City in Montana requires job applicants to hand over all social network logins and passwords for background checks

Cliff sez, "Bozeman City, Montana now asks all applicants for jobs to '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 City form states. There are then three lines where applicants can list the Web sites, their user names and log-in information and their passwords."

The anonymous viewer emailed the news station recently to express concern with a component of the city's background check policy, which states that to be considered for a job applicants must provide log-in information and passwords for social network sites in which they participate.
The requirement is included on a waiver statement applicants must sign, giving the City permission to conduct an investigation into the person's "background, references, character, past employment, education, credit history, criminal or police records."

Bozeman City job requirement raises privacy concerns (Thanks, Cliff!)

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Anonymous

This is really really ANAL.
Takuan

saying it “appears to have exceeded that which is acceptable to our community.”
stinkymonkey

I think I’ll move to Montana and make bombs…do I need to supply passwords for that?
laderoda

This is just…weird. How does this make anyone safer? If I POST on Facebook that I despise rubber trees and believe that all rubber trees should be rounded up and transplanted into rubber tree concentration camps, great. I’ve been pretty public and up front about my anti-rubber tree agenda. So how, exactly, does getting my Facebook log-in provide any further value-added to my stance on rubber trees?

This sounds like a BFI (brilliant freakin’ idea) dreamed up by some techno-challenged municipal policy wonk, not subsequently thought-through and just adopted as municipal policy because it creates the illusion that Bozeman is doing something to protect its citizenry.
Anonymous

It would be hard to argue that it violates ToS terms such as those listed in post #25. After all:

6.1 Just says that you’re responsible for maintaining account confidentiality, but does not describe what that responsibility entails, nor does it prohibit delegation.

6.2 Just says that you’re liable for any authorized access to the account. So, if you’ve shared your password or otherwise delegated access to your account, you are on the hook for anything done by any authorized user of your account.

6.3 Is only saying that, if you become aware of *unauthorized* access to your account, that you are to notify Google. If you’ve knowingly given your account info to somebody else – authorizing them to access it – you would not be in violation of this term.

So, no, the ToS does not necessarily prohibit such “background checks”.
Anonymous

This is why you never use your real info online.
Anonymous

********** (as rendered by browser)
catbeller

Prospective boss interviews you. At the end of the questions, he invites you to service him sexually. Or clean his gutters, or give him the number of your daughter. Any number of things, all of which are legal to ask.

There might be a law or two that forbids such behavior, but in the meantime you don’t have a job, and there aren’t any other jobs in town.

We need limits on what business requires of our private lives and persons. There is no understanding that it’s their way or the highway: corporations are publically licensed fictitious entities organized to protect businessmen from personal liability, *not* organizations that can do anything they please on their own property. We can require them to hew to laws because they are nothing if not creatures of the laws. They are *our* dogs. We are not theirs.
Gunnar

So, is he now working at your local police department? How did his response go over?

He was accepted into the next step of the application process, a process that probably won’t be over until sometime in August.
demidan

Would coming out right away way saying I was a smart ass pain in the neck who has posted nude pregnancy pics of his wife be enough?!?
Takuan

google “Bozeman corruption, Bozeman scandal, Bozeman lawsuit, Bozeman civil rights violations, Bozeman politician implicated” etc. and see what you get. They want the lens of the web focused on their little town, by all means, help them out. Let’s see what we can find out about Bozeman.
Anonymous

Did anyone check the applications? Current online version doesn not appear to ask for this information.
http://www.bozeman.net/bozeman/humanResource/applications.aspx
Takuan

the system is rigged. You can’t actually ask for your rights and expect employers to obey the law, you have to use lawyers and wait years while you sue them. Even governmental employers. So play along, surrender and every day show up and do the shittiest, most grudging “job” you can. That explain anything?
Takuan

http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=10559290&nav=menu227_6
Takuan

http://www.montanasnewsstation.com/Global/story.asp?S=10552284&nav=menu227_3
Anonymous

Damn Vulcans.

This is the United Federation of America. I reserve the right to post my warp drive design on Facebook without blabbing about it to the extraterrestrials. All they’re looking to do is stand in the way of our progress.
Clif Marsiglio

This is one of the reasons I work for public institutions…it is illegal to ask for these things.

