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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.
It's becoming increasingly clear that only celebrities and criminals have the right to privacy.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
No, you can expect President Bush to be fired for ordering the wiretap.
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.
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.
Do we really need this politicized to have a discussion about the topic at hand? Which is thoughtless employees snooping around where they have access but apparently no ethics or morals. Something not even close to the situation with warrentless wiretapping, and in no way related? Do we really need this, Taco?
Why would it be illegal? Disclosure, yes. But these were VZW employees who were given the ability to look at records as part of their job. VZW's policy though is that they only look at records that they have a reason to - for customer service, billing, etc.
Unless they turned these over to an outside party (media, government, etc) then there's probably nothing illegal happening. Completely different from the wiretaps.
It's amazing though that the employees are still dumb enough to not realize that their actions, even if they don't change anything, can be tracked.
So, you're asserting big companies encourage bad business tactics? That's horrible!
Apparently it's pretty easy to snoop on a random person's phone records over there. How many employees have snooped on someone less noteworthy -- a friend, a possibly cheating spouse, etc.? Are there policies in place to catch more mundane privacy invasions and fire those people as well, or does it only matter if the person in question is politically relevant?
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
I have generally been an Obama supporter, but was very disappointed that he voted for telecom immunity in the FISA bill last year. Apparently it is ok for corporations as a whole
to snoop on your calls, but not for individual employees to snoop on his. (Note: I am not condoning the action of the employee, it just seems interesting at what level justice applies).
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
If you ask John McCain, he'll tell you that Obama pals around with terrorists. Perhaps this was a case of national security!
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
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.
This is a non-event. Any quality employer will have pretty specific policies about accessing business data on a need-to-know only basis.
I hate to say it, but every president does it.
Bark less. Wag more.
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.
That's interesting. I believe that's the same bank that opened a credit card account for me without my knowledge, and sent me a collections notice for the annual fee plus late fees 6 months later, totaling hundreds of dollars. I'd never received an offer from them, let alone a card, nor would I accepted the thing had they done so. Oddly enough, making it go away only took about an hour on the phone, which leads me to believe it wasn't the first time they'd done this. Worse, the same thing happened the next year, making the "accident" angle a little tough to believe. I'm guessing those clowns lean on employees to basically make up accounts and forge signatures. Really cute. I regret not contacting the attorney general, because that stuff is outrageously illegal.
So basically, what you were seeing looks to have been the least illegal thing happening there. ;)
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.
They only were the government violating the public trust by abusing their ability to access confidential records on private individuals for partisan political reasons. They keep their jobs.
These guys were just with a company that anyone can decide to stop using. They get fired.
So we can take one or both of two things from this based on the case differences:
- Companies are better at ridding themselves of bad people.
- The government workers were Democrats working in a Democrat-run state, trying to help the Democrat presidential candidate, so they get a pass.
No, you can't "expect anyone who followed a warrantless wiretap from the Bush administration to also be fired" becase Obama voted for the law that gives them inmunity, remember?
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Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
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.
If you are ordered by the government to commit an act that is legal given a set of circumstances, and they inform you that those circumstances have been met, and you have no way to independently verify whether or not they have been met, only a COMPLETE FUCKING IDIOT would draw a comparison to snooping carried out on an individual's own whim.
Seriously, did I emphasize that enough? The complete fucking idiot part?
If you need to pull your assmongering little petty partisanship into this, at least make an equal comparison: the illegal and unauthorized access of Joe the Plumber's records. So far, nobody has lost their job over that. One person has been put on suspension without pay, but that's not too big of a deal -- she was already on *payed* leave since Nov. 7 due to her use of her government email to conduct fundraising for Obama.
To be a bit more to the point, I, perhaps wrongfully, expect a little less snippy partisanship from Slashdot -- at least in the submissions.
Again, only a complete fucking idiot would compare this to somebody who was told that the government had a right to order a wiretap. Especially when the government is ALLOWED to issue warrentless wiretaps -- read the law, look under "FISA" -- the Attorney General may order a wiretap if it is deemed an emergency case. He's just gotta tell the FISC court within 72 hours that a wiretap has been placed on someone.
... still waiting for this free-as-in-beer free beer I keep hearing about.
Hi, you don't know any celebrities, politicians, or criminals evidently. I have a few friends and acquaintances in the first two groups, and honestly few of them fit your bill there.
Wikipedia + mistrust of wealth does not equal valid psychology, skipper.
Back to the Clintons.
Who did he save?
Roger Clinton, Jr. - brother of Bill Clinton. After serving a year in federal prison for cocaine possession.
Dan Rostenkowski - United States Representative Democratic Party.
Susan McDougal - partners with Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton in the failed Whitewater deal.
Henry Cisneros - Clinton's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count for lying to the FBI, and was fined $10,000.
Mel Reynolds - Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives.
Bill was corrupt.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Hi! Stand back in awe as my completly unverifiable anecdotal evidence trumps your generalization!
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
I actually did some work with Chiou and Howard on traumatic dissociation.
Could you point to some statistics regarding your claim of "millions of people", specifically celebrities, criminals and politicians being studied? I have run across no such studies (maybe if you added up the samples of every study ever done on personality, whether they're relational or not).