City Fights Blogger On Display of Public Information

rokkaku writes "When the gadfly blogger Claremont Insider went searching for information about employee compensation on the city of Claremont web site, they never expected to find scans of pay stubs for all the employees. Nor did they expect the city attorney to demand that they remove copies of those pay stubs from their web site. They found it especially odd since, according to California law, the compensation of public employees is public information."

Pay stub != compensation

Dear Rokkaku:

You are very confused. And I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Yes, a California judge has recently ruled that the compensation of public
employees is public information. But all of the pay stubs that I have
seen in, oh, the last 20 years have more information on them than that.

Many pay stubs have the employee's social security number on it. Is that
public information?
Are all of one's deductions for various benefits also public information?
What about the ones dealing with health care?
Or one's marital status?
Or amount of tax withholding?

In fact, an employee's pay stub probably has enough information on it
to steal that employee's identity. Yes, the public has a right to know
what a public employee earns. The public doesn't have a right to steal
a public employee's identity.

Re:

In fact, an employee's pay stub probably has enough information on it to steal that employee's identity. Yes, the public has a right to know what a public employee earns. The public doesn't have a right to steal a public employee's identity.

But it is ill

Re:Pay stub != compensation

Nice straw man, did you bother to actually look at what he scanned? There was no information about any of the things you mentioned(Except marital status, you could tell whether a girl was married by the Ms or Mrs.). All it had was a dollar amount of benefits given, Salary, and name.

See http://claremontca.blogspot.com/2007/09/labor-day_07.html [blogspot.com]

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The posting I read (before posting) said:

Until all this can be sorted out, we're posting the text of our Labor Day post minus the images in question. We maintain the city claims of confidentiality for the information posted on their website are baseless.

It

Re:Pay stub != compensation

The posting I read (before posting) said:

Until all this can be sorted out, we're posting the text of our Labor Day post minus the images in question. We maintain the city claims of confidentiality for the information posted on their website are baseless.

It does not mention if the text posted is the entirety of what was readable in the scans prior to their removal.

Nice attempt at weaseling, but if you RTFA it mentions what information they contained:

"there were no Social Security numbers, no dates of birth, no personal identifiers. The documents only contained name and pay information"

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Nice attempt at weaseling, but if you RTFA it mentions what information they contained:

"there were no Social Security numbers, no dates of birth, no personal identifiers. The documents only contained name and pay information"

Two things.

1. AOL didn't think

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and marital status of course is public information in most states and in most cases since it typically becomes a matter of court records which are public.

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Nice straw man, did you bother to actually look at what he scanned? There was no information about any of the things you mentioned(Except marital status, you could tell whether a girl was married by the Ms or Mrs.). All it had was a dollar amount of benefits given, Salary, and name.

From the article:

The city did not contact this blog, nor have we been told what information in the documents is confidential - there were no Social Security numbers, no dates of birth, no personal identifiers. The documents only contained name and pay

Re:

A ten-second scan of TFA reveals that *none* of that inappropriate information was made public.

Re:Pay stub != compensation

When is it ever not "post a counter assertion without any effort to actually provide some backing" day at Slashdot.

If we didn't have 20-30 posts that make no sense and 5-10 replies each that amount to RTFA, these comment sections would be damned short.

Except...

..."public information" != "information that must necessarily be accessible instantly, on-demand, via collection or aggregation by a third party" (regardless of how or from whom they were obtained, and it's also not clear whether images of the actual pay stubs themselves are completely "public information", even if they were accessible for a time)

(And love how the article is tagged "censorship"...)

Also, there is a lot of "public information" that isn't online and instantly searchable and accessible en masse. There are other issues here, which I'd hope someone who stops to think about it for a few moments can imagine.

And the bottom line is that anyone can still determine the compensation of a public employee if they wish to do so.

For example, the University of Wisconsin System [uwsa.edu] made its budget summaries, including compensation - known as the Redbook [uwsa.edu] available on the internet. However, now the personnel salaries are only accessible via computers with UW System IP addresses. Else,

Print copies of the Redbooks are located in the main library at all UW System institutions and the central public libraries in Madison and Milwaukee.

Salary information can be obtained by contacting the Human Resources department of any UW System institution. A CD of the Redbooks from fiscal years 2000-01 to 2006-07 can be purchased for $10.00. To file a written request for salary information or to purchase a CD, contact: [...]

Why? Because it was being abused. So now it's not universally available and publicly searchable on the internet. That doesn't mean the information still isn't "public". And before you say that the government's job should be to use technology to make access to such information easier, e.g., via putting on the internet, ask yourself if you'd want all information about you that is technically "public information" aggregated and made quickly and easily searchable by anyone on the internet on a whim, or if you'd rather that people have to actually have a legitimate need for specific pieces of information, and be willing to go through the processes to get it?

Would you want anyone to see images of your entire pay stubs, even if you work for a public agency and your compensation is "public"?

When things like the Redbook and Wisconsin Circuit Court Access [wicourts.gov] became more restrictive, most of the complaints I heard over time were from people who could no longer do the essential equivalent of casual stalking of individuals' salaries and civil, criminal, and traffic court records. Persons who still have a legitimate need for it can still easily get access to the information, and any member of the public can easily obtain any information they might need.

