Joe was not a plant but who cares if he was!!!

Are you really going to take the position that an American citizen CANNOT QUESTION A PUBLIC SERVANT???? Joe does not only have the right but the duty to question his political leaders not matter what his party affiliation.

If you don’t believe me then watch that liberal movie THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT that Rob Riener directed and listen to the exact same line being said by the Michael J Fox character to the president charater played by Michael Douglas!

Tax liens are public. They may or may not be on a credit report, but ARE filed in the local county clerks office and people can go there and search by name or property address and find them just like your mortgage lien on your house is filed and the purchase loan on your car is filed. These are filed so that you can’t sell a car or a home that you owe money on without the person you owe money to being paid.

I doubt that anyone would be unaware that they hadn’t paid the taxes on their house, or their income taxes, either. They might be unaware that the lien had already been filed for not paying their taxes, but they wouldn’t be apt to fail to notice that they hadn’t paid them. LOL.

But it has nothing to do with a credit report, any “official” action or any violation of privacy.

They are PUBLIC, not private. They are filed PUBLICLY and cross indexed so that people can easily find them. You can usually call up the clerk or an title searching company and have a search done for a fee, OR you can go there yourself and look them up, and the clerks will even show you how.

BTW, this is also true if someone files bankruptcy.

Has zero to do with privacy, everything to do with protecting the people that are owed money from getting stiffed with the debtor running off with the money after selling the house or car or whatever. Its publicly filed so that potential buyers will also be put on notice that there is money owed and if they go ahead with their purchase without insuring that all liens of record are payed by the seller at the time of sale, they might be held responsible to pay the sellers debt as the lien is on the property itself.

Driving records and child support payment violations are also public record. There’s no privacy breach. What may be a problem is that someone in a law enforcement agency used public resources to conduct an unnecessary search on a private citizen, which could be a misallocation of public funds issue or a violation of the Fourth Amendment.

As far as allegations and truths from both sides, we are going to believe who we want to believe. It’s just a shame we don’t have better choices, period…,

Eric Nelson
President
Secure Privacy Solutions

Why was someone in the Ohio government searching if he owes child support, or if he had traffic tickets against him?

As for his “public” financial records at the court: the court clerk mentioned to ABC news that Joe probably wasn’t aware that the lien had been placed…but someone found out…

Answer: Someone pulled his credit report to find dirt.

It’s pretty clear to all that Joe flat out lied to the Senator about his entire story. Sen. Obama handled it better than I’ve ever seen a politician handle such an encounter.

Please, lets try to pay attention to what RALLY happens instead of what we WISH might have happened..

My goodness.

And within 24 hours of Obama’s visit, the guy had his credit report, his car registration, and other information searched by someone with access to government computers…before McCain brought up his comments or mentioned his name…

Now I understand.
It’s okay for the government to invade your privacy if you are a Republican…

However, that doesn’t mean that they didn’t run his credit report.

for more on the accessing the NON-public records through the state databases:

http://thurbersthoughts.blogspot.com/2008/10/who-at-tpd-ran-joe-plumbers-records.html

But did he “owe” money to ABC news? Or did they pull his credit report in a fishing expedition to “discover” the liens? If so, does this mean my nosy neighbor can pull up my credit report and broadcast it to everyone in the country, to embarass me?

As for government offices pulling up files: that makes it worse. Nosy reporters can get private information, but when a man is investigated by the government after asking an embarassing question, I shudder.

A lien essentially lays claim to ownership in lieu of payment of a debt. For instance, if I take my car in for servicing and owe $2,000 for the work performed and fail to pay that, the mechanic can place a lien on my car and claim part ownership of it. If and when I sell my vehicle, he can claim up to that amount for his ownership rights. This has nothing to do with a credit report.

I think your assumptions here are way out of order. A request for information by an attorney general to another public agency probably means that the AG believes there could be just cause for a criminal investigation. Whether that’s true or not can be debated, but to suggest that his privacy was violated because government law enforcement agencies are requesting information related to the duties is an error.