Report: Obama's cell records improperly accessed

President-elect Barack Obama's cell phone billing records were improperly accessed by employees of Verizon Wireless, CNN reported late on Thursday.

Obama's transition team was informed of the breach by Verizon Wireless representatives on Wednesday, team spokesman Robert Gibbs told the news agency. The Secret Service has been informed, Gibbs said.

The phone, a voice flip-phone with no e-mail access, is no longer active or being used by Obama, the report said. Lists of phone numbers and calls made by Obama could have been accessed, but "nobody was monitoring voicemail," Gibbs is quoted as saying.

Verizon Wireless has notified federal law enforcement authorities, Verizon Wireless President and Chief Executive Lowell McAdam wrote in an internal company e-mail distributed on Wednesday that CNN obtained. In a press statement, McAdam wrote:

"This week we learned that a number of Verizon Wireless employees have, without authorization, accessed and viewed President-Elect Barack Obama's personal cell phone account. The account has been inactive for several months. The device on the account was a simple voice flip-phone, not a BlackBerry or other smartphone designed for e-mail or other data services."

"All employees who have accessed the account - whether authorized or not - have been put on immediate leave, with pay. As the circumstances of each individual employee's access to the account are determined, the company will take appropriate actions. Employees with legitimate business needs for access will be returned to their positions, while employees who have accessed the account improperly and without legitimate business justification will face appropriate disciplinary action."

"We apologize to President-Elect Obama and will work to keep the trust our customers place in us every day."

Employees who viewed the records without authorization could be fired, McAdam said in the internal e-mail.

This is the latest in a string of technology-related security incidents to hit this election season. Earlier this month, Newsweek reported that PCs used by the campaigns of Obama and former Republican presidential candidate John McCain were compromised last summer.

In September, McCain's running mate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin had her Yahoo e-mail account broken into. And back in April, someone exploited a weakness in the Web site for Obama's campaign and redirected some visitors to then-Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton's site.

[ferretboy88]

This is why Bush stopped using email in 2000 and why Obama will have to give up his blackberry. These types of communication is just not safe and secure.

[coryschulz]

Don't people who work for the government have special phones that encrypt everything and keep everything extra private? I would've thought they'd have this by now.

[sevenalive]

Well he wasn't/isn't a president at the time. Also the phone carrier knows about everything that happened on the phone. however they do not track what websites were accessed. they know, phone numbers, dates, times, duration. Any purchases made from their content store also.

So anyone who has access to view accounts, like Verizon employees, they can get in and view your account. Now it's illegal to do so without authorization, and due to FCC regulations the carrier cannot provide you with phone numbers or other sensitive information over the phone, even if authenticated with a pin code.

Source: I work for a major Wireless carrier doing phone cust service.

[KannanShan]

Technology should come with a waiver that it is not secure. People should have no expectation of privacy unless they are alone in a room with someone. This expectation of privacy where one believes his email is safe, and cell phone conversations are private is unrealistic. Honestly, if you have something to hide or keep safe, don't email it to your address book.

[gsmiller88]

As long as he wasn't in contact with Monica he shouldn't have anything to worry about.

[kirkules]

This is why they are writing that he will have to give up the Blackberry or one of the reasons.

[smogg58]

This is not a technology issue and there is no need to have waivers accompanying the gear. It is a records keeping and access issue. Since most everything today is stored in electronic databases, access is much easier unless the application has permission levels.

This is no different than the days of file cabinets with locking draws. If everyone has the key then why do you need a locking draw? Today, if there are not varying levels of access to systems and the records they hold then they are open and avaialble to those who would violate the trust their employer has placed in them. These Verizon Wireless employees violated this trust. It will be that much harder for Verizon to trust them again in the same role, so either move them to a part of the organization that does not have this type of access to records or fire them.

Whether the phone was email, voicemail, or web capable is also not the issue. Service providers keep certain records of activity for business and marketing reasons as well as certain legal obligations and those records can be obtained with specific legal process issued by authorized courts. Employees accessing or even worse - distributing - information without legal authority or business reasons are taking great risk and these Verizon Wireless employees could not only face the lose of their jobs, but also criminal charges. I'm not sure what these employees were thinking but it is obvious that they weren't looking at the whole picture.