Verizon Employees Snooped on Obama's Phone Records

In a statement issued late Thursday evening, Verizon Wireless acknowledged that some of its employees accessed president-elect Barack Obama's cell phone records without authorization.

The statement read:

"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. All employees who have accessed the account -- whether authorized or not -- have been put on immediate leave, with pay."

Verizon also apologized for the security breach:

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

Verizon said that Obama's account had been inactive for months, and that no emails or other data was accessed as the phone was a simple flip-phone, not a smartphone.

With reports such as this emerging, it makes sense that Obama won't be permitted to use his BlackBerry in the White House - it's simply not secure enough.

This is, however, not the first time Obama's records have been improperly accessed. In March both Obama and Hillary Clinton learned that their passport files had been accessed by employees in the US State Department. At the time, Obama described the incident as "deeply disturbing." He would no doubt feel just as disturbed over this last incident.