Montana City Requires Workers' Internet Accounts 836
justinlindh writes "Bozeman, Montana is now requiring all applicants for city jobs to furnish Internet account information for 'background checking.' A portion of the application reads, "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.' The article goes on to mention, 'There are then three lines where applicants can list the Web sites, their user names and log-in information and their passwords.'"
Re:WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
Give away your password... (Score:5, Insightful)
This can't be legal (Score:3, Insightful)
User reaction == best part (Score:5, Insightful)
FTFA: "No one has ever removed his or her name from consideration for a job due to the request, Sullivan added."
Then they're getting exactly what they asked for. Considering that users will hand out their passwords for a chocolate bar, this sort of line doesn't scare me much any more. Is that sad or am I just bitter?
If pressed, I would consider handing out the *wrong* passwords, though; when they come back saying they couldn't log in, I'd alert it to the sites in question as a TOS violation, employment discrimination, etc..
Worst Policy EVAR!!! EVER EVEN!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Business Websites??? (Score:4, Insightful)
What counts as business? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:As offensive as this is... (Score:1, Insightful)
I suspect that the available pool of applicants all favour abrogation of privacy rights for whatever personality driven reason. The problem will perpetuate.
They really understand what they are asking for? (Score:3, Insightful)
So, they are offically asking to violate the Terms of Service of all of these services?
I'm sure that each one has a policy about not sharing login information for your personal accounts.
What's next, asking for your login for your banking information, so they can see how you spend your personal money?
Personal background checks are fine (and valid for many jobs, maybe not for a rank-and-file city job, but meh).
But they need to be done properly and honestly. This is just a really lazy and silly way to do it.
Obviously this policy and application wasn't vetted by anyone with a clue.
Re:Give away your password... (Score:3, Insightful)
I would like to mod you "Right On" but there is no such option.
What else? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe my bank access info?
Keys to my house?
Maybe a beaver shot of my wife?
Yeah, pretty sure that's breaking the law (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a LOT of stuff that prospective employers can't ask you [hrworld.com] (race, sex, family status, disability, etc.). One of those things is asking you about social organizations you belong to (presumably because someone could derrive illegal information from this like your age, nationality, religion, etc.). Asking for your Facebook/Myspace/etc. information would almost CERTAINLY fall under this (since things like age/sex/etc. are standard categories on most social websites, and this information is supposed to be basically anonymous) and is really opening them up for a rather impolite visit from the EEOC [eeoc.gov].
I suspect that, in these hard times, it's just that no one has bothered to file a claim against them yet.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, new plan:
1) Make up phony job.
2) Put up lots of "now hiring" signs.
3) Ask for online account information, passwords.
4) Massive credit card fraud -- chances are people use the same passwords for everything
5) PROFIT!
Biased towards people who violate rules (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of those sites (if not all of them) probably state in the TOS that you are not to share your login information. So... they're asking people to violate their agreements, and won't hire people who refuse. For example, Facebook's Terms [facebook.com] section 4 item 6 states "You will not share your password, let anyone else access your account, or do anything else that might jeopardize the security of your account."
Brilliant. If you want to bribe a city official, go to Bozeman, because they only hire people who violate policy.
City jobs are a bad thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is there any level at which collective action (otherwise known as 'government') is a good thing? What is wrong with city jobs? Would you have the private sector take over all functions of government, on all levels? I would think, at the very least you would be in favor of a public police force to protect your property. No matter how many guns you have, someone has more, and is more willing to use them than you are. Fire departments are nice, too. As are public roads. In fact, I can't think of many things that city governments currently do that the private sector could do better. The private sector exists to give you as little value for your dollar as you can be convinced to accept. The government is an agent working on your behalf.
Re:Passwords? (Score:3, Insightful)
are they genuinely fishing for stuff to exclude applications from consideration? Or just looking for an excuse to fire you later because you didn't disclose all of your online activities?
perhaps trying to avoid employer liability for stuff you say "in secret". They ask you for it so they can vet you, and you hid stuff from em; so they are not liable?