Freedom of speech is a freedom a gov’t cannot take away from you (so long as it is not in DIRECT opposition to you job…there are limits in the work place…but the limits are pretty obvious).

Private business? Sure…they can ask for these things and rightly demand them if you want the job. There is no expectation of privacy there.

Then again, this could be a ruse…anyone stupid enough to give over this information would be just as willing to give out others private information and thus not qualified for the job :-) If I were living anywhere close, I’d apply just to see if I get denied…then again, I have a great lawyer that lives for this sort of stuff.
cortana

Things like this are the reason I occasionally make impossible-to-type for normal humans passwords like oh…
â‘¨æ¬ ã€ŒpÉ¹oÊssÉdÎ»ã€
—-^ Not a space, but unicode figure_space
Anonymous

Maybe this is really a test. If you actually disclose the passwords, you won’t be hired because it shows you have no clue about security and privacy.
MrJM

“In addition, please list any and all prescriptions, narcotics or drugs that are you taking that make you want to live and work in Bozeman, Montana?”

– MrJM
catbeller

I think that the only workable solution is a population educated to believe that business is a licensed product of freedom, not the freedom itself. Fat chance; Hearst and endless others have spent a century and a half making sure that any other version of reality bu theirs was undercut, demonized, and damned near stamped out of existence in the USA. Fortunately, there are other countries. Such is the world; America is the flag holder for unfettered capitalism and the leader in stamping out worker’s rights. BUT. From little acorns do might oak trees grow; every dig, every essay we write, all of theses efforts slowly undercut the 19th century view of America. We’re planting acorns here. We won’t see forests in our lifetimes, but they will exist because of us.
Gilbert Wham

Gah. I. But… Bheheheh.
catbeller

#67 @Anon:

Yep, it can be done. But you won’t be raising offspring that way. Not unless you’ve got a bag of gold buried somewhere.
Takuan

better place for this then maybe
http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/06/18/chicago-riot-cops/
Anonymous

It’s funny considering those website advice you “NEVER TO GIVE OUT YOUR PASSWORD” I would just act dumb and use that as an excuse.
Thorzdad

My guess is that, rather than this being a conscious overreach of authority, this is a mistake on the part of a clueless manager who knows nothing about teh intarwebs.

Many (most?) employers regularly access potential employees’ social networking pages today. So, it makes perfect sense for an application to request a list of an applicant’s pages. My guess is that the “UID and password” request was put there by said clueless manager who doesn’t know better and assumes you need these things to view the pages. Sort of like your boss who thinks the internet is only accessible via AOL keywords or the Yahoo home page.

It’s probably just an idiot mistake.
Anonymous

This is pretty much as illegal as it gets. They might as well ask you to hand over all your house & car keys, bank cards with pin numbers, etc for their background check. It’s the same thing. Someone will sue very soon, so it’s a pretty stupid mistake on their behalf.
catbeller

#87 @takuan:

Amazing, ain’t it. We always assumed that the cops were fanatical right wingers bent on beating commies and hippies down, and it seems we’re right.

The protesters were fueled by their rage of being forced to serve – at gunpoint! – in a “war” against Vietnam that we didn’t belong in, that was entered under false pretenses – the Gulf of Tonkin incident did not happen, per recently declassified memos. We now know that we didn’t understand the situation; that there was no “winning”; that we fought for men who had a radical-and incorrect- view of “communism” and Asia; that we killed over a million people for nothing and poisoned hundreds of thousands more. And we’re doing it again…
pinehead

Ha! Yeah, right. I work in a job where I have a certain level of security clearance through the DHS. Part of gaining that clearance required an extensive background check. Never during the course of that check did anybody ask for such personal data, and even if they did, I would not have given it to them. It’s unnecessary, plain and simple.

