Within a few days of the “Joe the Plumber” incident, I was reading about his tax lien, that he lacked a full plumber’s license, and that
the plumber currently has an income level that would make him eligible for Obama’s proposed tax cut rather than the tax increase.
ABC news then found quotes a lot of other information that most of us would consider private: that he had a small tax lien posted against him, but the clerk added that Mr. Wurzelbacher probably was unaware that it had been filed.
Question: was that tax clerk authorized to release that information? I am unfamiliar with Ohio state law, but it seems to me that this is confidential information that the clerk was not authorized to release.
But there was a second lien there too: A hospital has a small lien against him for an old hospital bill. (again, the amount was less than 2000 dollars).
Now you are getting into my area of expertise. I was once in private practice, and we sent small bills like this to collection agencies all the time. Often the patients were ignoring the bills, figuring that it was covered by insurance.
But I happen to know where one can find this type of information (small tax liens, small liens for unpaid bills, and one’s salary), and a lot of the information such as salaray that was written about in numerous news stories: In a credit bureau report.
My interpretation is that someone in the press got hold of Mr. Wurzelbacher’s credit report, and then asked the clerk to confirm the liens against him that were listed.
The fact that later reports found small unpaid traffic fines in Texas only increases my suspicion that the press violated the law by accessing his credit report, with the aim of discrediting someone who started as a simple bystander who asked a question.
But you can’t just walk off the street and get information from a credit report. There are privacy laws that involve releasing that information.
Who is allowed to access your credit report?
 Those considering granting you credit.
Landlords.
Insurance companies.
Employers and potential employers (but only with your consent).
Companies with which you have a credit account for account monitoring purposes.
Those considering your application for a government license or benefit if the agency is required to consider your financial status.
A state or local child support enforcement agency.
Any government agency (limited usually to your name, address, former addresses, current and former employers).
Nope, ABC news isn’t in that list.
I have been waiting for the press to pick up these obvious facts, but apparently when the McCain campaign pointed them out, the McCain campaign was accused of lying.
But apparently the violation of Joe the Plumber’s privacy went a lot furthur than a rogue reporter getting a credit report, or catching a low level clerk off guard to spill the beans.
According to the Columbus Dispatch, there were quite a few inquiries about Mr. Wurzelbacher’s records, and many of them were placed by public officials to other public agencies about information that would come under government privacy rules.
Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher’s driver’s license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.
Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.
If you read the article, the source of the inquiries was from official offices that denied that they pulled such information.
The clue that this was a “fishing job” to find negative information is clear, because someone officially snooped into his records to see if he owed back child support (he did not).
Mary Denihan, spokeswoman for the county agency, said the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services contacted the agency today and requested an investigation of the access to Wurzelbacher’s information. Cuyahoga County court records do not show any child-support cases involving Wurzelbacher.
So here we have a dangerous violation of privacy, not only by reporters asking clueless low level clerks, but by officials snooping, using government computers to access government data on a private citizen so they could leak it to the press for a political smear.
One is happy that the Columbus Dispatch is keeping an eye on the story.
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Nancy Reyes is a retired physician living in the rural Philippines. She blogs at MakaipaBlog.
11 users commented in " Were Joe the Plumber’s privacy rights violated by the press or the Obama Campaign? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackJoe the Plumber’s privacy was not violated. Liens are public information. By nature they are public because they are filed as official public documents to notify other potential creditors that a person has not honored a particular debt. Liens can be placed on real estate, automobiles, and virtually any property owned by an individual or legal entity.
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.
Ah, I see. Liens are public so other creditors can know.
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.
In Ohio, liens filed against a person or property are a public record and any inquiry via email or phone or in person would result in the information being known. A credit report showing such is necessary to take advantage of what is a public record in Ohio.
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
Your title stated, Were Joe the Plumber’s privacy rights violated by the press or the Obama Campaign? Excuse me, your title should say, Were Joe the Plumber’s privacy rights violated by the press or the McCain Campaign?
After all, McCain is the one who brought up Joe the Plummer’s name in the third and final Presidential Debate. Joe the (Wurzelbacher’s) Plumber’s was a Repulican plant. He even donated $100.00 to their party and ignored paying over $1,100.00 in back taxes. GO figure!
Ah so….McCain arranged that Obama just happened to visit the guy’s home and ask him a question…
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…
Barack Obama did NOT visit Joes’ home! Joe, sought out Mr. Obama to ask a question. All that has been told about Joe was either publicly filed at the local court house or fed to the press by either Joe himself, or people who knew him..
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.
But the real story is that several government computers did search for background dirt on Joe within 24 hours of his interview…before McCain brought him up to the press.
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.
As a privacy professional, I have to agree with the author’s main point, that “Joe’s” personal information was apparently breached and possibly through illegal means.
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
The only evidence offered here of his privacy being violated is that we know more about him than we care to. A lien is public information. It’s not a credit issue. It’s an ownership issue. If you fail to pay a debt that you owe then your debtor can file a lien on your property, claiming part ownership. That’s public information in every state in the union.
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.
Why do you keep talking about a credit report and privacy? “Private” is the opposite of “Public”. This information on tax, hospital, mechanics liens, mortgages, certificates of debt, etc. is all Public. That means any one of the public can look at it.
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.
Songboy and the rest of you dips….wake up!!!
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!
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