Bozeman Wants Usernames, Passwords - Are You Dumb or Something?

Update: June 23, 2009

City officials, after being crushed in an avalanche of negatively publicity, decided that they would cease asking for this information, admitting that it was probably a mistake. Still to be explained is why it took worldwide outrage for them to come to the same conclusion the rest of us did within seconds of learning about the practice.

Original Post

Things are tough all over, and finding a job is at the top of the list. Lines are long just for the privilege of applying for a position. If you're lucky enough to get past the first hurdle, and you're applying for a city job in Bozeman, Montana, your problems are just beginning.

City officials are requiring applicants to provide both usernames and passwords for all social media accounts, forums, and blogs. They claim to be doing this to ensure quality background checks.

From Montana's News Station:

"Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.," the City form states. There are then three lines where applicants can list the Web sites, their user names and log-in information and their passwords.

This is a terrible idea on many fronts, not the least of which is the incredible invasion of personal privacy that's involved. To add insult to injury, sharing your login information may actually breach the terms of service to which you agreed when you signed up for many of these sites. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.

I'm fully supportive of the concept that people should be held accountable for their online writing and the content of their social networking sites. To me, if you're dumb enough to put stuff out there that would disqualify you for any sort of employment, you deserve what you get.

But I draw the line at providing inside information for these twits to be able to go in and snoop around. Feel free to spider the web searching for traces of me, and if it's publicly available, it's fair game. Unless city officials are willing to give me copies of their tax returns, bank account statements, and video rental histories so I can make an informed decision about the quality of the city management staff so I can feel comfortable that these folks are stable, adjusted, and without vice.

Yeah, I didn't think so.

Want a city job? Fork over your usernames, passwords , via Network World