Further, this case seems a little odd...if all of the pay stubs were available on the city's web site, why did they have to aggregate them all? They were already publicly available, right? Obviously the city didn't intend for them to be displayed or obtained the way they were, and regardless of how much "their fault" it was, how incompetent they were at running their web site, or whether it was a data leak, even if it it is "public information" doesn't mean it needs to be, or should be, aggregated en masse on a third party internet site.

Also, while the individuals' compensation may be public, actual images of pay stubs may not be at all (and probably isn't). Again, even if the city had this out in the open through their error, that still doesn't mean it should be fair game for everyone until the end of time, regardless of whether some of the content of the image is "public information". A mistake is a mistake. The city isn't filing charges against someone for "hacking"; they're asking that images of pay stubs of city employees be removed from the internet. The public can still discover the compensation of the employees if they wish,

Re:

Public information means what it says ... information that is freely available to the public. Period. If you think there is security in making it more difficult to obtain you're delusional.

It's like saying "free speech!!!" and then turning around and ex

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Well, I think the OP had a point there. After all, with online phone directories (that sometimes have mailing addresses, etc.) coupled with this kind of data, targeted mailings become too damn easy (yes, my opinion).

For example, run a quick query with so

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"Why? Because it was being abused. So now it's not universally available and publicly searchable on the internet. That doesn't mean the information still isn't "public". And before you say that the government's job should be to use technology to make acces

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If it's public information & I'm a member of the public, that means once I get it I can do whatever I please with it. The government certainly isn't necessarily obligated to provide easy access to it, but I'm not sure why I shouldn't be allowed to do

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1. No one declared employee compensation non-public.

2. Images of entire pay stubs are not necessarily (and probably aren't) public.

3. Any member of the public may still obtain compensation information about employees from the city.

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I was actually responding to the main thrust of your argument, which seemed to be that government not being obligated to present public information in an easily accessible form somehow implied that private citizens shouldn't be allowed to do so once they g

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The Des Moines Register publishes a web extra [desmoinesregister.com] detailing the compensation for all state employees. (Right now it covers the 2005 fiscal year.) It is searchable by department, or by county, and you can even list them in order of salary from highest to lowe

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Well, at least they deserve the money. Do you know how much money those football teams generate in ticket sales alone? Let alone sale of licensed paraphernalia? I only with sports teams at Canadian universities generated so much money. Then the schools

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Except the money goes towards stadium upgrades and other sports related items.

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Well, you are right that there is more to the story than the subject line. However, you are incorrect in assuming that we at the blog aggregated the information. That was the form it was in on the city website - 283 paystub images bundled together in 1

Re:

Thanks for the followup. From the information posted and linked in the slashdot summary, it wasn't clear exactly how the paystub images were obtained, or the format they were in.

You are correct that Wisconsin is not like California; I wasn't implying it wa

Re:Except...

"public information" != "information that must necessarily be accessible instantly, on-demand

Sure: the government isn't obligated to go to any great length to make it convenient for the public to get public data, and they can even charge for what efforts they do make.

So?

That's not even remotely similar to the government forbidding a member of the public from exposing public information which he regards as scandalous to public scrutiny, which is what happened here.

Would you want anyone to see images of your entire pay stubs[...]?

Even the most slack-witted scan, which I just performed with about ten seconds' effort, reveals this:

The city did not contact this blog, nor have we been told what information in the documents is confidential - there were no Social Security numbers, no dates of birth, no personal identifiers. The documents only contained name and pay information

Re:

How can salary information be abused? It can't be. It doesn't allow you to loot someones bank account, fake their identity or any other kind of mischief. What it can be used to, though, is salary bargaining. It is much easier to demand a raise if you can p

Too much info

Yes, city/state/federal compensation is 'public info'. But there is much more on a pay stub that is very personal info.

Were these actual scans?

compensation != paystubs

The compensation is public. Pay stubs are not compensation. Pay stubs contain fun stuff that may lead to the compromise of the financial security of the individual. Requesting the takedown of the pay stubs was more than reasonable.

Re:

No personal information was released other than name, salary, and received benefits. This is just a local government that is embarrassed by their ridiculously high administrative salaries. See http://claremontca.blogspot.com/2007/09/labor-day_07.html [blogspot.com] .

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The Dance of the Hierarchy-Worshipping Toadies-at-Large is playing *everywhere* these days, isn't it?

Your premises are false.

Ten seconds' effort, the simplest scan of TFA, would have shown you your premises are false.

Re:

There are two articles involved, and they contradict each other. Meanwhile the original data has been hidden, so we can't uncover the truth.

They're just ignorant.

I deal with FOIA type stuff all the time, and the truth of it is, most government employees have no idea what is public and what is not. They fire off knee jerk threats, and withhold stuff all the time.

Used to be the media kept them in better check, but if your local newspapers aren't suing the crap out of them every time they step out of line (and mostly they're not these days, because it's expensive), then they start power tripping and keeping secrets.

Re:They're just ignorant.

