Rice apologises over passport files
Updated on 21 March 2008
The American State Department has apologised after the passport files of Presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain were wrongly accessed.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the candidates to say sorry for the unauthorised breach by three contract workers, two of whom have been fired.
Officials said the workers appeared to have acted without a political motivation.
No embarrassing details seem to have been uncovered
The State Department has admitted there are breaches every year, but celebrities are usually the victims.
However, it looks much more serious when all three Presidential candidates are involved, especially because this happend to Bill Clinton too when he was running in 1992 and it wasn't supposed to happen again after a three-year investigation.
But there has been some good news for Obama because he received the endorsement of New Mexico governor Bill Richardson and the story keeps more controversial issues about race relations off the front pages.
