Chilling Effect
By Mitch Berg
It appears that government computers were used to find information about Sam “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher:
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.
It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver’s license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.
Paul Lindsay, Ohio spokesman for the McCain campaign, attempted to portray the inquiries as politically motivated. “It’s outrageous to see how quickly Barack Obama’s allies would abuse government power in an attempt to smear a private citizen who dared to ask a legitimate question,” he said.
The Obama campaign’s response?
Isaac Baker, Obama’s Ohio spokesman, denounced Lindsay’s statement as charges of desperation from a campaign running out of time. “Invasions of privacy should not be tolerated. If these records were accessed inappropriately, it had nothing to do with our campaign and should be investigated fully,” he said.
Hm. I don’t know that anyone said “the campaign” did it – but while we’re on the subject, how is it that reams of personal, embarassing, government-access info about someone who dares ask a question of The One finds itself in the public domain almost immediately?
To paraphrase Nick Coleman, let’s connect the dots:
- Regular joe asks Obama a tough question, which Mac seizes on in the debate; Regular joe gets his personal life gone over with a fine-toothed comb in public (likely with the help of illegal and unethical access to government records).
- TV station broadcasts an ad critical of the Obamessiah; The One’s lawyers threaten to take action against the station’s broadcast license.
- Democrats spooling up to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine at their first opportunity.
Feeling audacious?
October 27th, 2008 at 5:25 am
So now that the other side’s going to be in power, you guys are going to stop making fun of paranoid lefties and become paranoid righties? That’ll be fun for Angryclown, anyway.
Facts to wingnuts are like holy water to vampires.
October 27th, 2008 at 6:01 am
AC, your ending aphorism is hackneyed.
“Facts to moonbats are like holy water to vampires”.
October 27th, 2008 at 8:01 am
You make me laugh, angryclown.
If you pay attention, you may find that there are reasons for some anxiety.
Worrying about something many Democrats say they intend to do is not “paranoid”, it is “justified”.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:05 am
It’s always amazing to me how quickly private details such as those from Mr. Wurzelbacher’s life become public in this day of hyper-sensitivity where HR departments are prescriptively tight-lipped, personal medical information is guarded as if it were the Colonel’s secret recipe and because of Sarbanes-Oxley I have to change all my work passwords every 30 days. The same thing happened to Jeanne Assam, the church security guard who shot a murderer shooting up a church in Colorado last December. Somehow or another her personnel file from when she was with the Minneapolis Police Dept. made it into the story the day after the shooting (http://thenightwriterblog.powerblogs.com/posts/1197432551.shtml).
I’ve waited for those who leapt so eagerly to the barricades on behalf of terrorists talking on cell phones to similarly defend the privacy of politically incorrect citizens, but I’ve heard nothing. They all must have already been frozen by some chill wind.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:07 am
This is why moonbats are so concerned about the Patriot Act. They know that if that authority ever gets into the hands of Democrats, we really will be in trouble.
October 27th, 2008 at 9:44 am
What did Barry know and when did he know it?
October 27th, 2008 at 8:45 pm
A McCain spokesman attempted to portray the inquiries as politically motivated, which the left-wing illuminati extremists stated was justified. Why aren’t those who tapped into Joe Wurzelbacher’s records being investigated?