Past experience - healthcare records (Score:4, Insightful)
The potential for misuse is absolutely incredible. I recall reading many events during which folks at the US Social Security Administration were looking up political candidates' records, where hospital employees in Los Angeles were looking up the medical records of celebrities that visited their hospital for care.
Now they want me to let the HR drones have the ability to log into my facebook, slashdot, etc accounts?
Re:Pedantry (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Unpopular (Score:5, Insightful)
How are there even 2% that don't consider it an invasion of privacy?
They're the trolls who loudly proclaim "if you're not doing anything wrong then you have nothing to hide" regarding every privacy issue.
Re:Real Opportunity (Score:5, Insightful)
Abuse it yourself and claim that the City did it!
Re:WTF (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm so astounded, I don't even know how to put my objections into words - I don't know where to start!
Re:Passwords? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:User reaction == best part (Score:5, Insightful)
That's an excellent point. It sounds like the city of Bozeman is setting itself up to be perfect target for social engineering. By selecting people who would put all of their usernames and passwords on a job application, they'll end up hiring people who would probably be just as happy to dole out information about their accounts on the city's network. Might be fun to see if whomever answers the phone at city hall would like to help "Tom from IT" resolve a printer issue by giving him her username and password.
Then again, maybe this is a clever way of not hiring people who would fall for that.
Re:Broad brush strokes (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Unpopular (Score:5, Insightful)
Look, the requirement is clearly illegal. If I was ever confronted with such a form, I'd simply write in the line "ACLU" with the phone number.
Re:City jobs are a bad thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Economic coercion is force. Stored labor's only use is to coerce others to give their labor to you. When the choice is, 'work for me (or someone else rich like me) or starve,' then that is coercion. In an anarcho-capitalist system, non-owners are at the mercy of resource owners.
The labor market suffers from a fundamental free market flaw, imbalance of information. A prospective employer knows less about the true value a potential worker brings to the endeavor than that worker does. Therefore, all potential employers must assume that each worker is potentially lying about their value, and must undervalue that worker's potential contribution, to make up for all the dishonest workers. A free market will never value labor fairly in relation to capital.
My password (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:City jobs are a bad thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
The private sector does EVERYTHING better, because it is done voluntarily. They don't force you to make a decision against your will.
WRONG! The private sector does not do things well when it requires massive integration and cooperation among many different groups to make a decent solution. Roads are the easiest example. Could you really imagine privately constructed, maintained and designed roads? One block this way, the next a different way. Would the private police and fire not do their job if you hadn't paid them? Isn't that covered under RICO?
Look, I'm all about free market, but to say everything is better in the private sector is just about as dumb as any other blanket statement (including this one).
Re:Give away your password... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd agree with you 100% in any other economy. People have very few employment options these days, and will make sacrifices they wouldn't otherwise consider.
I can't see how this is legal. They can't even claim that it's "optional" because it would be too easy to discriminate against those that leave it blank. Incredible...
MadCow.
Re:As offensive as this is... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only going to deter people with average or above intelligence.
Re:Yeah, pretty sure that's breaking the law (Score:3, Insightful)
In spite of what HR related websites want you to believe it's not illegal to ask any of those questions. What it is, is a Real Bad Idea (TM). It's illegal to discriminate on the basis of a protected class, but it isn't illegal to ask per se. If you're foolish enough to ask one of those questions, it does leave you wide open to a law suit - but that suit is going to allege you discriminated based on that information, and they're most likely going to need some demographic information from your company to support their charges if you don't roll over and settle right away.