Actually, the California ruling came about as the result of the Contra Costa Times suing the City of Oakland.

http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_6732431 [mercurynews.com]

Oh absolutely.

Almost all freedom of information law came about because a print media outlet sued the fuck out of someone for keeping secrets. Television never does that sort of thing, and bloggers don't have the resources to do that sort of thing.

When journalism all bec

the yro scolor scheme sucks

let me repeat: the yro color scheme sucks. Particularly the part where comment titles are a slightly darker shade of red than the background box.

Re:

Agreed, now I have to read the actual text of the comment to know what's being discussed. That's just not the Slashdot way!

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Normally I'd mod you a troll, but I had to highlight the title of your comment to read it.

All themes...

All the CSS/Themes have been changed to this retarded crap, is this some kind of a joke?
I've checked Linux, Games, Apple, and of course YRO sections, and all of them have this color problem in their respective CSS files.

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let me repeat: the yro color scheme sucks. Particularly the part where comment titles are a slightly darker shade of red than the background box.

Ha ha, you still use the default theme? I use the "Practically Text Only" which has barely any color fields. I'

Recent Court Ruling

http://www.cfac.org/content/index.php/cfac-news/commentary20/ [cfac.org]

California Supreme Court decision, IFPTE, Local 21 v. Superior Court

Quote: "Significantly, the Court could have---but did not---limit its holding to employees earning over $100,000. While

Bizarre legal argument

First, I apologize to the Slashdot community for moronically making my previous posting under this same title without using preview. If I had, I'd have seen that all of my spacing was lost and I thereby made the post almost unintelligible. Moderators, if

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Forms cannot be copyrighted. This is just a litigious local government with an overzealous lawyer.

And as an aside, commercial income does not invalidate fair use. The logical structure of the law is not clear, and only says that the purpose of use must b

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Umm.. forms can be and are copyrightable.
I can create a form with text, that enables any number of processes to be handled well.
Unless it's graph paper... it's unique, and creative works.

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>>"It doesn't make any sense," said Terry Francke, general counsel of
>Californians Aware. "First of all, I doubt that it's a fact that the city
>copyrights the pay stubs. I don't know why it would."
>
> They wouldn't. Why not? Because it's n

Don't Give In

Don't give in just because the city attorney says he wants it all back. He is not the law. Only a court can decide what's legal and what isn't. Taking legal advice from a city attorney, or the policeman who just arrested you, is some of the worst advice you will get.

Public Information

Generally you WRITE a REQUEST for this information, not snoop around and find it. Bad on the City to leave stubs lying around as that's just more stuff for identity thieves to pillage.

Re:Public Information

You presume a number of incorrect things. First, there was no "snooping around" involved. The information was posted on a public, online City of Claremont archive designed to reduce the need for the public to make written requests for city documents. The site had been up for several years. We accessed the information while researching an essay on public employee compensation. We simply typed a search for the Claremont City Manager, Jeff Parker, together with the word "performance." We were looking for his latest performance evaluation, which was discussed in public at a city council meeting earlier this year. Up popped a .pdf with pay stubs for all city employees.

Second, there was no personal information for ID thieves to use on any of the paystubs. No Social Security numbers, no dates of birth, no personal phone numbers or home addresses. Only the employee's name and payroll information. All of this information is public information in California - other states may have different laws, but this is the state of affairs in California.

The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, a local newspaper that has been covering the story, has a copy of the same .pdf file the blog used. The paper published an article on this topic today:

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_6888125 [dailybulletin.com]

Public Emploees Records

I do believe that the government only has to publish the salaries of *positions*, unless they are elected officials. They dont ( and really shouldn't ) tie them to actual individuals for publishing.

I also question what was on the stub, the address, and emp

You insensitive clods!

What are these "pay stubs" of which you speak? Some of us don't get pay stubs, we get the net amount we earn.

I'd love it if everyone just got their gross pay and a 1099. Especially "public" employees.

Let them have the joy of filing quarterly taxes... a

Wow, that is one clueless lawyer

The comments by the lawyer were amusing.

First, he seems unaware that if something is copyrightable, copyright is automatic. So, if paystubs are copyrightable, the city would not have to do anything special. They would be copyrighted the moment they are printed.

Second, he says that they aren't copying the paystubs, just making images of them to display, so it would not fall under copyright. An image of a document is a copy as far as copyright law is concerned, so that's strike two.

finally, he says that this would be covered by fair use because there is no market value in the pay stubs. Affect on market value of a work is just one of the four factors considered in determining whether a use is fair use. Strike three.

Lawyers who do not specialize in copyright often make mistakes, but this guy seems to be setting some kind of record here!

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Even more ridiculous is the City attorney's refusal to release her communications with Google, citing "attorney-client privilege." Any communication shared with a third party (i.e., someone other than the lawyer or client) is automatically not privileged.

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It seems pretty obvious how pay stubs could contain private information.

Jeebus, RTFA. What might seem "obvious" to you based on idle speculation is no substitute for the actual facts of the case:

"there were no Social Security numbers, no dates of birth, no personal identifiers. The documents only contained name and pay info