Why are we talking about giving the government more power to invade our privacy?
The 192 million passport files maintained by the State Department contain individuals’ passport applications, which include data such as Social Security numbers, physical descriptions, and names and places of birth of the applicants’ parents. Otherwise, the files provide limited information; they do not contain records of overseas travel or visa stamps from previous passports.
To test the extent of the snooping, investigators assembled a list of 150 famous Americans and checked how many times their files were accessed over a 5 1/2 -year period. Investigators found that the records of 127, or 85 percent, had been searched a total of more than 4,100 times.
The report said that “although an 85 percent hit rate appears to be excessive, the Department currently lacks criteria to determine whether this is actually an inordinately high rate.”
Before we go giving the NSA powers to do sweeping warrantless wiretaps, shouldn’t we focus first on giving the State Department some criteria to determine whether an 85% privacy breech rate is an historically high rate or just par for the course?
