In private hands

Two people were fired at the State Department last week for snooping on the passport files of the three remaining major party presidential candidates. A third has been suspended pending an investigation into a similar allegation.

The workers were caught, according to The Washington Post, because the State Department has flagged hundreds of passport files belonging to high-profile people, automatically triggering the notification of a supervisor when they are accessed.

What's particularly interesting about the matter, though, was the reaction of many in Washington.

It turns out that all three individuals involved were contract employees -- private, civilian workers with outside firms hired by the State Department to handle certain clerical functions.

So rather than see the issue as an opportunity to debate the dangers inherent in a government that demands its citizens turn over so much sensitive and personal information, critics seized upon the mini-scandal to denounce privatization.

"Passport scandal raises questions about federal reliance on private contractors," noted an Associated Press headline. "Have we gone too far in recent years by perhaps relying too much on contractors?" asked Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Texas.

In fact, though, government officials admit that they would never have been able to process the massive influx in passport applications that overwhelmed the State Department over the past year without help from outside firms. And farming out some functions of the federal bureaucracy has helped keep the federal work force at a fairly stable number over the past decade, a savings to taxpayers.

In addition, it's folly to think that a worker is more likely to snoop on private information simply because he doesn't enjoy a full federal benefits package.

Just 10 years ago, the IRS admitted that it was investigating hundreds of cases of employees "browsing" through private tax returns. That scandal -- involving full-fledged federal workers -- resulted in legislation banning the practice.

It's also worth noting that government supervisors were able to take immediate action against the contract employees who peeked at passport records. Meanwhile, two-thirds of the cases the IRS probed involving civil servants snooping on tax returns resulted in "counseling" or no punishment at all.

That, alone, speaks volumes about the benefits of privatization.