Lockport city unions angry over Social Security disclosure

[Dissent <Dissent () pogowasright org>]

http://www.lockportjournal.com/local/local_story_080030706.html

Unionized municipal workers in the city are upset that a Freedom of 
Information request the city clerk recently fulfilled included 
employees' Social Security numbers.

For a story that ran March 14 on city workers' salaries, the 
Union-Sun & Journal received a list of city employee pay and 
benefits. Also accidentally included in the documents sent to the 
newspaper by City Clerk Richard Mullaney were the workers' Social 
Security numbers.

The City of Lockport Union Partnership, a group consisting of five 
city unions ­ the police Hickory Club, CSEA, City of Lockport 
Department Heads Association, Lockport Professional Firefighters 
Association and AFSCME ­ sent a press release Tuesday afternoon 
critical of the city for making the mistake and the paper for not 
returning the documents, citing identity theft concerns.

"Over the past week or so, a local newspaper chose a convenient 
target ­ the employees of the City of Lockport ­ upon which to lay 
blame for the taxes we all pay. In its zeal to assist the newspaper, 
the leadership of the city quickly provided the salary, pension, 
health care costs and ... the Social Security numbers for all city 
employees," the unions' release said. "The reporter who received the 
information and had it in her possession for an estimated three days 
failed ethically by not returning the information immediately."

Tim Marren, the US&J's managing editor, said the reporter who wrote 
the story, Joyce Miles, didn't realize that Social Security numbers 
were on the documents until after the story ran, and that the paper 
hadn't asked for those numbers in its Freedom of Information request. 
The numbers were blacked out after Mullaney notified Miles of the 
error, Marren said, and the documents were then shredded at the 
request of City Attorney John Ottaviano.

[...]

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