SoylentNews

An Anonymous Coward writes:

As chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Congressman Jason Chaffetz, a Republican from Utah, dared to criticize [cnn.com] the Secret Service. Unfortunately for Rep. Chaffetz, he had applied for a job at the agency in 2003, but had not been hired, with a code "BQA" indicating that there were better-qualified applicants.

Within 18 minutes after Mr. Chaffetz convened a hearing about Secret Service agents who were said to have been drunk, a Secret Service employee viewed his job application, according to a report [dhs.gov] (mirror [msn.com]) by the Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security. That employee telephoned another, with 45 employees eventually viewing Chaffetz' database record. His record, containing his Social Security number and birthdate, was sent in an e-mail, contrary to DHS' policy on personally identifiable information.

The assistant director for training suggested that "some information that he might be find embarrassing needs to get out." The congressman's job application and rejection became the subject of a story [thedailybeast.com] in The Daily Beast. One Secret Service staffer admitted to leaking the information to the Washington Post [washingtonpost.com].

stories about the report:

• The Salt Lake Tribune [sltrib.com]
• NBC News [nbcnews.com]
• Washington Post [washingtonpost.com]
• Politico [politico.com]
• Los Angeles Times [latimes.com]
• USA Today [usatoday.com]

---

Original Submission