Skip to content

Judicial Watch, Inc. is a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, which promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.

Judicial Watch, Inc. is a conservative, non-partisan educational foundation, which promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government, politics and the law.

Because no one
is above the law!

Donate

Corruption Chronicles

State Dept. Security Breaches Ongoing

A third employee at the U.S. Department of State has pleaded guilty to illegally accessing confidential passport files, this time a low-level worker who repeatedly viewed what should have been protected information.

The others sentenced in the scheme, which Justice Department officials say is still under investigation, were higher level foreign services officers. The first to plead guilty to unlawfully accessing hundreds of confidential passport files was also an intelligence analyst who admitted his crimes in September. The second, who pleaded guilty in January, worked at the agency’s Office of Consular Affairs. He confessed to accessing more than 50 confidential passport files. 

This week an administrative assistant and contract worker in the Bureau of Consular Affairs pleaded guilty to unauthorized computer access for illegally viewing more than 150 confidential passport files between 2002 and 2007. The assistant, Dwayne Cross, viewed the passport information of celebrities, politicians, athletes and members of the media, among others. 

Although he was a low-level contract worker, Cross had access to official State Department computer databases throughout his employment with the agency. The files he regularly accessed contained detailed personal information such as date of birth, address and spouse’s name, and are protected by the Privacy Act of 1974. 

These sorts of security breaches have been going on at the State Department for more than a decade. In 1992, a public scandal ensued when an employee illegally accessed the passport records of then presidential candidate Bill Clinton. Last March two State Department contract workers were fired for accessing the passport files of the three presidential candidates—Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain—at the time.


Related

VP’s Failed Initiative to Curb Irregular Migration Gets Another $170 Mil as Numbers Surge

Corruption Chronicles | March 28, 2024
As enormous amounts of U.S. taxpayer dollars pour into Central America under Vice President Kamala Harris’s ill-fated initiative to curb illegal immigration, the Biden administrati...

Judicial Watch: Federal Appeals Court Hearing in Lawsuit Challenging Illinois Counting Ballots up to…

Press Releases | March 27, 2024
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that an appellate oral argument is set for Thursday, March 28 in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in the case fil...

Judicial Watch Sues to Get 911 Call, Arrest Report of Laken Riley’s Murder

In The News | March 27, 2024
From Breitbart: Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton announced a Georgia Open Records Act lawsuit against the University of Georgia (UGA) Police Department to get the 911 call made ...