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.'"
WTF (Score:5, Funny)
They are seriously asking for people's passwords? If this some kinda of social engineering test where if you actually put them down you fail?
Re:WTF (Score:4, Insightful)
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!
Re:WTF (Score:5, Funny)
Or:
1. Head to Bozeman
2. Social engineer city employees (I hear they're all "easy")
3. Own the network
4. Profit!!!
Re: (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:WTF (Score:5, Funny)
I don't even know how to put my objections into words - I don't know where to start!
Start on Slashdot ... that's what the rest of us do.
Re:WTF (Score:4, Funny)
Re:WTF (Score:5, Funny)
I'm insensitive not incensitive, you insensitive clod!
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:WTF (Score:4, Interesting)
They might as well have asked for the keys to your house, the combination of your safe, and all your banking account info. They didn't do that because it is well understood that this is wrong. I bet the form and policy were made up by someone who's only exposure to social networking sites was over the shoulders of their kids. And this is probably where the idea of asking for passwords came from.
Kurt
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: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: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:5, Insightful)
--sabre86
Re:WTF (Score:4, 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:5, Informative)
Re:WTF (Score:5, Funny)
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:5, Insightful)
Re:WTF (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:WTF (Score:5, Informative)
Depending on the union, you may just be exchanging one set of meaningless crap for another... like the union person at a conference I attended recently in which he couldn't leave the side of the computer unlocked so that people could plug cards in for testing purposes. He had to stand around for an hour and a half just in case he needed to unlock it. Or the TV unions in which you have your job and if you even touch a piece of equipment that's not on your list---even outside of work hours to lean how to use it---instant union grievance. Of course, the people who aren't jackasses poke fun at this and laugh about it, but there are enough people who take it seriously and crack the whip that it can make life for the workers genuinely unpleasant. And so on.
If unions were solely about collective bargaining, were entirely run by regular full-time workers (without significant time off for being the union boss or whatever), and were not designed around bizarre apprenticeship models dating back to the middle ages, there's no question but what unions would be great for workers. Unfortunately, enough unions stray far enough outside those lines that in many cases they are a worse taskmaster than the companies from which they are supposedly trying to protect you.
Re:WTF (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, enough unions stray far enough outside those lines that in many cases they are a worse taskmaster than the companies from which they are supposedly trying to protect you.
That's been my experience in the one union I was in. My working relationship with my employer was great...until the group went union (it was a done deal by the time I started working there). At that point, my boss became paranoid about being grieved for anything and everything, and therefore, the freedom I had had to just do what needed to be done disappeared. Two examples: 4-10 work weeks ("No, the Collective Bargaining Agreement specifies 5-8s for your position") and combining two 15 minute breaks and the 30 minute lunch break into a single lunch break of 1 hour ("No, the Collective Bargaining Agreement says that you have to be given a 15 minute break after 2 hours, a 30 minute lunch at four hours and another 15 minute break at 6 hours").
The Collective Bargaining Agreement that governs your workplace is truly a double-edged sword. It limits what your employer can require you to do, but it also limits what your employer can allow you to do as well.
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:5, Funny)
Hey, that's the combination to my luggage!
Re:WTF (Score:5, Funny)
no problem, my password is hunter2
(I know I know... redundant... but still absurdly funny)
Re:WTF (Score:4, Informative)
What does the phrase "any and all" add that the word "all" lacks by itself?
"All your base are belong to us" legally implies that if even one base is found to not belong to us, then it is possible that none of them do - the statement is false in its entirety. "Any and all of your base belong to us" means that if we accidentally let one of your bases slip through our fingers, the remainder still belong to us. To a lawyer, internet memes are full of loopholes and thus not binding.
Re:WTF (Score:4, Funny)
BTW, IANAL, and I am making this all up as I go along. I bet its pretty close to correct. Of course, any and all of it could be flat out wrong.
Give away your password... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I would like to mod you "Right On" but there is no such option.
Re:Give away your password... (Score:5, Funny)
I have trouble envisioning a piece of paper large enough for all of my login accounts, let alone 3 lines. And I hope they understand when I just give 5 passwords at the top and tell them to keep trying for each site cause I don't remember which password goes with which account :|
Re: (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.
Unpopular (Score:5, Informative)
According to the online poll accompanying the article, 98% of respondents think it's an invasion of privacy.
That's as big a landslide as it gets, folks.
Re:Unpopular (Score:5, Funny)
Well, technically, no. It could be 99% [1].
