The fact that the media subsequently reported that Joe was apparently lying to the media didn’t help matters, you must admit.
I too am waiting for the typical Bricker “gotcha”.
You may have missed the extended mini-circus of which “Joe” made himself the center for several days following the debate, in which he made a number of contradictory and self-inflating claims about his financial situation.
I would also not call a database query an investigation. If it turns out that Kelley-Jones had Wurzelbacher’s files ransacked looking for any slight discrepancies, even if she never turned them over to the Obama campaign, I would say that she should be fired and prosecuted. A quick check to see whether his public statements corresponded to any potential filings on a database does not seem outlandish, to me.
Even then, that hardly merits an investigation… however one chooses to define the term. People talk trash all the time, and they speak off-the-cuff all the time. I’m with Voyager on this one; unless Joe actually attempts to make a purchase, querying his financial status is not appropriate.
This…
…is the first thing I thought of when the official mentioned checking up on anyone in the spotlight. Having spent some time in the public sector I’m afraid that a certain degree of CYA is SOP.
And of course that all assumes that the records you’re looking at now are the records you should have been looking at earlier and not a whole other set of records you shouldn’t be looking at at all.
Joe six leak should not be investigated. He should be ignored.
I disagree.
Look, if a cop’s driving down the street and you cut him off, he may decide to run your plate to check for violations or outstanding warrants, just because you unfavorably caught his attention. Or he may notice your “Choose Life!” bumper sticker and get irritated because his wife is a clinic escort volunteer and decide to run your plate. Or he may get irritated because he sees your “Impeach Them BOTH Now” bumper sticker and get irritated because he supports Bush. Or because you have a Redskins bumper sticker and he’s a Cowboys fan.
The bottom line is: it doesn’t matter. He’s within his rights to run your plate by virtue of it being on display for the world to see, for any reason or no reason.
That’s a rule that makes sense.
But there’s a record kept of his inquiry, right? And if he’s requesting a substantially greater number of plate inquiries than is typical, that will come to the attention of some oversight authority, who will be curious about his motive, yes? Maybe it’s legit, or maybe it turns out he’s checking on the hot chicks in his beat, which is highly frowned upon. Just because he has authority to do something in the course of his duties doesn’t mean it’s a blanket right with no boundaries.
Why does it make sense? There is no benefit to it, since searching based on the officer’s political views is no more likely to turn up problems than randomly searching. And there is a significant downside: people are discouraged from exercising their political speech rights because they know expressing an opinion will make them subject to greater scrutiny.
It isn’t something I would want to regulate with the law (since, if no other reason, it would be impossible), but putting aside the legalities, as a policy matter, what does openly political prioritization of investigation have to recommend it?
No – becuase the folks in charge thought of this, and the types of queries that can be run are different. You don’t get addresses or phone numbers, just a simple “no wants or warrants” associated with car owner.
Yes, and people with warrants out probably feel constrained about driving in busy areas, since that’s a greater risk of police scrutiny. (Although if my time as a PD is of any indication, that assumption is untrue; the ‘rational actor’ method of analysis seldom applied to my clients.)
But it’s a minimal intrusion, and it’s impossible – as you readily concede – to address anyway. I just don’t see a problem with it.
Child support records are considered private data and not for release to anyone other than the party it pertains to (here in Minnesota). We are unable to confirm/deny existance of a child support case without a signed release, and if we do we can be disciplined, fined, fired or even jailed.
We have databases that interact with other welfare systems, hospital systems, criminal systems, and other social service agencies. None of those databases reflect whether a client is a participant on a child support case. If law enforcement contacts me asking for infomation, I can’t say a word (unless the division manager okays it in consultation with an attorney).
IOW, our information is very private.
Jones-Kelly should be canned. I don’t disagree with checking his records against what he is saying, but I disagree strongly with making the fact they looked at him public.
It is not uncommon for a child support officer to check whether a person has become “public”, whether famously or infamously, and use it as a tool to decide a next step on a case. If a client posts how wealthy s/he is online, but has not paid child support in a year or has a $50/mo order, I will use that information to bring him/her back into court. I have contacted other child support workers to inform them when a client has had locally very public issues to aid in fleshing out a case direction.
