ah i misread your example.  the following works to reproduce it:


Python 2.6.2 (release26-maint, Apr 19 2009, 01:56:41) 
[GCC 4.3.3] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import time, getpass
>>> time.sleep(5)
getpass.getpass()  


>>> getpass.getpass()
Password: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/lib/python2.6/getpass.py", line 81, in unix_getpass
    stream.write('\n')
IOError: [Errno 29] Illegal seek