I mean, I get your point, but on a site filled with pedants, most of them highly attuned to mathematics, perhaps that wasn't the best choice of words.
[1] 99% is as big a landslide as it gets. 100% would mean the land was falling, not sliding. Assuming that the percentage in a landslide victory correlates to the slope of the surface the land is sliding along.
Oh crap... I've opened the door for the pedants to tar and feather me as well, haven't I?
*exchanges tinfoil suit for flame-retardant suit*
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Unpopular (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently, the third rule is that vikings don't have to close html tags.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
You care about significant digits? I thought you were a Viking!
Re:Unpopular (Score:5, Funny)
But if I lose any more than that...
See, significant digits fully explained by a Viking. What is it with you people, thinking Vikings don't have or need an understanding of the finer principles of mathematics as relating to raping and pillaging?
Re:Unpopular (Score:4, Funny)
I'm a Viking. I have a longship, and skraeling slaves to man the oars. Conceivably, I went to Vinland, raped and pillaged and whatnot among the skraelings, then returned to Vikingland to quaff mead from skraeling skulls collected in Vinland.
And it's still my universe, so I'll call it Vikingland if I so choose.
Besides which, rule four is that the alcoholic beverage of choice is mead, independent of location.
To sum up:
Rule 1: I get to be a viking.
Rule 2: Everyone else gets to be a skraeling.
Rule 3: Vikings don't have to close HTML tags.
Rule 4: Mead is the alcoholic beverage of choice regardless of location
And now, for rule 5: Any theoretical objections to the logic of the rules, or the ways things work in my universe, are hereby declared anathema. Any skraeling who voices those objections will have his eyeballs plucked and mounted on that little pointy bit on the top of my battle axe, then he will be tossed in the air where I, and my household slaves, will fight to catch him upon our spears. Winner gets the privilege of raping and pillaging the corpse.
Re:Unpopular (Score:4, Funny)
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: (Score:3, Funny)
Senator Ensign being among them, in spirit if not in fact.
Here's hoping his first name is "Redshirt"
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So what if the employer is a Republican and you're a Democrat (or vice versa) and you've been participating in private Internet forums where you discuss political strategy? What if you've been communicating with your lawyer over a private Internet forum? What if you've been collaborating with partners on an invention you plan to patent over a private Internet forum. Does your prospective employer have a right to access all your private Internet communications? Why not just insist that all prospective employ
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.
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..
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.
Worst Policy EVAR!!! EVER EVEN!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Re: (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.
Business Websites??? (Score:4, Insightful)
Real Opportunity (Score:5, Interesting)
1. Create Account with social site
2. Put name and password on app
3. Wait for it to be leaked and abused
4. Profit!
No need to get a job - this is like money in the bank.
Re:Real Opportunity (Score:5, Insightful)
Abuse it yourself and claim that the City did it!
Re: (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.
My Klingon Keyboard (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
HR manager: "I'm trying to find this 'Klingonia' on the map, is that enywhere near Yugoslavia?"
Sorry, we are going to have to let you go. (Score:5, Funny)
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:They really understand what they are asking for (Score:4, Informative)
Judging by TFA, it was apparently vetted by their city attorney. Maybe even written by him.
Oh, wait. Anyone with a clue. Never mind. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along.
What else? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe my bank access info?
Keys to my house?
Maybe a beaver shot of my wife?
Re:What else? (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe my bank access info?
Keys to my house?
Maybe a beaver shot of my wife?
No. No. Yes, please.
Re:What else? (Score:5, Funny)
You might want to check my bank balance and a pic of my wife before you make that decision.
Re:What else? (Score:4, Funny)
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: (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 s
At least they are polite (Score:3, Funny)
They DID say "Please"...
also... (Score:5, Funny)
Further instructions on the form:
16d. Please analyze your own handwriting for us, and supply a full report on whether the results show that you may be predisposed to workplace violence.
16e. Please build your own polygraph machine, administer the test to yourself, and let us know whether it turns up any proclivity for white collar crime.
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.
Slashdot Account (Score:5, Funny)
User: Anonymous Coward
Password:FAH-Q
Re:Slashdot Account (Score:5, Funny)
Ah fucking god damnit! You bastard, gave away my account information!
wait, Bozeman Montana... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:wait, Bozeman Montana... (Score:4, Funny)
Teach Your Children Well (Score:3)
We all know to Net-proof kids right from single-digit ages not to provide identifying information to electronic correspondents that might be predators.
