Yeah, turns out “hey, I’ve heard of that guy” typically isn’t a good enough reason to go rifling through someone’s files for dirty laundry.
Loretta Adams was surprised to learn that sudden fame subjects Ohioans to computer records searches at the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services.
It doesn’t work that way at the 88 county agencies, said Adams, executive director of the Ohio Job and Family Services Directors’ Association.
“That would not be a legitimate use of government access. We don’t use it to pull people in the public eye,” Adams said. She said such checks were unheard of when she was a deputy director of the state agency in the 1990s…
Adams said government workers must have probable cause — recognizing a name from an active case or getting a tip on possible fraud — before rummaging through confidential records that include tax and salary information…
Officials with Job and Family Services departments in Franklin, Cuyahoga and Licking counties agree with Adams.
If you’re confused about the players here, the Department of Job and Family Services is the state agency led by Helen Jones-Kelley, Obama donor and inquisitor of the newly famous. The Job and Family Services Directors’ Association led by Adams is a nonprofit that represents the state’s county departments. In a nutshell, you’ve got 88 separate local agencies here asking why the state thinks JTP’s fame is some sort of snoop trigger when, er, none of them do. Remember, Vanessa Niekamp, who ran the search on Wurzelbacher at the behest of her supervisor, had never heard of the policy either.
Needless to say, the worse this gets, the more imperative it is for the RNC or JTP or a combination thereof to sue. Maybe that’ll be our new project next week: The Joe Wurzelbacher “Teach Obama Cultists in Power an Important Lesson about Punitive Damages” Legal Defense Fund. Exit question: Is anyone else covering this except for the Columbus Dispatch? And Fox News, when the boss is on?
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