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Like it or not, the information was public. These are not employees of private corporations, they are public employees whose employers are the people paying the money that supports their paychecks and benefits.

Also, it is not our opinion that the information contained no personal identifiers. That was the opinion of several California public records specialist:

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_6888125

And Google's reaction - changing first from a claim of confidentiality to saying that the images were copyrighted by the city of Claremont seem to indicate that Google, after looking into the matter, realized there was no confidentiality violation.

- We do not accept advertisements. We do have a widget that has ads, but that we receive no revenue from it; it simply comes with the widget. We've offered to remove it if it offends any readers, but no one responded, and we happen to like it because it's handy.

- There were no personal identifiers on the stubs. No Social Security numbers, no dates of birth, no home addresses or phone numbers, no dependents. The payroll info and the names are all public records in California. A local paper has copies of the documents and submitted them to California public records experts, as you noted in your post.

Here is a link to the article you referenced:

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_6888125

We would not have posted the 2 (out of 283) that we did if there were personal identifiers on the stubs.

Here is a link to a local newspaper's article on the public nature of the documents:

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_6888125

There were no Social Security numbers, no home addresses, no dependent informaton, no telephone number - nothing. There were names and payroll information, which the California State Supreme Court ruled on 8/27/07 were public information in the case of public civil servants.

Here is a link to the Bulletin's article:

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_6888125

Also, we did not post every one of the 283 images. We posted two, one for the Claremont City Manager, and one for the director of Human Services.

Additionally, the laws governing these matters are particular to each state. Wisconsin is not California. Like it or not, in California, as a result of an 8/27/07 California Supreme Court decision, the information on the paystubs is public. That's why we did not think anything of it when we saw the images. We simply thought Claremont was providing that information on their website as they did with everything else - agendas, minutes, and city staff reports going back fifty years.

A local newspaper, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, has been covering the issue and submitted the matter to several California public records experts, none of whom found anything exceptional in the images, other than the bank routing numbers, which were not discernable in our images. Here is a link to the Bulletin article:

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_6888125

Second, there was no personal information for ID thieves to use on any of the paystubs. No Social Security numbers, no dates of birth, no personal phone numbers or home addresses. Only the employee's name and payroll information. All of this information is public information in California - other states may have different laws, but this is the state of affairs in California.

The Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, a local newspaper that has been covering the story, has a copy of the same .pdf file the blog used. The paper published an article on this topic today:

http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_6888125

There is a trial going on right now where a police officer shot an off-duty airman named Elio Carrion. Carrion was shot three times, but he managed to survive. Anyway, a man across the street got the shooting on tape, and it pretty clearly shows Carrion complying with instructions to get up off the ground when the officer shoots him. There's some pretty good coverage of the case here: http://www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_6200154

The officer's defense has been that he thought Carrion was reaching for a weapon. The trial isn't over yet, but this case points out to me that cameras aren't going to be enough to prevent abuse. Of course, until the trial is over we can't really say if this was a case of abuse or not. I guess cameras can help, but if the officer's word is assumed to be infallible, even cameras aren't a real solution.

As an aside, the guy who taped the event came forward to investigators on the scene later that night. The investigators noted that the guy seemed nervous and not everything he said made sense. In trial, the guy's response was pretty much: "yeah! i just saw a cop shoot a guy for no reason. It didn't really put me in a mood to be comfortable around other cops."

Then you get what you deserve, I'd say. Somehow I greatly doubt that Tillamock Cheese and North Plains Lettuce purchased in Beaverton at the farmer's market are contaminated.

That's a pretty insensitive and ignorant comment. You might be surprised to learn how prevalent perchlorate contamination is in the United States. Drinking and irrigation water for up to 20 million Americans in 14 different states are contaminated with it. But then again, I guess those 20 million people get what they deserve? And yes, even our lettuce is affected.

Anyway, regardless of whether you were trolling or not, some information for other people who might be interested. Southern California has a rather large problem with perchlorate contamination in our water supplies. This wasn't discovered until around 1997 when the EPA and local water municipalities decided to start testing for it. They were quite surprised as to the extent of this "plume".

Evidentially, contractors and other workers were dumping all their rocket fuel right into the ground. Granted, they were probably unaware of the possible consequences at the time. Anyway, a number of these plumes have been found around former military bases in Southern California (Norton, March, George). In particular, the plume located around Norton/San Bernardino is a huge problem and cleaning it up is astronomically expensive

Other links:
A Perchlorate Primer
Map of contaminated sites in the United States
Study says low amounts of Perchlorate pose NO risk (LA Times - Registration Required. This article was written yesterday. Interesting contrast to this Slashdot article)
Lockheed Martin commissions study. Volunteers take perchlorate pills

Then you get what you deserve, I'd say. Somehow I greatly doubt that Tillamock Cheese and North Plains Lettuce purchased in Beaverton at the farmer's market are contaminated.

That's a pretty insensitive and ignorant comment. You might be surprised to learn how prevalent perchlorate contamination is in the United States. Drinking and irrigation water for up to 20 million Americans in 14 different states are contaminated with it. But then again, I guess those 20 million people get what they deserve? And yes, even our lettuce is affected.

Anyway, regardless of whether you were trolling or not, some information for other people who might be interested. Southern California has a rather large problem with perchlorate contamination in our water supplies. This wasn't discovered until around 1997 when the EPA and local water municipalities decided to start testing for it. They were quite surprised as to the extent of this "plume".

Evidentially, contractors and other workers were dumping all their rocket fuel right into the ground. Granted, they were probably unaware of the possible consequences at the time. Anyway, a number of these plumes have been found around former military bases in Southern California (Norton, March, George). In particular, the plume located around Norton/San Bernardino is a huge problem and cleaning it up is astronomically expensive

Other links:
A Perchlorate Primer
Map of contaminated sites in the United States
Study says low amounts of Perchlorate pose NO risk (LA Times - Registration Required. This article was written yesterday. Interesting contrast to this Slashdot article)
Lockheed Martin commissions study. Volunteers take perchlorate pills

jeez, does this guy seem just a little to cheerful, or what?

There's nothing that makes a two mile wide mushroom cloud other than a nuclear explosion.

Actually, any large fire could create a mushroom cloud that big.

Last summer, we had a brushfire here in Los Angeles and the mushroom cloud it created was five miles wide. I'd love to post a link to the pictures I took, especially the ones where the cloud reached overhead and turned the ambient light orange, but sadly, it wasn't digital film.

Here's some photos from the news coverage.

How much will it cost to mobilize 250,000 people every time to count paper votes? An article about the Calfornia recall states that it may have cost CA taxpayers up to $66M dollars. And this is just one vote in one election in one state. Now rinse, spin, and repeat for multiple votes in multiple elections across all 50 states.

An automated and reusable system is beginning to look like a better solution.