White House Travel Office Emails Personal Info Reporters incl SS#

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/politics/washingtonwhispers/070401/an_identity_theft_waiting_to_h.htm

A mundane trip manifest of reporters who traveled to Latin America with President Bush has turned colossally controversial because the White House included personal ID info on the E-mail sent to news bureaus. The key ingredients of identity theft-Social Security and passport numbers and dates of birth-were listed in the E-mail that the White House Travel Office sent out in what's typically the first stage of billing.

"A lot of us went crazy," says one reporter, "because it's an identify theft waiting to happen."

Among those on the trip were CBS's Bill Plante, Fox's Bret Baier, CNN's Ed Henry, NBC's Kelly O'Donnell. The manifest usually includes just the names of those on the trip and what they owe.

The E-mail went to media billing offices and bureau officials. "I don't know everyone on that list. It could have been taken by somebody shady," frets one TV reporter.

"It was an honest mistake," says C-SPAN's Steve Scully, president of the White House Correspondents' Association. He said that a day after the E-mail went out, the travel office apologized and tried to retrieve them. The event prompted the White House to speed up plans to institute a new and more secure system. Some news organizations aren't taking chances. They are warning correspondents to check their charge accounts.

[woodsprite]

1. Rove distraction? or just stupidity? n/t

[LiberalFighter]

2. They are all nobodies -- nobody important

[The Count]

3. Travelgate? remember that hoax? How the press howled that a few employees were

replaced by the Clintons? Let's see now!

[ixion]

4. honest mistake my ass

you don't send out passport and SS numbers by 'mistake'...unless you're a loyal Bushie, I guess. :eyes: :dunce:

[LiberalFighter]

5. They tried to retrieve the emails?

If they have that capability then they for sure must have "retrieved" those missing emails that were suppose to go to the Judiciary Committee.

[SoCalDem]

6. Leave it to Shifty Steve to cover for them.. He probably tried to book Alan King

for the WH Correspondent's Dinner (until he figured out the guy was dead)..had to settle for Rich Little

[tanyev]

7. "It was an honest mistake"

Hang on--let me go get an onion out of the kitchen so I can cry some tears for the poor, incompetent Bush regime.

:cry:


I don't know why any reporter would want to travel on the WH junkets anyway. They won't get any news they couldn't get from WH press releases.

[loudsue]

8. Just more TOTAL incompetence from the bush administration!

Bush hasn't hired anyone that is a "professional" to do a job since he got there.

All of his hires are strictly good at politics and good-ole-boy nepotism.

This has to be the makings of a NEW WORD in American dictionaries:

bush-ie (boosh-ee), n. 1. Someone who is appointed to, or hired for, a job for which they are toally unqualified. 2. An imbecile appointed by president george bush to oversee an office for which they have no experience or intellectual knowledge.

Bush has created a whole new word.

:kick::kick::kick: