Ah, but you miss the point. We didn't publish it first. The city of Claremont did quite publicly not just the two that we published, but thousands of them going back every two weeks for several years.
No, this is not true. The city of Claremont and many other cities in California mainain on-line document archives that do not require a request. The idea is to reduce the time needed by city clerks to hunt down and copy documents. This archive is where the pay stub information was located, and it was the city of Claremont that posted them there.
There is no request process involved. If you want to obtain copies of past city reports, agendas, minutes, warrant registers (the city's checkbook), it is (or was) all on-line for the public to freely access.
These are public employees. They do not have 401(k)s. They receive a public pension that pays 2.5% of their salary for each year they are employed. They are eligible at 55. This is paid into the California Public Employees Retirement System. You might try reading the information before chiming in.
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:
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.
Yes, these were actual scans; and no, they did not have any personal information - no Social Security numbers, no dates of birth, no home addresses, no phone numbers, no dependent information. Nothing. All of the remainder, like it or not, is considered public information for public employees under California law.
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:
Look, we don't make the law. It is what it is for better or worse. Perhaps the city should not have posted the paystubs publically, but the fact is, in an article published today in the local Inland Valley Daily Bulletin (which has been covering the issue), several California public records experts indicated that there was nothing in the pay stub images, other than bank routing numbers, which could be redacted, that could be construed as confidential.
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.
Well, you are right that there is more to the story than the subject line. However, you are incorrect in assuming that we at the blog aggregated the information. That was the form it was in on the city website - 283 paystub images bundled together in 1.pdf file.
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:
You presume a number of incorrect things. First, there was no "snooping around" involved. The information was posted on a public, online City of Claremont archive designed to reduce the need for the public to make written requests for city documents. The site had been up for several years. We accessed the information while researching an essay on public employee compensation. We simply typed a search for the Claremont City Manager, Jeff Parker, together with the word "performance." We were looking for his latest performance evaluation, which was discussed in public at a city council meeting earlier this year. Up popped a.pdf with pay stubs for all city employees.
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:
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Ah, but you miss the point. We didn't publish it first. The city of Claremont did quite publicly not just the two that we published, but thousands of them going back every two weeks for several years.
There is no request process involved. If you want to obtain copies of past city reports, agendas, minutes, warrant registers (the city's checkbook), it is (or was) all on-line for the public to freely access.
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