There is an arresting story over at ReadWriteWeb about the City of Bozeman, Mt., and its demand that prospective employees supply the city with the usernames and passwords for any Web sites they might belong to. Including, but not limited to Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo, Google, and YouTube -- that sort of thing. The city is justifying this invasion of privacy as necessary to ensure that employees "have the highest moral character and are a good fit for the City." It is easy to see that what the City of Bozeman is doing is about power, not good government. Why else would its snooping apply only to prospective employees and not current employees? Why policemen, firemen, and lifeguards? Why not the mayor and the city council? Those are the city jobs where a city really need persons of "the highest moral character." And why stop at reading through their Facebook messages? I say tap the mayor's phone, install a keylogger on her computer (at work and at home), and read through all her e-mail. That's how you ensure that local government officials have the highest moral character.
Update: The City of Bozeman rescinded this policy a day after this post was written.
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