As far as looking into financial information based on future plans (“I want to buy the plumbing business”/“We’re going to Tahiti”), knowing the Obligor may have the ability to cough up money but hasn’t paid on the court ordered child support obligtaion does send up red flags. If the Obligor is already paying what has been ordered, not so much. I would leave that to the Obligee to deal with. (Edit: I mean that if we know an Obligor is planning on making a lump sum purchase, some red flags. We wouldn’t bring the Obligor back into court for that. HOWEVER, if the lump sum purchase leads to longterm financial benefits, we would.)
Just my .02c
Someone upthread made a comment I really agree with which was about the random, spastic nature of these sorts of searches. It seems so wasteful and pointless to go about things in such a scattershot way and hope to get lucky.
But I guess for me it really depends on what that officer would be doing otherwise. Running plates rather than actively patrolling is maybe not good. Running plates while actively patrolling? Sounds win-win. Wasting money doing things in a scattershot way for no reason? Not good. Making efficient use of time that would otherwise be underused? Good.
Soooo, it depends. Since my preference would be that everyone with a warrant out on them gets picked up, I can’t quibble too much if, you know, people with warrants get picked up, but I do have a problem if in his quest to make sure people with pro-life bumper stickers get their plates run he isn’t doing other, more pressing things, whatever they may be.
Okay, but that’s not inconsistent with what I said: it’s not a blanket right, with no boundaries. The officer has the ability to request an inquiry, but it is highly constrained, with official limitations. Which makes it noncongruent, as an analogy, with the records search at issue in the thread, and therefore irrelevant.
But this kind of only-the-guilty-are-harmed justification is a little dangerous, no? The chilling effect isn’t just on people with warrants. Few people want greater police scrutiny. I don’t have any outstanding warrants, but I don’t want a cop following me around just because I exercised some political speech. Any cop worth his badge can find a reason to stop me regardless of how good I’m driving. If I thought political bumper stickers were likely to make cops trail me instead of someone else, I would think twice about putting them on my car.
That’s a specific case, perhaps, because there a database check can turn into pre-textual stop regardless of the database. But I think the same principle applies to both (that pre-text is OK). And even in the case of a pure database check, I think the idea that law enforcement people will prioritize political opponents for investigation has a chilling effect beyond those who know they are violating the law.
But there’s a difference between thinking we can solve something with a law and thinking that, if we could, we ought to. Do you think that if this could be stopped, we should?
Yep, the auditors get audited in a good system. That this data pull required authorization (i.e. more than one person was involved in the decision to take a look) implies that the system is actually pretty good. This wasn’t a clerk saying “I’m going to look up Joe and release information to the press.”
But there is an element of ass covering… these sorts of systems SHOULD be connected and automated so that flags are triggered without requiring a human check. The problem is - they aren’t, and manual checks are time consuming and expensive - and therefore you can often cheat the system if your file never gets pulled to be looked at.
Did she make it public or did it become public? If she made it public - I see no reason for that. But I don’t know how it became public that this was even checked - and I’m not willing to condemn a person on a leak that I don’t know was hers.
The only way the public would know is if someone opened his/her mouth. I don’t know whether she is the one who did make it public or not - you’re correct. However, standard procedure is to say “We cannot confirm whether Joe ever had or currently has a child support case in the State of Ohio”. Whoever leaked the search is at fault, as is Jones-Kelly for confirming the existance of a case.
Who made them public?
Edit: Oops, answered.
Joe the Plumber is now a celebrity, and of his own making: (wiki)
“Wurzelbacher spoke to Katie Couric of CBS Evening News on October 15, shortly after the conclusion of the final debate. …
Wurzelbacher held a press conference at his home on the morning of October 16, following the debates, where he refused to express support for either candidate. …
On October 16, Wurzelbacher appeared on Your World with Neil Cavuto on Fox News. …
On October 16, Wurzelbacher also appeared on Good Morning America.”
That’s at least two paid media appearances, plus a Press Conference. And he is considering a run for Congess: “…a campaign to draft Wurzelbacher to run for the United States House of Representatives in the 2010 election … Wurzelbacher responded that he had considered the run and would be “up for it.”
Thus, his right to privacy is considerably less than someone else.