So if a potential employer asks you for something like this, just leave it blank and lie to them. Tell them you don’t use social networking sites. They’re stupid for asking for that info in the first place.
snsr

The city is opening themselves up for a lawsuit. And I hope they get spanked, fucking rednecks.
Anonymous

Login: PissOff
Password: Blow me
Anonymous

Residents of Bozeman: you payday has arrived. Apply for a city job, do not fill out this part of the form. If you are not hired, take two steps to the left — from the line of unsuccessful job applicants to the line of almost-certainly-soon-to-be-successful class-action litigants.
Anonymous

Many of us don’t actually consider Bozeman a part of Montana.
Anonymous

Holy crap.

Those of us that work in the nuclear weapons/industrial complex don’t get that kind of cavity search with our background checks.

There must be some important sh!t going down in Bozeman.
Anonymous

LOL. Do they wanna know when I have the time of the month as well so that they’ll know when I get cranky.
Anonymous

Their login info and passwords??? WTF? I don’t think that can be a legal requirement. Can you say LAWSUIT.
chris

gonna be a dental floss tycoon…

this makes me want to create some faux accounts with some really raunchy stuff… then start applying for jobs in boozeman…
Anonymous

Ridiculous.
TheHikingStick

Simply reply that:

1) Providing those user IDs and passwords to a third party would violate the Terms of Service and/or EULA for the service. This will be the case 99.999% of the time.

2) Let them know that they don’t want anyone working for them who will turn over his or her logon information and passwords to a third party. Unless they want to be pwnd, that is.
bardfinn

Yowza.

“As providing the requested information would cause me to be in violation of the respective contract or respective contracts that I may have entered into with the particular entities in question, I must decline your request;

Further, I will inform you that as you have solicited me to violate those contracts to which I am a party, I am required by such of those contracts as I may be party to, and which have such terms requiring such reportage, to disclose to the entities in question the fact of your solicitation of violation of those contracts as I may be party to, and the fact that you seem to have a standing process that would seem to solicit others to violate those contracts to which they may be party.

Further, I must inform you that if it is reasonable that this application for employment was approved, denied, or considered based on my response or lack of response to this portion of the application, I reserve all remedies available to me under civil, federal, state, and municipal law, including but not limited to those available under the following statutes: blah blah blah blah blah”

Disclaimer: IANAL, IANYL, ATINLA. For entertainment purposes only. Party on.
xeoron

I think my passwords are federally protected, since it is against my religion and morals to share my passwords…
webmonkees

simple, give them the wrong passwords, then report hacking activity from Bozeman, Montana to the proper authorities.

Realistically, like #25, all you really have to do is report the job application.
Anonymous

Why not give them the right username, but WRONG password? That way you appear to be perfectly complicit, going along with everything, but your privacy and security are never in any real jeopardy. Iâ€™m also not sure that they will have the time or resources to check everyoneâ€™s account. so perhaps you should bog them down with every little account and maybe even may up accounts â€¦
catbeller

We let them make us pee in a cup. We let them make background checks. We let them take hair samples. We will let them take DNA. We let them require us to join the draft to get a social security number. We let them put up cameras on the streets, the highways, airplanes, blimps, satellites. We let them monitor our internet and phone communications. We watched as they required GPS trackers in our cellphones by law. We let them require us to use identification to get iPass cards to use tollways and highways. We didn’t care when they required us to use RFID tags on our ID cards. We won’t care when GPS quietly become required on all vehicles, along with black boxes and radio linkages.

And you wonder why they want our passwords?
There wasn’t anything left to ask for.
Thalia

This is quite likely to be illegal, especially since Bozeman is a government actor. However, odds that a lawsuit will succeed are relatively slim. If Bozeman city council and city counsel can rub two brain cells together, this line item will be gone before anyone gets rejected from a job as a result of what they post on Facebook.

In other news, I’m always amused that people who bitch and moan about how evil litigation and lawyers are call immediately for a lawsuit, instead of for educating the fine folks in Bozeman.
Anonymous

Best thing to do is create a few extra squeaky clean EMail, Myspace, Facebook, etc… accounts.
Then apply, giving them the cleaned login/pass.
As long as you aren’t stupid and don’t use a non-private computer to log in any of your real stuff and havn’t done the #1 stupid thing on the net (put publicly identifiable info about yourself up for the world to find you with), you should be fine.
Of course, if you for some reason, can’t sanetize your personal pages enough to prevent a gov. worker from finding out. You seriously need to rethink what the hell you been doing.
Felix Mitchell

Why would you do anything other than leave this blank?
catbeller

And of course! I forgot: galvanic skin response “lie detectors” and worst of all, the coming pre-scientifically “proved” fMRI mind reading scanners. There’s not much left, except for implanting a camera in your forehead and 3D inertial trackers on your fingertips.

The killer is that we get all cranky when governments do it, but completely flip over when a business does it, because we belive wholeheartedly that businesses have more rights than we. We’re peons, but they ARE America and represent freedom, i.e. freedom to be other people’s overlords, if they want to eat and sleep under shelter.

Why even discuss “freedom” if the Constitution and human rights end at the revolving doors of a corporate skyscraper? If the only place to get a job or shop is under corporate roof, then there is no freedom to speak, or assemble, or move where you like, unless you want to talk to assemblies squirrels. Hell, it will be utterly impossible to organize a union when all movements or communications are tracked, just to start.
Anonymous

Well… looks like I’ll have to give them my 4chan gold account…
Anonymous

Well as long as you have everything private and keep it outside of the workplace then you shouldn’t have to put anything down because they can’t prove that you actually have a myspace or facebook profile.
Takuan

well now Thalia, the lawyers have fixed it so any education has to be done by them making money now, haven’t they?
PhiCancri

@39

Obviously the ignorance is high with this one. If you think for a minute that Bozeman is full of “rednecks” you have absolutely no idea what kind of town Bozmeman is. But go ahead with your general stereotyping of the Northwest and uneducated assuming that MT is full of rednecks- I bet you’ll get far with that type of thinking.
Tremulant

I am starting college there in the fall. Damn it.
Principles for Sale

is this before or after the body cavity search?
Rindan

My guess is that the “UID and password” request was put there by said clueless manager who doesn’t know better and assumes you need these things to view the pages. Sort of like your boss who thinks the internet is only accessible via AOL keywords or the Yahoo home page.

Um, you actually DO need these things to view the pages if you use privacy settings. I don’t know about you, but my Facebook is absolutely set such that you can’t see anything more than my name and my profile picture without being friended by me, and I don’t friend people who I don’t know.

I can also say that never in a million years would I give any employer that sort of information. I wouldn’t give my own mother my e-mail password, much less my frigging boss. It isn’t even that there is anything interesting in my social networking and e-mail inbox. I am pretty sure that you couldn’t find anything worth firing me over even if you had full access. It is the simple fact that it isn’t any of their business. They are more than welcome to tell me what to do while I am on the clock and fire me if I fail to do it. Once I am off the clock though, what I do is my business. So long as I can show up to work the next day and act as a functional human, whatever I did the night before is my business and my business alone.

That said, I am not all worried about this as being any sort of trend. As a job seeker, anyone who asked me these questions would instantly be on my black list of places to not work at. I am sure that many other people (especially in the technical fields) feel the same. In fact, if I saw this during a job interview I would challenge it instantly not just because I would flat out refuse to fill it out, but because I would want to know what-the-fuck kind of company even has the nerve to ask such a question. The only two explanations that would keep my from walking would be “It is HR, they are morons, we are getting it removed tomorrow” and “It is a stupidity test. If you were dumb enough to fill it out you don’t get hired”.
cinemajay

What about bank account username and passwords? Those are an online presence too. I’m pretty sure the banks I use would be irate if they know I was just giving out my account info.
Anonymous

This policy may well be illegal.

Anyone who is adversely affected by it should contact either the Montana ACLU or the National Workrights Institute (LMaltby at workrights dot org).

Lewis Maltby
President
National Workrights Institute
MN Homes

They even require them to give out their passwords! Jeez!
Why not just ask for the people’s public profile URLs?
Zergonapal

Its a nice change seeing government officials being sensible about photography.
Zergonapal

Crap, wrong thread.
Anyhow I do have a comment relevant.
Clearly Bozeman city is screening for people who are either computer illiterate or who use the interwebs exclusively for downloading porn.
Anonymous

anybody dumb enough to even list what websites they post on is an utter nitwit.