An example, a candidate named Hans Richtenfliegen interviews with Wienerhoffman schnitzel factory. The interviewer foolishly asks Hans, who happens to be German, if he still has any relatives back in the old country. Hans, after being turned down for the job, files a complaint with his local labor board alleging he was turned down based on his national origin. After some preliminary investigations, it turns out that 50% of upper management is of Germanic dissent, and the candidate who got the job, Jorg Waldenschwimmen, was also of German dissent. What's more, the overall demographics of the company closely conform to the demographics of the surrounding area. Hans is going to have a hard time making his case that something illegal took place based on that question. In other words, there's no such thing as an illegal question. But it's still a bad idea to tempt fate.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
City Attorney == Fail (Score:3, Insightful)
When this gets bounced out of court as un-Constitutional, I hope the city fires their attorney, Greg Sullivan. It's one thing for a clueless HR person to come up with BS like this, but it's the job of people like Sullivan to review it for legality issues. This guy is clearly not up to the job if he allowed this to pass.
And, really, if I give them no information at all, how are they going to prove it? "Anyone not here, please raise your hand."
Re:Real Opportunity (Score:3, Insightful)
But how do you prove that I am lying? Especially if you do something like drive past a City Hall or a City employee's house and use an open Wi-Fi access point to perform the abuse.
By asking for the account details the City has opened itself up to a whole can of worms of which unscrupulous people can make wonderful use of with little or no repercussions.
Re:City jobs are a bad thing? (Score:2, Insightful)
There are situations where the free market works much better than government currently does. It fails where there are significant externalities, imbalance of information, or the good/service is a natural monopoly.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
>Start on Slashdot ... that's what the rest of us do.
And end on Slatshot ... that's what the rest of us do.
Re:Worst Policy EVAR!!! EVER EVEN!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
You'll get a total of two types, liars who give you nothing or fakes, or idiots you actually give you this info.
hang on. I now see the logic in this.
this is for GOVERNMENT work. I think you just described the ideal government civil-service worker!
maybe there's more thought to this than it appears.
Oh hi. I'm a rocket scientist. Welcome to NASA, your friendly national air and space administration, run by civil servants.
Re:Broad brush strokes (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously though, even I've hardly ever seen my password in plain text in front of me! It hurts my eyes.
No kidding, the only time I ever see my password is when i type too fast and the keyboard misses the enter or tab press between username and password... O.o
Re:WTF (Score:1, Insightful)
No, because unions are a collection of workers who can collectively bargain with an employer. If you're hungry (and we are in a recession right now) and desparate, you'll put up with a lot of meaningless crap. With a union you don't have to.
Unless, of course, you're in the Teamsters (I was in that union once, BAD union, BAD BAD BAD)
Re:Worst Policy EVAR!!! EVER EVEN!!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
You also get a fair amount of the "that's not my job" types. Their job has a job description and a list of tasks on their yearly review. If a task does not show up on them, they refuse to do it. They have the right to be this wy, because they do do the task that are on their yearly review. In the private sector (non-union), you get rid of these people.
Re:City jobs are a bad thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, who paid for their fire trucks? I seriously doubt it was done through standing at lights with a boot asking for spare change...
Many fire depts have volunteer firefighters, that much is true. But that's still a far cry from having a private fire department.
The police force does not protect you or your property, they apprehend and hold for trial those who stole/damaged your property. That doesn't do you any good. The damage is already done.
Not if the public presence of police deters a crime from happening in the first place. Much of police work is after the fact, yes, but some is definitively preventative as well.
Re:As offensive as this is... (Score:3, Insightful)
If it deters people from applying for city jobs, it could prove to be a good thing.
-jcr
Yes, because cities work best when no one runs them. Roads, schools, parks, fire departments... no good can come of them! /sarcasm
Re:City jobs are a bad thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Everything I have ever seen indicates that it is a more efficient organization than any government fire department.
Only true due to your lack of experience with a sufficiently large sample of municipal fire departments.
On the other hand, you have the evidence of "it fits with your theory about how things work", so unfounded assertions away!
Anonymous Coward (Score:1, Insightful)
If you think this story is crazy enough, people you didn't read the document far enough. They want you to also waive the State Consititution's protections!
