The Blog of Legal Times wrote:
The class action by Sean Gerlich -- filed yesterday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia -- is the first suit resulting from an internal Justice report issued last week that says two former Justice officials illegally screened applicants to the honors and summer intern programs.
The two officials were Esther Slater McDonald, then counsel to the associate attorney general and now an associate at Seyfarth Shaw, and Michael Elston, then chief of staff to Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty and now a partner at McGuireWoods.
Gerlich's suit says the department politicized the selection process, mishandled the applications and failed to maintain the records, all in violation of the Privacy Act, the Civil Service Reform Act and the Federal Records Act. In addition, the suit claims violations of the First and 14th Amendments.
Gerlich says he was rejected because of his liberal affiliations, which officials dug up through Internet searches.
2 comments:
Employers dig through the Internet, including MySpace and Facebook accounts all the time. Is that illegal? Employers routinely leave applicants 'off the call list' because they find the drunken frat pictures on their MySpace accounts.
Interesting question, Kittybowtie. The only right for the employee is the company computer. Folks should not check their email or go to their favorite website because they are monitored by the company. Yes, the company can tell you that you surf the net on your break and lunch. But, employees can still monitor. The stuff that they look at if you searching porn, competitive companies, and so on.
But, I think with the Gerbil's Patriot Act, some employers have certainly abuse that to the point they feel that they can go through their personal site on their computers at home. So, the whole entire company policies in all areas need to be rewritten again once the Gerbil is gone.
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