Jun

21

Investigation Called For Against Strickland’s Irresponsible Administration

June 21, 2007 |

This is just outrageous and extremely irresponsible. A tape of sensitive information taken out of the office and kept in an unlocked car on an un-encrypted tape. Smooth move. What is on this tape? Here is some of the items.

Since last Friday, when Strickland announced the tape was stolen from a state intern’s car June 10, the governor has confirmed the tape contains:

-The names and Social Security numbers of all 64,467 non-university state employees.

-Names, Social Security numbers, addresses and phone numbers of 53,797 state employees enrolled in the state’s pharmacy-benefits management program, plus the names and Social Security numbers of 75,532 dependents. Officials don’t think medical information is included.

-Names and bank-account information for school districts and local governments to receive payments from the state. There are 2,685 records, and officials are assuming that all local governments and school districts are included.

-Medicaid provider names, tax-identification numbers, addresses and bank-account information to receive payments from the state. There are 159,708 records, but officials think many are duplicates because there only are about 77,000 state Medicaid providers.

-The names, Social Security numbers and retirement-account numbers for the 1,031 state employees who are part of the State Teachers’ Retirement System. This includes current employees and those who have retired since Dec. 21, 2005, who paid into the system.

-The banking information, addresses and phone numbers of the 28,362 state employees and vendors who receive electronic payment of expense reimbursements from the state. There’s no estimate of how many are employees and how many are vendors.

-Welfare recipient names, confidential case-identification numbers, notification of uncashed payments and amount of payments. There are 153,517 records, but the welfare caseload is about 84,000.

-Federal tax-identification numbers of vendors who receive payments from the state from employee payroll deductions. There are about 1,200 records, but only 16 contain vendor banking information.

BizzyBlog believes an investigation is needed and that some of the heat is partially Strickland’s. Since he has only been in office that long he should get some slack…. BUT… I believe he has erred greatly in attempting to the worst… dribble out information hoping it doesn’t hurt you too bad.  Here is Bizzy Blog.

But in my opinion, the need for an independent investigation is there because we don’t know who and what are causing the situation to continually mushroom. It’s making the governor (unfairly, in this case) look like a buffoon. To be finding out 10 days later that what was thought to be encrypted isn’t, what was thought to be locked wasn’t, and that the scope of what was stolen is still growing, is ridiculous. If the game-playing goes high enough (like to the governor’s cabinet? or a handler?), any attempted internal investigation might be compromised. It’s better to have an independent investigation now and clean house than to either never get a handle on what happened or to have the truly guilty parties engineer some kind of fall-guy/gal result.

I don’t believe Ted Strickland is foolish enough to be dribbling out the bad news like this. If he is, that’s a whole different matter entirely.

I disagree with the last line. Strickland I think knows what he is doing and that he is intentionally dribbling it out. Perhaps he doesn’t know just how bad it might be but he could have after the first mis-information had his aids double back to verify what they knew.

Do people need any more proof that bigger government is incapable of fixing our problems in life. There was a reason limited government was the goal of the founders. One mistake by government now and our lives can be sent spiraling down the tubes.

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Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Columbuser.com / Strickland dribbling out stolen data details on June 21, 2007 10:26 am

    [...] which Conservative Culture responds: I disagree with the last line. Strickland I think knows what he is doing and that he is [...]

  2. BizzyBlog » What the ???? (Ohio Data Theft Update; Time for an Independent Investigation) on June 21, 2007 11:12 am

    [...] Conservative Culture is not cutting the guv as much slack as yours truly. Columbuser thinks that “the way details [...]

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