Anybody dumb enough to give their login and password deserves to work for the city of Bozeman.
Anonymous

Guess they got sick of googling for applicant’s names and finding that their Facebook was set to private huh.
Ian_McLoud

Jesus… eMail passwords…. so they want to read all your email too…
I email my wife on personal matters… Do they want to inspect under my foreskin to, just in case there is something unseemly under there as well?

What about my dresser drawers and medicine cabinet? Should I let them sit in on my visits with my shrink? Will they OB-serve prison time with me if this policy drives my to violent crime?
Malakym

What’s the point in having passwords if they’re going to be given out to others.

Hey, here’s my credit card number, my national insurance number and the keys to my house and car too!

Nothing right about that at all.

Having to provide that information would certainly have me thinking about applying for a different job.
semiotix

Obviously this is superbad, etc. Here’s my question for the lawyer*-types:

In an interview, they couldn’t ask me about my religion, my marital status, my politics, and various other prohibited categories. That’s black-letter federal law that every employer knows, especially employers with in-house government-paid lawyers.

My Facebook page alone has all that information and more, most of it conveniently gathered together in a little box.

I know the bar for discrimination lawsuits is pretty high, but wouldn’t any rejected applicant have a real leg up given that there’s no way the city could claim it didn’t know it was demanding information it wasn’t entitled to know?

* internet “IANAL but…” lawyers are fine too. :)
Anonymous

Speak for yourself, CatBeller.

I’m a US citizen, and I got no cell phone, no easypass, no RFID passport, no cable TV and I do my financial dealings in cash.

Company told me to piss in a jar and I told them to go piss up a rope.
Anonymous

The’ve really gone mad.
jfrancis

Please list all lies you have told and all wrongs you have committed, great or small, regardless of whether anyone else is aware of them or not.

Thanks.
Takuan

this is just some enterprising little bureaucrats idea of being clever. They figure they’ll be able to dismiss anyone “for cause” whenever they wish by having this kind of thing on file. No matter how much you surrender, they’ll always be able to dig up something, somewhere that “you failed to disclose”. Twits. It’ll fall at the first legal challenge.
ChibiR

Password for your Google account? Someone help me out since I never made such an account, but doesn’t Google have this Web History thing with the Toolbar where it tracks the pages you visited…? *cues ominous music*
wihockeyguy

@ #3

Yeah, but I use the interweb to download porn from pay sites. They just want my usernames and passwords for a quickie. Damn, they are cheap!
Anonymous

Funny. “Boze man” is Dutch for “Angry man”. I think this city has gone NUTS. If I were applying for a job there, and they would present me this form, I’d give them the finger. And walk out. Please don’t tell me that ANYONE ever gave them all the “required” information.

On the other hand, it may as well be some sort of an IQ-test. If an applicant gives them all the details they ask for, he is immediately sent off. “Too stupid for the job”.
Anonymous

Even ASKING for a LOGIN and PASSWORD to ANYTHING should be illegal if it isn’t. It violates terms of service for most sites! There is absolutely NO reason ANYBODY’S account on ANYTHING should be invaded… What next? “We need your bank login and password, want to make sure you aren’t illegaly moving large amounts of cash”, “Your IRS login and password, we want to be sure you were honest on your taxes”,”Oh and give us all your social networking logins and passwords, need to check out your social life and all of your friends lives too”. But it’s “voluntary” it wont affect your consideration for the job (wink wink).
I ask that anyone involved with this be FIRED and an internal investigation be performed. If I saw this on ANY job application I would go straight to the press with it. People are desperate to get back to work and they are asked for LOGIN and PASSWORDS??!! I could not be angrier about this story!
Bill Albertson

They want this in Montana?! Aside from Wyoming, Idaho, and Alaska, this is one of the most “stay the hell out of my business” states I know of. Oh, I can imagine this isn’t going to go over well once people there figure out what’s going on…
ThoughtsofTHATmom

I’d simply point out that I’m such a stickler for rules that I cannot find it within me to violate the TOS for the sites with which I have usernames and passwords. I would add that I would hope they would understand my position being that I was sure they would not want me to find a way to justify breaking THEIR rules.
slgalt

They’re gonna need a bigger form.
Anonymous

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that everyone has the right to a private life. Under English law, they could not do this.

