Privacy Rights...

This particular post reflects neither my interest in all things Australian or Indonesian. However, there are interesting parallels between things happening in Bozeman, Montana, and Australia and Indonesia as this post relates to privacy, rights, and civil liberties.

It seems that the city of Bozeman in their standard job application form is asking for prospective employees to divulge their passwords to myriad of sites and accounts that they may hold. This includes your standard Facebook and other social networking sites like MySpace, and it also includes sites such as Google, You Tube, and Yahoo as well.

Now, according to the city, the failure to provide these passwords is not going to draw a negative inference on your application and nor will it preclude you from the advertised position. The city intends to use your passwords as a means of verifying the information that you provided in your application. I wonder whatever happened to calling an applicant's referees?

I guess I would not be getting a job in Bozeman anytime soon if this policy is continued. As a matter of principle I would not be supplying my passwords to anyone. Most civil libertarians are up in arms that this is a clear invasion of one's right to privacy. However, this is also an issue that relates to identity theft. Just about everyone that requires you to have a password unequivocally states that under no circumstances should you give your password to others. This is generally to ensure that your identity cannot be stolen and used by others.

One of the rationale being proffered is that it is reasonable that if a person has a public profile that an employer has a right to check it out. I agree, if a prospective employee has a public profile listed somewhere then there is no reason why a prospective employer cannot go and check it out. I would have no problems with a prospective employer reading my Facebook profile or my blog. However, I would object to the idea that they would need my passwords to get into the inner sanctum of my Facebook account or blog. Those parts are not part of the public profile or the public record and as such access to them by a prospective employer is an unreasonable request.

The idea that an employer has this right to this level of access to the personal information that the divulging of these type of passwords provides begs the question, "would an employer be comfortable with a prospective employee having the same degree and level of access to company, corporate, and management information in order to make a decision about whether to apply to work for the company?"

Next we will be hearing that we have to supply this information in order that employers can make certain they are not employing terrorists or other "undesirables".

I guess my point is, once you start on this slippery slope of openness or transparency, where does it stop?

Hunting Wolves -- Endangered Species

The gray wolves of the Northern Rockies have been on the endangered list for a while. However, this protection was lifted recently for areas in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho in March. A ten-year effort to restore gray wolf numbers the numbers of gray wolves have reached an estimated 2000.

The lifting of the endangered protection status was challenged by environmentalists, including the group Earthjustice, and as a result US Federal Court Judge, Donald Molly, issued a preliminary injunction to restore the protections. Judge Molloy will ultimately have to decide whether to make the temporary injunction permanent or allow the hunt to continue.

The hunt calls for 500 wolves to be culled.

Judge Molloy in issuing the preliminary injunction said that the government had not met its own criteria for a cull to be permitted. Specifically, Judge Molloy questioned whether the interbreeding program to ensure that the genetics of the various groups are sufficiently varied. Nevertheless, the government's chief biologist on the restoration program believes that the wolves are "a very biologically sound package."

This is an interesting case because it goes directly to the heart of striking a balance between maintaining diversity in the environment and protecting the interests of farmers who blame wolves for continual livestock attacks.

Stay tuned.