Will Privacy Champions Come to Joe The Plumber's Defense?

[CCUSA]

Will the privacy champions come to Joe the Plumber’s defense?By Michelle Malkin •
October 25, 2008 11:29 AM There is something in the water in Ohio.

They’ve got a fraud-friendly Secretary of State, infestations of out-of-state students and Obama workers sabotaging electoral integrity, and now…government employees or accomplices thereof rifling through the records of Joe the Plumber immediately after the last presidential debate.



You’ll remember that a national media uproar ensued after it was discovered that State Department contractors had snooped through Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain’s passports. (Later, it turned out that the CEO of a company whose employee was involved in Passport-gate was a consultant to the Barack Obama campaign.)

Will the privacy champs come to Joe the Plumber’s defense?

The Columbus Dispatch reports:

Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher’s driver’s license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver’s license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.[b]The paper characterizes a McCain spokesman as “attemping to portrayâ€

[Gogo]

Government computers used to find information on Joe the Plumber
Investigators trying to determine whether access was illegal
Friday, October 24, 2008 8:57 PM
By Randy Ludlow
The Columbus Dispatch
"State and local officials are investigating if state and law-enforcement computer systems were illegally accessed when they were tapped for personal information about "Joe the Plumber."

Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher became part of the national political lexicon Oct. 15 when Republican presidential candidate John McCain mentioned him frequently during his final debate with Democrat Barack Obama.

The 34-year-old from the Toledo suburb of Holland is held out by McCain as an example of an American who would be harmed by Obama's tax proposals.

Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher's driver's license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver's license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.

Paul Lindsay, Ohio spokesman for the McCain campaign, attempted to portray the inquiries as politically motivated. "It's outrageous to see how quickly Barack Obama's allies would abuse government power in an attempt to smear a private citizen who dared to ask a legitimate question," he said. So much for all the screaming from the liberals about the patriot act.

Isaac Baker, Obama's Ohio spokesman, denounced Lindsay's statement as charges of desperation from a campaign running out of time. "Invasions of privacy should not be tolerated. If these records were accessed inappropriately, it had nothing to do with our campaign and should be investigated fully," he said.

The attorney general's office is investigating if the access of Wuzelbacher's BMV information through the office's Ohio Law Enforcement Gateway computer system was unauthorized, said spokeswoman Jennifer Brindisi.

"We're trying to pinpoint where it came from," she said. The investigation could become "criminal in nature," she said. Brindisi would not identify the account that pulled the information on Oct. 16.

Records show it was a "test account" assigned to the information technology section of the attorney general's office, said Department of Public Safety spokesman Thomas Hunter.

Oh ya, where's the case on the Democrats kid who hacked into Sarah Palin's email account. Cover up, cover up, cover up. I'm convinced that Democrats have no morals at all.

Brindisi later said investigators have confirmed that Wurzelbacher's information was not accessed within the attorney general's office. She declined to provide details. The office's test accounts are shared with and used by other law enforcement-related agencies, she said.

On Oct. 17, BMV information on Wurzelbacher was obtained through an account used by the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency in Cleveland, records show.

Mary Denihan, spokeswoman for the county agency, said the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services contacted the agency today and requested an investigation of the access to Wurzelbacher's information. Cuyahoga County court records do not show any child-support cases involving Wurzelbacher.

The State Highway Patrol, which administers the Law Enforcement Automated Data System in Ohio, asked Toledo police to explain why it pulled BMV information on Wurzelbacher within 48 hours of the debate, Hunter said.

The LEADS system also can be used to check for warrants and criminal histories, but such checks would not be reflected on the records obtained by The Dispatch.

Sgt. Tim Campbell, a Toledo police spokesman, said he could not provide any information because the department only had learned of the State Highway Patrol inquiry today.


http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/lo ... ml?sid=101

[CCUSA]

Here is mad Joe the Plumber talking on Foxnews about his private information exposed to the public. If I were him, I would get a lawyer and get ready to sue!

Ohio Government Computers May Have Been Used to Gather Info on ‘Joe the Plumber’


http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=205763

[Gogo]

Here is mad Joe the Plumber talking on Foxnews about his private information exposed to public. If I were him, I would get a lawyer and get ready to sue!

Ohio Government Computers May Have Been Used to Gather Info on ‘Joe the Plumber’


http://www.breitbart.tv/?p=205763

I think he should get a lawyer too. I think he should sue for millions then when he wins put it in off shore accounts so the government can't have it. LOL

They need a political ad with this one.

[butterbean]

Oh ya, where's the case on the Democrats kid who hacked into Sarah Palin's email account. Cover up, cover up, cover up. I'm convinced that Democrats have no morals at all.

MOST Democrats DO NOT have any morals. This election is going to bring "change" alright, BUT CHANGES THAT WILL COMPLETELY DESTROY AMERICAN SOCIETY. There will be full-term abortions, same-sex marriages, and a whole lot of social programs that will destroy the moral fabric of our country. Family values will be replaced with a whole new set of standards. "Newcomers" will bring in an entire new set of principles that will have the approval of the democratic elites who basically have little or no conscience as long as it doesnt affect them. WE ARE IN TROUBLE AMERICA.

[vortex]

MOST Democrats DO NOT have any morals. This election is going to bring "change" alright, BUT CHANGES THAT WILL COMPLETELY DESTROY AMERICAN SOCIETY. There will be full-term abortions, same-sex marriages, and a whole lot of social programs that will destroy the moral fabric of our country. Family values will be replaced with a whole new set of standards. "Newcomers" will bring in an entire new set of principles that will have the approval of the democratic elites who basically have little or no conscience as long as it doesnt affect them. WE ARE IN TROUBLE AMERICA.

butterbean, we are in trouble that will not end soon, but not because of plain morality. So many things have happened under the administration of pseudo-conservatives like this president and gang. A Republican is no longer embracing what the party has always been and it seems that Democrats are turning more conservative. We are in serious, serious trouble because of this economy.