Today's Article
The two contractors
who were fired for
spying into Obama's
passport records
worked for a company
run by an apparent
Clinton supporter.
The American Spark
Could Clinton Donor Be At Center Of Obama Records Controversy?

By Cliff Montgomery - Mar. 21st, 2008

The two contractors who were fired for spying into the passport records of Democratic presidential hopeful
Barack Obama had worked for an Arlington, VA-based company called Stanley, Inc., according to a story just
off the wire from
The Associated Press (AP).

And
The American Spark also has learned that the company's CEO appears to be a firm supporter of
Obama's rival for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY).

The 3,500-person corporation just days ago won a five-year contract with the State Department to provide
passport services, a deal worth a whopping $570-million.

What is Stanley, Inc.? Hoovers, a data company which "gives its customers a competitive edge with insightful
information about industries, companies, and key decision makers," provides an interesting company
description of Stanley, Inc.:

"Stanley isn't afraid of big government. The company provides IT services--including consulting, systems
integration, logistics, outsourcing, and engineering--primarily to military and civilian agencies of the US
government. Its clients have included the Library of Congress, the Department of Defense, the Department of
Transportation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, the Department of State,
NASA, and the Smithsonian Institution."

Stanley CEO Philip Nolan's apparent choice for our next president may be also of interest.
The American
Spark
has discovered that a Philip Nolan who works at Stanley, Inc. donated $1,000 to the 2008 presidential
campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) on Feb. 20th, according to a March Federal Election Commission
report. Whether this is the same Philip Nolan could not immediately be verified--but the
Spark will continue to
look into it.  

The corporation currently is referring all queries to the U.S. State Department. An agency official told
AP that
the two fired contractors had been Stanley employees. The official asked not to be identified, as this info has
yet to be publicly released.

"State Department employees snooped through the passport files of three presidential candidates--Sens.
Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain," an earlier
AP story stated, "and the department's
inspector general is investigating."

Sean McCormack, spokesman for the State Department, told reporters that the snooping into Clinton and
McCain's passport files had not been discovered until Friday. Officials previously found out about the
unauthorized exploration through Obama's records; a subsequent review revealed the searches into the other
senators' files.

The unwarranted searches into the records of presidential candidates reminds one of Watergate. To make
matters more suspicious--if that's possible--the two Stanley employees were quickly fired after the discovery of
their search into Obama's passport records, before they had been properly interviewed by government
investigators.

Such spying also is reminiscent of a lesser-known 1992 incident, in which a GOP political appointee working at
then-President George H.W. Bush's State Department was caught conducting eerily similar witch hunts into
the passport records of Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton. That employee was not fired, only
demoted.

McCormack told
AP that the third spy who searched through Obama's files also had reviewed McCain's
passport record earlier in the year. That contract employee was reprimanded, but has not been fired. But the
employee has lost all official access to passport files, McCormack added.



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