TRUST THE GOVERNMENT WITH YOUR DATA? “A former foreign service officer at the State Department pleaded guilty on Monday to illegally reading the private passport files of three presidential candidates as well as those of actors, athletes and media figures. The former employee, Lawrence C. Yontz, looked through the files of nearly 200 people as a result of his ‘idle curiosity,’ prosecutors and his lawyer said in a filing in federal court here. The plea grows out of the State Department’s revelation six months ago that a number of employees and contractors with access to its internal passport database improperly peered into the files of three senators running for president: John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.”

Was it really just “idle curiosity?”