Curiosity killed the cat, or in this case, got some employees fired… Verizon Wireless publicly announced that several of its employees have accessed President-elect Barack Obama’s personal cell phone account, without authorization.

Although the account has been inactive for several months, and the device on the account was a simple voice flip-phone, without an e-mail function, the employees have been put on immediate leave, with pay.

According to Verizon Wireless President and CEO Lowell McAdam, all employees who have accessed Barack Obama’s personal account, whether authorized or not, have been laid off, until the company establishes the circumstances of each individual employee.

The employees who accessed the account for legitimate reasons will return to their positions, while the others that have accessed it without authorization will face “appropriate disciplinary actions.”

“We apologize to President-elect Barack Obama and will work to keep the trust our customers place in us every day,” McAdam ended.

It still remains unclear exactly how many workers have been involved in the matter. Barack Obama has already been notified of the situation. No e-mails or voice mails were ever compromised by the employees’ curiosity.

But this matter brought to the attention another matter, regarding President-elect Obama and his choice of technology as President of the United States. Obama is known to have used a simple flip phone with no e-mail or other data services, but the question is: will he ever upgrade? This involves a lot of security issues, which would be unacceptable.