The recent news that the passport files of the three presidential candidates, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain have been accessed by contract employees of the State Department has brought the issue of information security and personal privacy to the public's attention.  According to an AP report, passport files containing personal information about several "high-profile Americans", including the late Anna Nicole Smith, have been accessed on at least 20 separate occasions.  Although the review of Ms. Smith's file appears to have come from a "legitimate" source, the report states,

"Supervisors recorded each instance a file was viewed because the applications in question belonged to members of a select group of several hundred citizens whose passport files were "flagged" for extra protection due to their visibility, the officials said. Among these people are government leaders, movie stars and athletes, the officials said.

The list maintained by Bureau of Consular Affairs has included as many as 500 people at any one time, they said. The list is kept secret partly to deter workers from making unauthorized inquiries into high-profile records. Although there are no formal criteria for inclusion, people on the list are deemed to warrant special consideration because of their public status, the officials said."

Don't you wish you warranted such "special consideration"?  I guess if Joe Ordinary Citizen (read: all you peons out there) has all the details of his private life trotted out online on public record websites for the whole world to see by Big Title, the information industry and their willing accomplices within his local county government, it's no big deal; but when the passport records of three "high-profile Americans" (read: the ruling classes) are breached...oh, my word, that's just SHOCKING!