MSNBC: Two contract employees of the State Department were fired and a third person was disciplined for inappropriately looking at Democratic Sen. Barack Obama’s passport file. Spokesman Sean McCormack Thursday night confirmed instances of what he called “imprudent curiosity” by the State Department employees. McCormack said the department itself detected the breaches, which occurred which occurred separately on Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and March 14. The three people who had access to Obama’s passport records were contract employees of the department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs, NBC News reported.
A senior official told NBC News there was “no political motivation” to the incidents, adding that the three were low-level contract employees doing administrative work and accessed Obama’s records out of “curiosity.” This official told NBC News that he does not believe any of the information was sent anywhere. A spokesman for Obama’s presidential campaign called for a complete investigation. The spokesman, Bill Burton, also demanded to know who looked at the file and why, and why the State Department did not reveal details of the security breach until now.
Monitoring systems are tripped when an employee accesses the records of the high-profile individual, a department official told NBC News. “When the monitoring system is tripped, we immediately seek an explanation for the records access. If the explanation is not satisfactory, the supervisor is notified.” MORE
WIKIPEDIA: Ratfucking is an American slang term for political sabotage or dirty tricks. It was first brought to public attention by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein in their book All the President’s Men. Woodward and Bernstein’s expose All the President’s Men reports that many staffers who had attended the University of Southern California such as Donald Segretti, Tim Elbourne, Ronald Louis Ziegler, H. R. Haldeman and Dwight Chapin had participated in the highly-competitive student elections there. UPI reporter Karlyn Barker sent Woodward and Bernstein a memo “Notes On the USC Crowd” that outlined the connection. Fraternities, sororities and underground fraternal coordinating organizations such as Theta Nu Epsilon and their splintered rival “Trojans for Representative Government” engaged in creative tricks and underhanded tactics to win student elections.[1][2] Officially, control over minor funding and decision-making on campus life was at stake but the positions also gave bragging rights and prestige. It was either promoted by or garnered the interest of major political figures on the USC board of trustees such as Dean Rusk and John A. McCone.[3][4]
Officials at the FBI had been carrying out investigation of activities prior to and including the Watergate break-in on June 17, 1972. FBI administrator Mark Felt, disgruntled because he had been passed over for the position of FBI Director, had wiretapped White House figures, and organized black bag operations to gather information. He had also been illegally relaying information to journalists Woodward and Bernstein. Felt offered 
details of a program of orchestrated political sabotage by supporters of Richard Nixon against Nixon’s political opponents. Mark Felt in his capacity at the FBI had himself been given leeway to use “dirty tricks” against perceived radicals, thus clearing the way for his illegal wiretapping.[9] These included, but were not limited to, canceling meeting-hall reservations just prior to rallies, putting out false press releases or “leaked documents” in the name of political opponents, spying on rival campaigns, putting plants into rival campaigns, purloining speeches and information, vote contracting, jamming phone lines, ordering vast quantities of food for delivery in the name of rival campaigns, hiring “rioters” and “activists, conducting deceptive or offensive get out the vote phone canvasses, push polls, and similar activities. The leaks compounded paranoia and recriminations in the White House resulting the end of Nixon’s presidency. Mark Felt’s illegal wiretapping and leaks had been used by several White House figures as a defense but were never proven or verified until years later, just prior to Felt’s passing. MORE