Remind me to never go to the US.
bearchild

I don’t want people to know about my private business. The governments in the US and the UK have been taking away our freedoms all because of that god damn 9/11. I bet Osama bin Laden is crapping himself, looking at the mess he’s made.
Anonymous

It’s also really dangerous to be handing out usernames and passwords. People use the same passwords for multiple accounts frequently (including banking accounts) and regardless of which social networks are used, it can’t be safe to hand everything over to someone, even if it is the city. Sure you could change your passwords to all of your accounts, but that’s going a bit over the edge. Whatever happened to good old fashioned personality tests and references?
remino

At that point, they might as well just ask the applicants for their house and car keys for inspection. Leave no stone unturned!
DWittSF

Sadly, most people who need a job will give up anything, if asked.

Really, though, why not leave it blank? What are they gonna do? “We’re sorry, Mr. Jones, but we found out you have a Facebook acct. that you didn’t inform us of, so you’re fired!”
manicbassman

need to get the EFF in on this as well as the ACLU
alisong76

Oh, ffs. There is a REASON why I have a completely separate username for my online activities, and why I don’t have a MySpace or a Facebook at all. How dare they.
Anonymous

5th Amendment anyone?
Anonymous

This is so crazy I would file a class action law suit for invasion of privicey
Anonymous

Obviously, everyone on BoingBoing thinks this is a bad idea. But it’s so ill conceived that it boggles the mind. Many people use the same password for many sites. Some applicants are like to give up their bank and email passwords if they comply with the request.

FYI: Bozeman is a relatively liberal/progressive city, at least as Montana goes.
Anonymous

My response to this would be to sign up for a thousand forums and then give them the list. Of course leave off the one ones you care about.
Daemon

Three lines? I MIGHT be able to do it if they gave me three pages.

Not that I would.
Wrickwrackscar

Maybe they’re using it the other way round… If you give up your personal information that easily, you can not be trusted with other people’s personal information and therefore will not be considered for the job?
Lobster

#51, are you sure? How about comfort? There’s a difference between someone being unable to find a job at all and being unable to find a job they’re willing to do.
supernova_hq

Just go to as many sites as possibly (hundreds or even thousands) and create accounts with different usernames and password. Then fill out the form with 50 pages of username/password sets, none of the ones you actually use though ;)
Anonymous

Sooo … the city must be willing to take on all liability for keeping your data safe — after all, if they ever lost or mishandled your login information, someone could easily steal your identity.
Anonymous

wow, and I was woried about the less of privacy in Europe…
jfrancis

@11 ‘stay the hell out of my business’ only applies to those who can afford to live by that credo. Those states are also ‘If I’m the boss I’ll run things my way or the highway’
Spikeles

To use a bad analogy, it’s like asking for a copy of your keys to your car, then your house, then your PIN number on your debit card.

How is this even legal?
apoxia

What a waste of time, I wonder whose bright idea it was to ask for that information.

I also find this post funny as on Sunday I will be in Bozeman, while currently I am in New Zealand :)
Anonymous

Makes me imagine other ridiculous things they might feel like demanding. I’m seeing a job interview where the hiring manager says, “Here, this is a hammer. Pick it up. You’ve seen one of these before, right? Right, good. OK, now hit yourself with it. No, in the head. That’s right. No, harder. Do you want this job or not? I’m interviewing six other people today.”
Anonymous

Everyone, quit over-reacting please. This is for protecting your children. Think of them. Please.
Pantograph

Was Markoff Chaney in the state when these forms were sent out?
wanion

I love the understated headline: Bozeman City job requirement raises privacy concerns

It’s not just raising privacy concerns, it’s thoroughly unethical and indefensible. I don’t know if anyone noticed the poll on the article, but the results are 99% against, 1% for. Where did they even find 1 person who thinks this makes sense?
Anonymous

Waiver form (pdf):
http://www.bozeman.net/bozeman/humanResource/forms/Background_Check_Form_MASTER.pdf

Linked to from this page (“Consent and Release to Conduct…”):
http://www.bozeman.net/bozeman/humanResource/forms.aspx
Krisjohn

Maybe it’s a test. If you’re stupid enough to give them your passwords you won’t get the job.
kconnors

I would create another identity and give it to them. What is next? The are going to want to know what all of your thoughts were about over the past 5 years.
Anonymous

it’s Bozeman, MT. not Bozeman city…
Brainspore

@ Lobster #52:

If you can make distinctions like that then you probably don’t really NEED the job. If I were placed in a situation where I had to either give up my facebook password or have my children taken away by the county for being unable to support them, I’d probably choose the former.

