Bozeman to job seekers: We won't seek passwords
The city of Bozeman, Mont., has rescinded its long-standing policy that job applicants provide user names and passwords to social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.
According to a press release (PDF) issued Friday:
The extent of our request for a candidate's password, user name, or other internet information appears to have exceeded that which is acceptable to our community. We appreciate the concern many citizens have expressed regarding this practice and apologize for the negative impact this issue is having on the City of Bozeman.
The city stopped the practice as of midday Friday, until it "conducts a more comprehensive evaluation of the practice," the release said.
Bozeman, which is about 100 miles north of Yellowstone National Park, found itself in the international spotlight this week when the local media reported that the city government's background check included evaluating job candidates' suitability based on their social-networking site postings. The city had been doing so for a few years.
The background check form stated: "Please list any and all current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc."
Groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights organization, derided the practice.
"I think it's indefensibly invasive and likely illegal as a violation of the First Amendment rights of job applicants," EFF attorney Kevin Bankston told CNET News earlier this week. "Essentially, they're conditioning your application for employment on your waiving your First Amendment rights...and risking the security of your information by requiring you to share your password with them...Where does it stop? How about a photocopy of your diary?"
City Manager Chris Kukulski noted to KBZK TV that information wasn't sought until "you were conditionally offered the job." The passwords already received will remain the city's confidential property, the CBS affiliate reported.
Natalie Weinstein is an associate editor who works out of Austin, Texas. She spent a decade as a reporter and editor in the newspaper industry before joining the CNET News staff in 2000. E-mail Natalie. 
Any the statement that "information wasn't sought until "you were conditionally offered the job" is proof positive that these trolls just don't get it. People have jobs and then they have a life. You, stupid city bureaucrats have NO RIGHT to invade your employees' personal life.
I hope that at least some of those who, in the past, yielded to your stupid demands sue your city and you personally and demand trillions of dollars in damages. I have little doubt that juries will be more than happy to find you guilty because you are.
"Now that the entire world knows that we are a-holes, maybe we should stop?"
Ahahahahahahahahaha!!!
Then again, I can't fathom ANYTHING in local government that would require much of any background check. Heaven forbid if the person driving the snowplow in the winter or mowing the grass at the local park supports obama, is muslim, is against abortion or any other completely non-job-relevant thing. Since when is it legal or even OK to consider aspects of a person's personal life when it comes to employment. Hell, while we are at it, lets put some "Irish need not apply" signs up and make blacks ride in the back of the bus again.
I better not rant too much here or I might sacrifice any possibility of future employment or even risk having the "thought police" knock down my door and haul me off to Guantanamo Bay for some waterboarding sessions.
Wait, according to Owell (the Hoyle of Marxism), they'd do what you indicate to their own first, keep us around as a needed opposition.
then how many states secrets do they have to protect that they would even consider "altering" your web site and making it look like your the bad guy when it is them.
Anyone have a vengeful boss? I had a few and they are now wanted by the US marshals.
D~W
The city was being LAZY by doing their own background research. They figured, "hey, we'll require of our applicants to disclose X,Y,Z, so we don't have to hire some pimply teenager for $10 an hour to scour Google." At the least, the city attorney should be fired.
Talk about a Yoo move.
As if the first thing these victims wouldn't do is change their passwords... rofl
But the act of requiring this information is a clear violation of the first amendment, because it is the government abridging your free speech. A private company has the right to ask for this stuff (you don't have to comply and they may or may not hire you), but the city can not select you based on the content of your speech or associations unless they are illegal acts....
Thus, I wouldn't apply
Cody
It wasn;t Government trying to spy on you, it were Government employees being uneducated in modern way of the internet.
- by inachu1 June 22, 2009 9:31 AM PDT
- They try to use the same reasoning to keep using your passwords as for the same reason that people higher up in GOVT positions think that Good DECENT law abiding people should have nothing to hide and that these good people should live in glass houses and should not have to protest to any such data mining. But the more you put more and more people into data mining then the less secure our lives become.
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(28 Comments)Soon if more govt cities make demands like this and then they will try to make themselves immune to class action lawsuits if your SNN ends up on a credit card sharing website while proclaiming innocence that they took the precautions of using hardware software soloutions to try and safeguard such data.
If they did not request this data then there would not be a fault to begin with.
So the conclusion is the dept asking for these rights to ask people for such information Have an unusaully high liability on their hands in making their local govt look like a den of theives by way of deniability,acountability to nobody. This sort of elitist mentality usually prone to political hack jobs and hit men. If you want to sully your reputation with that a common criminal then yes go ahead and keep requesting for passwords that do not belong to you.