In response to the Lansing State Journal's decision yesterday to make over 53,000 non-exempt state employees information public on their website, I found myself strangely uncomfortable.
I'm all for right-to-know for the public, and increased transparency within the government, but why does the LSJ choose to flaunt this?
Isn't there a time and place for things like this? Why do we need all of this information flashed across the front-page of one of the state's largest papers? If all of this information is already public knowledge, why can't it be left at that?
There's no doubt there's a delicate balance between the public's right to know and the privacy of state employees, and to me, this whole thing just feels a little off.
I'm fortunate to have several state employees who are regular readers of my humble little blog, and more than one of them contacted me yesterday over this latest firestorm.
After reading both yesterday's LSJ article and the follow-up they posted today, I'm siding with the outraged state employees and fellow blogger Christine Barry, by expressing my displeasure and disbelief toward the LSJ. (In my protest, I refuse to publish the link to the story and/or the online database.)
I encourage you to head over to MichLib and check out my post, weigh in on the debate either here or there, and stand up for our state employees rights. Between John Engler, the Senate Republicans who would slash them to the bone, God knows they have enough fires to fight on a daily basis.
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6 comments:
EMU prints the home addresses and phone numbers for all the facutly and staff in the directory that all students can get. But if you send a confidentiality request. They can't include your information in the book. Maybe the LSJ has something like that too. If not those employees should look into that.
LL, thanks for your article here & on Mich Lib. I see you were the only one on ML to blog about this, and I personally feel that this kind of thing is exactly the kind of thing that should outrage all Michigan liberals.
As someone who has survived a stalker, I can imagine the anxiety that some of our state employees are going through now.
What possible good can come from publishing the names of our state employees, and the work location? Titles and salaries or pay ranges would fulfill the public right to know, and it would keep our state employees safe.
Furthermore, some state employees have commented that the data isn't even accurate, and that the salaries listed are higher than what they actually make. So if you're in a domestic or other financial dispute, now you've got to explain why the LSJ says your salary is higher than you claim it is.
I am writing letters to all of our area newspapers and asking readers and advertisers to stop doing business with the LSJ. It probably won't make a difference, but it's worth the effort anyway.
Part of the deal. It's public information. People what work for the government have to accept that. The paper had a right to do what it did. In the past, my salary has been publicly available on-line. I didn't care--the public had a right to know that information. It's their money.
I am urging those who are angered by the actions of the LSJ: Don't get mad, get even!
If you are angry with this, the best thing to do is contact the advertisers and tell them how you feel. THEY are really the LSJ’s bosses! They pay the bills!
I firmly believe that if the advertisers hear from a lot of their customers, they will put pressure on the LSJ.
Almost all the advertisers have “Contact Us” email forms on their websites. Just go to the advertisers’ websites, find the “contact us” area, and then fill out a form and email it to them, directly from their websites.
For starters:
Staples.com
BestBuy.com
Kroger.com
Meijer.com
http://www.dunhamssports.com (Dunhams)
I had a Smart Source magazine filled with coupons in my paper from last Sunday (the LAST Sunday LSJ that I will ever buy), and I had to actually send them an email: info@smartsourcellc.com
Take your anger and put it to good use! The LSJ won’t listen to us, but they WILL listen to their advertisers.
Has anyone contacted Gannett?
Just so I don't seem like an isolated conservative, as Nazgul pointed out on the last ML response, this stuff can be used by employees to identify and prove discrimination in pay rates, and indeed, some on the left in the past have proposed that even corporations be required to publish salaries (mostly for civil rights reasons).
Aside from that, Christine says "some state employees have commented that the data isn't even accurate" - I think in reference to an ML or other commenter that commented that he only worked part time. The listed salary is what is called an "FTE" - its the "rate," not the actual pay (if you work less than the "full-time" period, you get pro-rated) - and I believe that employee actually commented that he had gone to school part of the year. Regardless, if inaccurate, that's another purpose served by the publication - the employees can check the accuracy and relay that to state to ensure it is updated - we end up with a more accurate accounting in the long-run that way. Whether 100% or not though - and nothing is 100% - the public is entitled to see it. Christine suggests that the inaccuracy itself could create modest inconvenience if you were in a "domestic or financial dispute" - sure, there would be modest inconvenience in such cases, but that suggests yet another great public use for the information - people could verify the veracity of such financial claims quickly, and catch husbands (or wives) that under-value their incomes or anyone attempting such fraud. Indeed, the publicity of the list would disincent such fraud.
Let me throw out other uses - compare this data to campaign finance data. There's a reason we require campaigns to report the name of donors - the name is vital to understanding who's peddling influence (and its mixed right in with donors merely exercising the First Amendment rights to donate to causes and candidates of their choice, and its a tough job knowing or arguing the difference). If patterns show up - let's say a campaign finance name donating large amounts shows up as a public janitor (and that happens repetitively), one might wonder if something's going on. Or even a statistical (or even local/more intuitive) analysis of local donors or small donations might reveal patterns of interest to the public.
And there's almost zero danger to the person named - no danger that they can't handle through other legal channels. If someone stalks you because of your public employee status, you have legal remedies, albeit the odds of that happening are remote. If you're a law enforcement agent, some of the names were deleted (undercover agents), but the names identified were names that the accused would have known because of their Constitutional rights to face their accuser and legal discovery (and whether their is FOIA or not, that's not going to change the incarcerated's potential grudge, so nothing changed in that situation risk-wise).
I sympathize a bit with public workers and understand how this might be irritating. That's the nature of democracy though. Public employees have a choice - and one hand they talk about all the "sacrifices" (from the "far greater compensation in the private sector", etc.) they've made. If that's the case, take your chances in the private sector. Maybe our private sector would start growing if that happened.
Liberals "outraged" by the legitimate application of FOIA when their constituency has mildly "hurt feelings"? I hope conservatives see this and embrace FOIA to its fullest potential. FOIA's always been a politically-neutral tool, which, like all two-edged swords is why both sides cry when it affects them and cheer when they gain from it. FOIA is a centerpiece of democracy in the information age - without it or with a weaker FOIA, democracy will suffer tremendously.
I will add something though, upon deeper reflection of the issue. The way in which LSJ has published the information - (mostly) only accessible by searching by name, instead of in list format so you can look at relationships and statistical issues, makes it not nearly as valuable as it could be. The exception to this is the ability to sort by county or department, but one should be able to sort by salary (i.e. the top 100 or 1000 would be the most interesting), or sort by two categories at once (top salary, plus department).
Configured with the focus on searching by name, I can understand more the complaint of individuals that LSJ's purpose here was something less than the reasons I've cited the information should be public.
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