Luckily most people aren’t that desperate for work. Yet.
Anonymous

99 % against
1% don’t care, they are NOT in favor of it
Anonymous

I’ve worked for the City of Bozeman for the last 11 years. This is just another instance of the slimy way the city operates in regards to its employees and potential employees. Here’s a link to the actual document:

http://www.bozeman.net/bozeman/humanResource/forms/Background_Check_Form_Interview_MASTER.pdf
insidecircles

From the Google EULA:

6. Your passwords and account security

6.1 You agree and understand that you are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of passwords associated with any account you use to access the Services.

6.2 Accordingly, you agree that you will be solely responsible to Google for all activities that occur under your account.

6.3 If you become aware of any unauthorised use of your password or of your account, you agree to notify Google immediately

So, uh, I can’t do that.
Remez

They also ask for names and passwords for any BUSINESS websites. I’m trying to imagine someone who runs a web-based business giving up their passwords. Or how about handing over your passwords for ebay and amazon?

I’ve been unable to find the waiver form online. The city posts the employment application form, but not the waiver mentioned in the article.
Anonymous

Can I provide my bra size instead? Because that information would be just as subjective, personally intrusive, and irrelevant to my actual work ability/performance.
MoeMoe

How about my bank account PIN? Worst of all, my socialist serf number.
What should ya expect from a city named Bozoman?
betatron

#25 just nailed it: this is a violation of virtually every ToS anywhere.

IN FACT… should “The City of Bozeman” use that information to acutually log in to the net, “The City of Bozeman” is engaging in felonious computer access, of the sort that Lori Drew was convicted. The CFAA iirc (computer fraud and Abuse Act)

In Fact, “The City of Bozeman” employees are probably in violation of RICO as well. I really doubt some schmuck in human resources is indemnified against federal anti hacking statutes…

“The City of Bozeman” is in the center of a big fat bullseye.
Anonymous

The City of Bozeman can kiss my hairy ass!… VoilÃ , that needed to be said!
MoeMoe

“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that everyone has the right to a private life. Under English law, they could not do this.

“Remind me to never go to the US.”

Hey, here the pheddz even inspect your asshole. A phedd stole my dirty undershorts, too.

It’s gonna get worse, too. All the new hires by polizei are PTSDs with totally fried brains.

Most important question of new recruits: “If ordered, would you shoot US citizens?” Next they’ll be requiring them to prove it.
Anonymous

Is this retroactive?
Will ALL City Employees be required to do this?
Did the author of this new rule submit all his data first, to comply with the rule?
Rr, are they just requiring NEW applicants to submit to this invasion of privacy?

If I do my banking online, do I have to give up my account passwords, since “‘Please list any and all, current personal or business websites…” business would include banking, right?

Who ever wrote this is both an idiot, and on drugs.
MGKinLBC

What a foolish city! Their HR people don’t understand that public-sector HR should never know information about an applicant beyond what is required to ascertain a candidate’s fitness for a particular job.

They’re opening themselves up for a very expensive lawsuit. “Why wasn’t I picked for this job? Because they saw on my Facebook that I’m a (insert name of protected class here).”
MoeMoe

“corporations are publically licensed fictitious entities organized to protect businessmen from personal liability, *not* organizations that can do anything they please on their own property. We can require them to hew to laws because they are nothing if not creatures of the laws. They are *our* dogs. We are not theirs.”