In accordance with Montana Constitution, [...], I understand I have the right to review information obtained through the reference check process; however, by signing below, I realize the City of Bozeman will NOT release the information provided to them to any person, including myself.
Is is possible to sign away your constitutionally protected rights?
Re:City jobs are a bad thing? (Score:3, Insightful)
Non-owners aren't at the mercy of the owners as long as they have a choice NOT to work for the owners.
I would very much expect that you'd get numerous collectivist groups form under a free society like this, just as you'd get corporations operating with a standard hierarchical structure. Just as long as there is no force to make everybody go one way or the other then you are free to choose how to proceed.
Re:City jobs are a bad thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow, what's with the idiots marking anyone who says anything in favor of the existence of government a troll? No wonder America is so hosed right now.
The monied elite have so thoroughly confounded people to the point that they reflexively recoil from anything that promotes their own best interests with the delusion that by supporting only the wealthy and powerful (which is what you do when you remove government altogether), they are somehow defending a morality that is more important than their own well being and the well being of the overwhelming majority of their neighbors.
Yeah, I'm advocating for the well being of my fellow man. I must be some sort of -1 Troll...
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
However, my beef is WAY more basic than that...why the hell are they asking for my internet information for in the first place!?!?
It is no ones business what websites I have up, or what forums I participate in...
What is this, the electronic version of submitting to a drug test?
Re:City jobs are a bad thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Government agents DO work on your behalf; at least, they do if your government doesn't suck. The Federal Government is (or should be) there to protect your rights and freedoms. State government is there to build roads and hospitals, and write speeding tickets to the rich morons in their Escalades who insist on driving at twice the speed limit on a snow-packed road endangering your life and property. Local governments are there to provide fire protection, police, etc.
If there were no cops there's no way in hell I'd stagger home from Felber's. I'm glad they're there to arrest drunk drivers and muggers.
The private sector does NOT do everything better. CWLP, my electric company, is city-owned. We have the lowest electric rates in the state, and it's not subsidized. I haven't lost power once since the tornados in 2006. When the two F-2 tornados tore up the town, everyone had electric service in a week or less, even though my neighborhood didn't have a single utility pole still standing.
A few months later a single F-1 hit the St Louis area, it took the Amerin corporation over a month to have everyone's electricity back on.
Crooks taking your money and liberty is BAD government. Start voting and maybe you can have GOOD government.
Anarchy always leads to monarchy, which is the absolute worst form of government.
How ironic! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
Since we all know that breaking a website's TOS is a felony [slashdot.org], any applicant who fills this form should be thrown in jail.
And whoever designed the application form should be charged with aiding and abetting a felony.
Re:WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
Democracy is by consensus; mugging isn't (Score:4, Insightful)
It's different.
This is quite different than being mugged and getting nothing in return. If you don't like the bargian, you have options.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
What is this, the electronic version of submitting to a drug test?
Yes. Absolutely.
This is the definition of the slippery slope. Employers have been able to get random drug tests an accepted and even expected part of every job; now that they've completed that goal, it's time to test the waters even further out.
Make no mistake about it, employers who use such tactics want to control their employees lives, plain and simple. They figure that they can make sure nobody in the company does anything even remotely controversial by basically putting a tracking device on their employees' social lives.
And to them, like all employers who would subject me to such non-employment related screening, I say a big, hearty fuck you.
Re:WTF (Score:3, Insightful)
On a side note, never had a drug test, and know only a few people in California in their early 20s who have had one. It seems more like an accepted thing now a days here that people doing entry level jobs do that sort of stuff.
Re:WTF (Score:3, Insightful)
I know what you mean. I really miss those 60hr work weeks we had before the unions. Oh wait, we are in software development or IT, we aren't part of a union and we are still working 60 hours a week. Fortunately, we only get paid for 40 hours so it doesn't count.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Insightful)
--sabre86
I made a contact in Bozeman (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Requesting the logon IDs and passwords is likely asking them to violate the ToS or EULA of the site or service. Most sites have restrictions against sharing logon information. Therefore, they're basically asking potential employees to breach a contract.
