MT: US city demands web log-ins from job seekers [Big Government at work]

The Register ^ | 2009-06-17 | Cade Metz

[rabscuttle385]

If you apply for a job with City of Bozeman - a mid-sized burg halfway across these US - you're forced to surrender usernames and passwords for every account you've set up with websites of the "social networking" variety.

According to the City, that includes everything from Facebook and MySpace to YouTube to, well, Yahoo! and Google.

"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.," reads a waiver form that allows the City to investigate a job applicant's "background, references, character, past employment, education, credit history, criminal or police records."

Then it asks for usernames and passwords.

[rabscuttle385]

I have...heard about it.

[blues_guitarist]

"I’d give them the username and password of a brand-new, unused Yahoo account, then close it the very next morning. "

Yeah, and open it and close it from the library!

[Calamari]

Also please provide, a ghost image of each computer hard drive in your residence or compound, your library account number, all magazine subscriptions,club memberships, political party, number of firearms kept in your house or compound, number of rounds of ammunition, religious affiliation, premium channels subscribed to on cable or satellite TV, pay per view purchases, video rental account, big box store membership ID such as Sam’s Club, Costco, or BJ’s,tobacco use, most frequented liquor store,a copy of your DD214, and anything else we request when we think of it.

[Publius6961]

I would just say "none."

And then simply Hilary them.

...private message me if you don't know what that means...

[Cuttnhorse]

Look for a place in Idaho...Idaho ranks #4 on the recent freedom list and is a great place to live. Typically the winters aren’t quite as bad as Montana’s, depending on where you are. There are a lot of small burgs in Montana that are very nice, and I like Montana...we are half-way between Missoula and Idaho Falls, and we visit quite often. I just feel like I’m really home in Idaho.

Cheers

[gogogodzilla]

Or... “What be this interweb thingie you speak of?”

:-P

[boxerblues]

Thanks I’ll keep that in mind in my search

[steve86]

Would be an interesting dilemma for an IT job seeker, especially one in security. These folks teach others to never share their password. And, in fact, you are probably violating the terms of service with a site if you disclose your password.

[Still Thinking]

I think it's overreaching but they could probably make a case for usernames, so they could go and see what you posted.

But why would they need your password? It was issued to you as a means to verify that stuff done in your [user]name is actually from you, or to put it another way, as a way for you to protect yourself from online identity theft. If you divulge it to someone, it can't do its job anymore. What's to keep them from logging on as you and posting stuff, for example?

Another more likely scenario: a lot of job apps are done online, and thus probably stored somewhere in digital form. With databases getting compromised all the time, how can they guarantee some third party that DOES have ulterior motives won't someday come into possession of this private IDENTIFYING information? And you're supposed to assume this risk even if you don't end up getting a job from them?? Yeah, right. I don't think so.

[Clint Williams]

No way would they get my password.

And yet a precedent for that is already set. There's hardly a FReeper who isn't all for the laws requiring registered sex offenders to provide all this information (including, in some locales, passwords). Because after all, it's for the public safety.

Ignoring the fact that this information is being demanded long after the crime, ex post facto, with no due process of law.

This is how, by little steps, we sell our freedom in the name of security -- and wind up without either. It ought to be obvious that the closet-tyrant demagogue starts the rights erosion with the most despised element of society.

So I say good for Bozeman. You don't have to work for Bozeman any more than you have to work for Barry. But they're helping a few see (those who *will* see) what's going on. And those who won't see... may fall into the snare they laid for others.

[mainestategop]

The government is doing this to fish out dissidents. They will either be banned from working for opposing liberals or they will be arrested and sent to a concentration camp.

You know its true folks, liberalism IS fascism.