Yeah, yeah. Actually, every corporation is supposed to be chartered for the public benefit. Then ya read court cases that say that “public” means “government.” Now ya begin to see?
Used to be there were trusts (there still are ), which are artificial persons, like corporations, but created by contract rather than by state charter. Their books & records are not public. Even the IRS has real problems looking behind the front page of a trust if properly set up.
The Kennedys, Mellons, Rockefellers, etc. have trusts from before the 20th century. As the constitution says that impairment of contracts is forbidden, laws passed after the trusts were formed don’t affect them. But if you establish a trust now, all the laws that don’t apply to the Kennedys, Mellons, Rockefellers, etc., apply to YOUR miserable little trust. Joker!
Susan Oliver

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j8jn3O0JgrEGN8znw-q2Y5-FcldAD98U2C200

Per the AP, Bozeman City has reversed its policy. Apparently “Web forums were all abuzz…”
Gunnar

When my roommate was applying to the local police department (Pennsylvania), they asked for his usernames and passwords to Facebook and MySpace on the general application as well.

He did not hand them over.
Anonymous

Did scientology buy out Bozeman City?
gunpowder_rose

As a former resident of Bozeman and other cities in Montana I would like to point out that Montana should not be judged by Bozeman. Most native Montanans can no longer afford to live there so it’s mostly Californians and other out of staters who have delusions of Green Acre’s.

That being said, the origins of this policy, most likely, comes from a few people who are so computer illiterate they have no idea what they’ve asked for. The bright side of it all is that anyone smart enough to realize how wrong it is; is also smart enough to not work for the city of Bozeman.
hbl

Is the tip of a new trend? Hell, I don’t even put my high school results on my CV, let alone which social networks I use.
TEKNA2007

Gunnar #27:

When my roommate was applying to the local police department (Pennsylvania), they asked for his usernames and passwords to Facebook and MySpace on the general application as well. He did not hand them over.

So, is he now working at your local police department? How did his response go over?

(That is, after officers did ascertain that the alleged employment applicant had assumed an attitude of non-compliance before exiting the premises and proceeding on foot in a northwesterly direction …)
Anonymous

” investigation into the person’s “background, references, character, past employment, education, credit history, criminal or police records.”

In amerika, this amounts to the death of the 2nd chance
Anonymous

The second I saw things like Facebook, My Space and even Twitter, it was clear that many not-so-innocents as they thought were going to get bit by this eventually. The passwords part definitely has to go, but anything that you have made publicly available on the web is fair game. Just think, now you will have to worry if the person interviewing you is a member of a World of Warcraft guild your guild has been warring with. Oh Brave New world…
MoeMoe

How about a print of my wife’s cervix and my prickhead?
The combination to my high school gym locker basket lock?

Oh, #66, we’re working on getting rid of cash.
You’ll have to get an RFID implant in your lower brain that, if your credit account goes to zero, explodes and the polizei dump your carcass down the chute like in The World Inside.

“…no trials, and punishment is swift – anyone who threatens the stability of the Urbmon society (a ‘flippo’) is forcibly removed by being thrown into a shaft that terminates in the building’s power generator.”

If you don’t get a chip, you’ll have to live under a bridge, and eat out of dumpsters (which already are required to be locked). The national forests will all be converted to roadless wildernesses, requiring permits to walk in them. Go to Kanada? It’s already farther down the road to this than the United State.
sproingelhopper

They’re doing it to weed the technophiles out, because they don’t want some geek sitting in front of the computer all day when they’re supposed to be kicking a soccer ball around as rec coordinator.
Anonymous

The policy is in their Background_Check_Form_Interview_MASTER.pdf
Anonymous

I don’t think that’s right. For many, activity on social networks is personal, and has nothing to do with one’s ability to perform a job. If they want to comment that they partied last night, that’s not something they would tell an employer, so why should they have access to that same information online?

Susan Payton
Anonymous

Apparently it wasn’t strictly a -requirement-. From what I read, it seems the option was there to ignore the request. According to Debra Legg (Debralegg.com), though, the city may have backed off on this requirement but is still looking for ways to obtain the same information through different methods (for instance, having applicants log in to their account and show an “investigator” what they need to).

Interestingly, according to Newsy (Newsy.com), Facebook has said it will be in touch with the city about the violation of their Terms of Service.