2) You would never want to hire someone who would hand over user IDs and passwords to a third party, otherwise you'll have employees who will gladly turn over city/employee logon information to every social engineer out there.
Honestly, I was surprised when I got a reply back indicating she would forward the information on. She was unaware of the new policy, and was thankful that I brought it to her attention.
Re:WTF (Score:1, Insightful)
Employers have been able to get random drug tests an accepted and even expected part of every job"
No job I would ever want. If an employer cares about what I do in my free time I don't want to work there.
Re:WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
Drug tests are a presumption of guilt, a demand for proof of innocence, and a monitoring of the inner workings of ones body (a violation of personal sovereignty).
The means of achieving them are irrelevant to their status as unjust.
Re:WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, you could attent Union meetings, and try to get the rules on breaks and workweeks changed.
That might work when there are enough similarly minded people in the union. In my case, there were six of us in the shop, and oh....a couple hundred linemen who liked things the way they were. It would have taken an act of God to change things there.
...but isn't it better that the workers have the ability to change the rules instead of the employer?
I guess that depends upon how marketable your talents are. I've only had one job, waaaaay back at the beginning of my career, where I couldn't negotiate better working conditions for myself. Since then, I have found that things are better when I negotiate my own terms of employment than when a union does it "on my behalf".
Re:WTF (Score:2, Insightful)
All very true and unions are often very inflexible both to employers and members. (I've been on both sides - once had a union file a grievance against me for stringing network cable, until they found out that it wasn't covered by their contract - but it was a pile of annoyance and paperwork.) But there are usually reasons for this - often enough some of those rules came about because employers were trying to subvert the union by introducing non-union labor - and once you establish that it is ok for a non-union person to unlock the computer (or whatever) suddenly the employer will find that that is much easier (and invariably cheaper) to hire non-union labor to do it.
The problem now is that both sides have become intransigent and usually employers have the upper hand, which makes the unions dig their heels in even deeper.
Re:WTF (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:WTF (Score:3, Insightful)
or, apply for the job, and refuse on the drug test. They can either drop the test, or drop you from the application process after expending hundreds, or even thousands of dollars of effort on moving you through it. If you get through to the final interview, and they say "congratulations, you've got the job, now go pee in this cup" and you refuse, they can scrap all the stuff they did to get you there, or give up trying to test you. Having to let the best candidate slip through their fingers repeatedly might also wake them up to how boneheaded the policy is - they won't figure that out if you just sit at home.
Re:WTF (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
Mine would be:
"Sure thing, boss!
satanrules.org. Check.
gayhornyandproud.com. Check
nambla.org. Check.
gnaa.org. Check.
ACLU.org. Double check.
EEOC.gov. Triple check. Read that one again, please. EEOC.GOV.
find-a-lawyer.com. Checkcheckcheck.
So, bi-weekly pay, right? Great. Where do I sign?"
Re:WTF (Score:2, Insightful)
That said, good luck to those geniuses in Montana. They had what maybe ten job applicants? Now they might get two? I can see how this will help them make a hiring decision. How many people live in Bozeman, MT? Yeah, I just love those nice sunny summer days up there. Both of them.
Re:WTF (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WTF (Score:2, Insightful)
A better solution would just be to not give them the information! If they find out about it later, then you can simply explain to them what their limits are as far as your personal freedoms are concerned. If they want to pursue the issue or somehow punish you for not giving them everything they want, then you start a legal action against them. Even if nothing happens at or after that point, there's still that bit of precedent that says "some of the applicants may actually have personal privacy rights and a desire to maintain them" and will likely tread more softly next time.
Re:WTF (Score:3, Insightful)
Even better, since I don't use illegal drugs I'll go ahead and give them the sample, wait for the tests to come back negative, and explain to them very clearly why I'm declining their employment offer at that point.
That "prevents" them from dismissing my refusal as "oh, a druggie who didn't want to get caught"