Passport security breach at U.S. State Department

Clark Howard was talking this past Friday about a story he was reading in The Washington Post about how a crooked employee at the U.S. State Department who worked with a criminal ring to steal personal info from passports.

What kind of info is available in a passport record? Basically everything that a criminal could want to steal your identity and open false lines of credit. That includes Social Security number, physical description, names and places of birth of your parents, etc.

The D.C. police stumbled onto this ring back in March when they stopped a 24 year old smoking marijuana in a car. They had probable cause to search the vehicle and found passport applications, multiple credit cards and more. It was the tip of the iceberg of cracking this ring that potentially had access to the records of up to 192 million Americans who have passports.

The State Department is now sending letters to the several hundred people who actually did have their identities breached, and they’re offering free credit monitoring for a year. But they refuse to talk to the media on record about this employee breach.

So what can you do? Clark say’s there is only one imperfect remedy — but it works: Do a credit freeze. See Clark’s guide to credit freezes for detailed info.

One other thing. If you have been reading my blogs for awhile, you should already know that I support the death penalty. This type of action by anybody deserves the death penalty because these people are out to destroy someone’s life. This is such BS! But we’re such pussies in this country anymore that alot of idiots out there will be crying that the punishment is to severe.

Read the full Washington Post story.

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