State Dept. investigating passport-data snooping

— -- The passport files of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and John McCain were breached, the State Department announced Friday, a day after it revealed Senator Barack Obama's file was also accessed without authorization.

The revelations prompted calls from Congressional leaders who demanded more details and promised their own inquiries.

A contract employee in a passport office who had accessed Obama's file, also tapped into McCain's file, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

The employee has been disciplined, but remains on the job.

"We are reviewing our options with respect to that individual's continued employment with the contractor working at the State Department," McCormack said. "I can tell you that individual no longer has access to that kind of information."

Two other employees in two other State Department locations were fired for accessing Obama's file.

They worked for a Virginia-based company called Stanley Inc., according to the Associated Press.

Earlier this week, the 3,500-person firm won a five-year, $570-million contract to support passport services at the State Department.

The company is referring all questions to the State Department. An agency official confirmed that the two contractors had been employed at Stanley. The official requested anonymity because the information had not been publicly released.

McCormack said the employees likely accessed the files out of "imprudent curiousity," but that the department is investigating.

Clinton's file was breached in 2007 when an individual last summer accessed her file as part of a training session involving another State Department worker.

McCormack said the one-time violation was immediately recognized and the person was admonished.

The incidents raise questions as to whether the information may have been accessed for political purposes.

In 1992, a Republican political appointee at the State Department was demoted over a search of presidential candidate Bill Clinton's passport records.