move that State Department Spokesman Tom Casey attributed to management changes.
The personnel move comes after The Washington Times first reported last month that three State Department contract employees were being investigated for improperly accessing the passport data of three presidential candidates. The Times also has reported on overcharges for blank passports produced by the U.S. Government Printing Office.
Asked whether the move of Ms. Barrett is linked to the improper file searches and other reports, Mr. Casey said: "I wouldn't ascribe it to any individual incident."
"There are management changes that go on in this bureau and consular affairs and others all the time," he said but declined to elaborate.
Meanwhile, a State Department employee who was not identified in documents filed in U.S. District Court, was implicated in a credit-card fraud scheme after 24-year-old Lieutenant Quarles Harris Jr. told federal authorities he obtained "passport information from a co-conspirator who works for the U.S. Department of State."
The investigation began after Metropolitan Police on March 25 pulled over Mr. Harris in Southeast on suspicion that the windows of his vehicle were tinted too darkly.
Our government does not exist to serve the people but to facilitate profits for big business:
The annals of incompetent federal empire-building have a new entry: the Government Printing Office's e-Passport program. As a three-part series by Bill Gertz of The Washington Times shows, this little-known near-monopoly of U.S. government printing earned tidy "profits" by charging the State Department 85 percent over production costs of U.S. passports. In the meantime, it made a fine mess of passport security with the help of its friends at Foggy Bottom. (See today's front page for the last installment of "Outsourcing Passports.")
The pricing shell game is contrary to the spirit and possibly the letter of the laws that govern GPO operations. "Profit" is prohibited: This is taxpayer money, whether it is coming or going. Price-gaming distorts incentives and fuels empire-building. This, of course, is just what the GPO did under a guise of purported "private sector" management techniques. It enabled bonuses for budding agency entrepreneurs, funded a new production facility and yielded a $100 million bonanza over 16 months for which the GPO has not fully accounted.
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