Gov't Computers Used to Find Info on "Joe the Plumber"

After Joe Wurzelbacher of Ohio gained fame as "Joe the Plumber" in the course of the current presidential campaign, it seems that he's drawn more than idle curiosity from people with access to what should probably be confidential information. An anonymous reader writes with a story from The Columbus Dispatch that "government insiders accessed Joe the Plumber's records soon after the McCain-Obama debate. 'Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher's driver's license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate. Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.' Welcome to 1984."

Comments

Okay so the info is out there...

[Flentil]

Did Joe the Plumber make over 250k last year? Will Obama be giving him a tax break, totally invalidating McCain's point about Obama raising JoeThePlumber's taxes?

Re:Okay so the info is out there...

[plasmacutter]

Socialism does not = communism. Your absolutist point of view is intellectually dishonest.

Also, I'm sorry, but the US is not a capitalist nation, it's a mixed economy. It used to be a capitalist nation, and that ended when every industry consolidated into an abusive monopoly, then the banks and stock markets imploded when predatory loans resulted in massive defaults. Back then, everyone but the wealthy lived in tar-paper shacks and most people considered plumbing and electricity a distant dream.

Most european nations have a great deal of socialization, and they arguably have more freedom than americans because they are not tied to their job for healthcare and can be more confident in assuming the risks of Entrepreneurial pursuits knowing the government will catch them if they lose their shirts.

I don't see any english, french, or canadian people complaining about their right to property. They own their own possessions just fine. They are also responsible enough to accept a minor expense to insure everyone, including themselves, has a minimum standard of living.

If you don't want to be a hypocrite, you should also stop government funding of the interstate highways, research and development, fire departments, water infrastructure, etc because they are all socialist constructs. People concluded these sectors better served the market as government run institutions.

Of course, the intrenched corporate interests who stand to lose if the government stepped in to assure universal access to things considered essential to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness spread fud wrapped in empty righteous rhetoric , and people like you lap it up.

Thus, the US has slid below many "third world" nations in broadband deployment, and now has a healthcare system which ranks below those of barely developed nations unable to afford air forces.

Re:Okay so the info is out there...

[plasmacutter]

Lets go down the list of the biggest socialist regimes in history.

Britain, check. British people enjoy a standard of living above that of the US.

Canada, check. Does it care about its people? The canadian DMCA has been carefully timed to die with parliament both times. They obviously know the implications if they actually do pass it.
Their standard of living? Equivalent to the US, except with better quality of life because of universal healthcare, which also makes their labor considerably cheaper. Canada is on the list of nations to which american firms "outsource" american jobs.

France, check, go back and read england/canada

Continue reading down the list of major core EU members and norse nations. Same thing.

Re:Sinking feeling

[JohnnyGTO]

Except that the people they through under the bus will probably not be the people that instigated the felonies. Those people are too well insulated and obviously above the laws that govern you and I. So yes if the media sees value in the story of "catching" the perpetrator(s) then you will see some poor sap get his or her career ended and hopefully some jail time.

Re:Open your eyes

[spazdor]

First he came for those who spoke his name, but I did not speak out because I had never said candleja

Re:ThoughtCrime and 1984

[Sancho]

I'm not sure what you mean by "inability to respond with sufficient force". We could have sent 10x as many soldiers to Afghanistan as we did but the President and his aids were clueless. We could have sent a lot more troops to Iraq as well (although Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11) but again, clueless.

That would have been a horrible mistake. As it was, morale was pretty damned low from people having to serve multiple tours with very short breaks. I can't really imagine what would have happened if the majority of the military had been over there this long without time off. There might have been real desertion in the ranks and a pretty big shitstorm, and a draft almost certainly would have had to be instated.

That might have been a good thing, though. It's possible that it would have meant an overall shorter occupation, and with people forcibly going off to war, the dissent at home would have been enough to ensure that things were handled differently. In fact, I'm almost certain that a draft was avoided for exactly that reason.

Re:ThoughtCrime and 1984

[Alex Belits]

This is a total nonsense. It's one of the cornerstone of Communist ideology that conflict in society happen between social classes, not ethnic groups, and racism is an effort to derail class struggle toward infighting within working class. So if a Communist suggested this, he would not likely remain Communist for long (not to mention that propaganda of ethnic hatred was a crime in USSR, similar to anti-Nazi laws in Europe and hate speech in US, except with stronger penalties).

USSR government indeed encouraged large families, however there was no ethnic discrimination involved. If anything, Russians traditionally had smaller families and were faster moving into cities than population of Asian part of the country, so they would get less benefit from any policy that encouraged larger numbers of children.

There is also a matter of Stalin being Georgian, Khruschev being Ukrainian, Brezhnev being Moldovan...

In other words -- shut up, moron.

Re:ThoughtCrime and 1984

[Detritus]

Go fuck your mother.

Put down your Handbook of Marxism-Leninism and read some real history books. What ethnic group dominated the senior positions in the Red Army and other sensitive areas?

Re:ThoughtCrime and 1984

[plasmacutter]

We were already evil.

We supplied weapons to both sides in local conflicts, resulting in devastating losses to muslim populations.

We armed the taliban, allowing them to take over.

We armed the iraqis, who then used chemical weapons on iranians.

We armed isreal, who now uses our gunships to attack high density civillian areas (no i'm not anti-semitc, i'm a friggin jew myself)

Heck, we even armed and trained osama himself.

You reap what you sow when you engage in such irresponsible foreign policy, facilitating and encouraging the deaths of countless innocent people while attempting to manipulate geopolitics for access to oil.

I've seen how pissed americans can get when the government denies them justice or freedom by selling out to corporate interests. I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that americans would start suicide bombing too if such corporate sellouts involved random, wholesale loss of innocent life.

Re:How do you think it should work then?

[plasmacutter]

He wouldn't hire americans, he'd hire indian contractors if at all possible to increase his own wealth.