Slashdot Mirror
Verizon Employees Fired For Snooping Obama's Record
longhairedgnome writes "The curiosity in President-elect Barack Obama's phone records came with a high price tag for Verizon Wireless employees. According to CNN, the workers who snooped on Obama's phone records have been fired.
'This was some employees' idle curiosity,' a company source told CNN and added 'we now consider this matter closed.'
Justice served? What about legal possibilities?" Can we expect anyone who followed a warrantless wiretap from the Bush administration to also be fired then? I mean, they violated our privacy as well.
The article says that the employees did not access the "contents of the calls"... wait does that mean that Verizon has stored electronic recordings, or transcripts?!?! of all of Obama's calls?!?!
Or does this mean that Verizon does not store that information? And who here believes them?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I used to work doing telephone customer service for First USA Bank. In our training class, they actually encouraged us to look up the accounts of random celebrities. My whole class would come up with names and type them in to see if they had an account with us. We'd also frequently show each other particularly bad credit reports that came up on applications.
The employees were fired for violating company policy (ie, without management approval). As company policy is to assist police in warrantless wiretaps, employees who helped with those would not be fired. This kind of thing happens in hospitals, debt collection businesses, and government all the time. It is not really newsworthy unless a pattern of abuse can be demonstrated.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Obama voted for FISA after saying he wouldn't. He and his cronies really don't have any room to complain. Why should Obama be able to snoop on "the people" when "the people" cannot snoop on him? Obama is potentially (being president at all) the most dangerous man in the nation as he is Commander-In Chief and probably the most powerful man in the world.
I'm not saying there shouldn't be any military secrets or stuff, of course, but the irony is just rather amusing.
Snooping is easy, getting away with it is not. A friend of a friend was a telecom employee snooping on records and got fired (girlfriend looking up her ex-boyfriend's phone log and possibly text messages).
I don't know how it works, but queries like that into the customer records throw up flags that management can see. Apparently, they're not doing a good enough job instructing employees that these safeguards exist since it happens so often.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Importance of privacy of customer accounts has always been stressed. I heard it on every orientation, despite the fact that I don't have any interactions with customers or their records. In internal security reports I see people fired for looking up unlisted numbers or going through wife's phone logs. So those employees were warned many times. They had to know that all account accesses are logged with their usernames.
I'm at a major financial institution. technically, I have fairly broad access to records that could include payment and credit information, personal information, and even a great deal of info on the places people shop.
It would not only not occur to me to look up someone's records just because they are a celeb etc, but if I had a case involving a recognizable person or business, I would be very careful and keep my inquiries to a minimum. I would expect our security teams to be watching accesses to any number of accounts.
And I wouldn't be whining if in a moment of weakness I went too far. There are some things you just don't do. Someone is watching. Count in it.
I also know a few people who provide services or support to the sort of customer you would consider a person of note. We don't discuss anything of a sensitive nature, though I offer them congratulations when I recognize they did something exceptional for a customer that made our newsletter. If we are working on issues that disclose sensitive data, I just work the issue and keep my comments to myself. And I secure any data I work with temporarily, destroying it when I don't need it any more.
Seems incredibly stupid, on a par with the ID10Ts looking through Britney's medical records not so long ago. I hope these VZW ex-employees find work, but perhaps a stint at McDonalds will give them the proper perspective on privacy. An expensive lesson, and one earned from the sounds of it.
There is no excuse.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
I'm hoping the public will get smart and start demanding term limits on the Senate and House so that we have a better handle on the morons in there.
I'm talking both sides... *ANYBODY* making a career of politics is going to lose touch with the people he is supposed to represent after a period of time. By forcing them out after a set period of time, they might actually try to get something *real* done instead of constantly trying to stay in office.
Oh wait, this is the public we're talking about... *sigh*