Verizon Fires Employees Who Snooped On President-Elect Obama's Personal Cell Phone Records

The news broke publicly late last week that a number of Verizon employees had taken the liberty to sneak a peek at President-elect Barack Obama's personal cell phone records. This weekend, it's been announced that the employees involved have been fired.In case you're not aware of the news, Thomas Claburn summed up the recent events in this story that ran last Friday.

Here's the statement Verizon published on the incident last week:

"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."

This weekend, CNN reported that the employees have been fired. While we still don't know how many employees snooped, we do now know that these employees would not have been able to read e-mails, text messages, or listen to voice mails. We also know the case has been presented to law enforcement.