Clark has a story that will turn your stomach if you have a passport. The Washington Post reports that there was a crooked employee at the U.S. State Department who worked with a criminal ring to steal personal info from passports.

What kind of info is available in a passport record? Basically everything that a criminal could want to steal your identity and open false lines of credit. That includes Social Security number, physical description, names and places of birth of your parents, etc.

The D.C. police stumbled onto this ring back in March when they stopped a 24 year old smoking marijuana in a car. They had probable cause to search the vehicle and found passport applications, multiple credit cards and more. It was the tip of the iceberg of cracking this ring that potentially had access to the records of up to 192 million Americans who have passports.

The State Department is now sending letters to the several hundred people who actually did have their identities breached, and they're offering free credit monitoring for a year. But they refuse to talk to the media on record about this employee breach.

So what can you do? There's only one imperfect remedy -- but it works: Do a credit freeze. See Clark's guide to credit freezes for detailed info.