Joe the Plumber’s 15 minutes of fame has exploded into a scandal that may live on forever as a data breach cautionary tale.
Joe Wurzelbacher’s fame began with a challenge to presidential candidate Barack Obama during a campaign rally in Toledo, Ohio. Within a few days, he became the GOP poster child to discredit Obama’s tax plan when John McCain repeatedly identified Wurzelbacher as Joe the Plumber in the second presidential candidates debate.
Now, questionable searches for more information on Joe using Ohio state government’s databases have sealed his fate.
Investigators are looking into the inappropriate searches traced back to the state Attorney General’s office, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency, the state Department of Jobs and Family Services, former state contractors, and the Toledo Police Department.Former state contractors also accessed Joe’s records by using accounts established years ago while they were creating the Ohio Local Law Enforcement Information Sharing Network. Officials with the attorney general’s office, which operates the network, say they had no idea the contractors were still able to access state databases.
James McCafferty, a Cuyahoga County administrator, said they have frozen the computer of a child support specialist in the county’s child support enforcement agency. McCafferty said yesterday they had not yet completed the forensics to determine whether the unnamed employee conducted the search.
“Just because you have the ability to access the information, you certainly don’t have the right to do that,” McCafferty said. “That’s private information.”
Helen Jones-Kelly, director of the state Department of Jobs and Family Services, admits she approved a check of state records to see whether Joe was behind on child support payments. Jones-Kelly cited a past incident in which an Ohio lottery winner was found to be in arrears in his court-ordered payments.
Additionally, three searches of the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicle records were conducted from within the Toledo Police Department.
Ohio’s Gov. Ted Strickland said they have no reason to believe state employees disclosed the information gained in any of the searches.
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