Now we're going to have to remember that "predators" needs to include "employers over a decade from now that may seize upon internet forum posts to take away your job or ruin your life".
So, kids: always set up accounts under a pseudonym. Use DIFFERENT pseudonyms. Strictly limit the friends that can connect your True Name (thx, Vernor Vinge) to your pseudonyms. And do not provide specific identifying information in any post. In forums that require True Names to work right (facebook), have Mom & Dad help you learn to consider words, and especially photos, carefully.
What they post at nine won't be held against them, but if you start developing their radar early, the appropriate attitudes of privacy and subterfuge will be reflexive by the late teens.
As for that first generation now looking for their first jobs with all kinds of youthful exuberance on the internet not staying on the internet - yikes, sorry, you're screwed. As the joke poster says, it may be your job to provide an example to others.
My password (Score:4, 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."
You know what to do (Score:5, Informative)
I've just contacted the Montana ACLU Here [aclumontana.org]
The article links to a video interview with Greg Sullivan Bozeman City Attorney here [montanasnewsstation.com] (right side of page), who defends the policy.
His Contact info:
City Attorney Greg Sullivan gsullivan@bozeman.net 406-582-2309
What I just emailed off to Mr. Sullivan
Greg Sullivan
Your city's requirement for job applicants to provide a list of all personal internet memberships, logins, and passwords has recently come to my attention. I have just requested that the Montana ACLU investigate this policy as it seems a severe invasion of privacy. I have always appreciated the state of Montana's noble defense of the Constitution, exemplified with recent decisions by the state to support 2nd amendment rights. Your city's applicant policy is the exact opposite of what I'd expect from the state of Montana, and I would urge you to seriously reconsider this requirement.
Pedantry (Score:3, Informative)
MO = Missouri
MT = Montana
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Passwords? (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, but it's perfectly safe. When you write your password out on the application form it comes out as ******!
Re:Passwords? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (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?
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:City jobs are a bad thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:City jobs are a bad thing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you have any data to back up your fire department efficiency anecdote?
The police force protects your property by their existence. Potential criminals know there will likely be consequences, and this deters crime.
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: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: (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
Re:City jobs are a bad thing? (Score:4, Funny)
Very true. Isn't it great, therefore, that we have so many other choices?
It depends on the availability of resources, of course. However, in any capitalist market "non-owners" have the opportunity to acquire resources, thereby creating new choices. The only ones who seem to have a problem with that are those who are unable or unwilling to be productive.
Re:City jobs are a bad thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
In every historical case, lack of collective action has lead to oppression of the working class by the owning class. What choices does a poor, non-owning class person actually have in a purely free market system? There are significant barriers to keep the poor from acquiring enough resources to become independent from the major resource holders. And as I mentioned, the labor market systematically undervalues labor. When all resources are owned, a non-owner has no way of being productive without an owner's consent. The owning class then owns the labor of that person. Slavery is the end result of anarcho-capitalism.
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: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.
Re:City jobs are a bad thing? (Score:5, Funny)
What? How dare you undermine my devout, fanatical, unthinking believe in the absolute superiority of the free market (which I define as any market so unregulated as to allow massive corruption, monopoly abuse, and the utter destruction of anything that could properly be called a "free market") with something as vacuous as facts?! The Libertarian Inquisition will see you burned at the stake, blasphemer!
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:As offensive as this is... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's only going to deter people with average or above intelligence.
Re:Broad brush strokes (Score:4, Funny)
And then I'd be rich when they refuse my application because of it and I sue their asses off.
Re:Um, No (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Um, No (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I call FUD (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I call FUD (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, it gets worse. The application has a "survey" portion at the end which requests things that are technically forbidden: age, race/ethnicity, disability. Everyone should read it, it's kinda comical...under "race/ethnicity" it says "check the one category which best describes your recognition in your community"...White (not Hispanic or Latino), Black or African American (Not Hispanic or Latino), Hispanic or Latino...a couple more, then this gem: Two or More Races (Not Hispanic or Latino)....w...t...f...who the hell came up with this? Oh, and if you do look at it...try to figure out what I'd pick if I came from the middle east...no option for Iranians and Syrians...Or, how about somewhere in, say, Kazakhstan? They don't really exist, do they?
They even ask if the applicant has violated any criminal law or -traffic- regulations within the last five years! Here's a flashlight, want me to drop my pants, too?
Pure offense...that's all I can say.