Topics: Security

Fallout From 'Joe The Plumber' Snooping Heats Up

Posted by George Hulme, Nov 17, 2008 06:20 PM

This presidential election involved more hacking and digital snooping than any other election I can recall.

First, there's the alleged hacking of vice-president hopeful Sarah Palin's Yahoo e-mail account. Then there was the hacking of both candidate's Web sites. Perhaps the worst case of digital debauchery is what happened to Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, aka "Joe the Plumber," after he simply asked then-candidate Barack Obama a question about small business tax policy.

According to a story that recently ran in the Akron Beacon Journal, the Ohio Inspector General is investigating a half-dozen agencies that accessed state records on Joe the Plumber:

The Beacon Journal has learned that, in addition to the Department of Job and Family Services, two other state offices -- the Ohio Department of Taxation and Ohio Attorney General Nancy Rogers -- conducted database searches of Joe the Plumber.

The story goes on:

The next day, the taxation department conducted two separate searches of a database of liens for unpaid taxes that were certified to the Ohio Attorney General's Office for collection.

The moral of the Wurzelbacher story? Make sure your parking tickets, taxes, child support payments, and any other business with the state is cleared up before having the audacity to ask any politician a tough (which it really wasn't in this case) question.

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