E-mails to the city of Bozeman

I've been going through the e-mails that were sent to the City of Bozeman regarding last month's privacy fiasco. I requested copies of e-mails filed as public comments that had to do with the hiring policy. The result was more than 200 e-mails in PDF form that will cost me $59. Ouch.

At least it's not as bad as the bill will be for the local NBC affiliate. When I met with him to pick up my CD of e-mails, City Attorney Greg Sullivan told me that the NBC reporter had filed a much less specific request for e-mails. Glad I don't have to pay that bill.

As it is, a pair of the e-mails I received had some of their lines redacted. Sullivan explained that those e-mails contained information that could have violated the privacy rights of current city employees or other people who are involved in disputes with the city. He did say that if the situations surrounding those redactions ever change, he'll send on the non-edited versions of the e-mails.

I'm going to hit a few highlights and note a few trends in the e-mails. I'm not going to give the letter writers' whole names. I see no need to. Besides, who knows if they are even real names? First names will suffice for our purposes.

The overwhelming theme of the e-mails was that the City of Bozeman is run by ignorant, redneck idiots who don't know Facebook from a hole in the ground. Phrases like "Orwellian," "Nazi," "communist," "undemocratic" and "un-American" were thrown around liberally. This type of criticism is epitomized by this letter, from a man named Matt:

I’ve never had an opinion of Bozeman Montana until today… it appears you are a bunch of backward uneducated fools.

A lot of letter writers took the city's policy as an offense against America. This sort of argument can be seen in this letter from Jason, who wrote in all caps, which I won't reproduce here:

How about you, Bozeman and anyone in Montana that supports this neo-Nazi anti-American crap all go and leave this country? I hear Iran needs more civil rights suppression and you would fit in nicely. After all, you seemingly disagree with our moral compass and our values, so move on. Go elsewhere. Just leave.

(In a later e-mail, Jason linked to my A Letter to the City Attorney post. He also appropriated two paragraphs of my Aggregated Media Coverage of the Bozeman Privacy Fiasco post. I suppose I don't feel bad about that, since it was just a collected set of publicly available quotes from news stories.)

Interestingly, many of those who attacked the city's patriotism also mentioned the federal Constitution a lot, though it really didn't apply to this case as directly as the Montana Constitution does, what with its "right to privacy" clauses. I suppose, though, that certain arguments can be made that this sort of employer or government oversight infringes on citizens' First Amendment rights to free speech or even free assembly.

Some writers were more reasoned in their e-mails, like this Michigan woman, Allison, who wrote:

It's not just a First Amendment violation and an egregious breach of privacy, it's a boneheaded move that makes your city look like the smallest of small towns with the biggest over-inflation of importance.

We also have this from a man named David on June 19:

This tramples on civil liberties and privacy laws intended to protect citizens from discrimination. What information could you possibly be looking to gather from such sites? Political affiliation? Religious affiliation? Sexual orientation? A person would be foolish to oblige your request, yet unfortunately in this economic climate a person may feel obligated to do so, fearful that not providing this information may impact negatively on their chances to obtain employment, despite statements that indicate otherwise. [...] To allow such sensitive information to be gathered, regardless of the intent, is to invite abuse of this power. In fact, it is inevitable that it will be abused.

My favorite comes from someone named Joachim, who wrote to the City on June 19:

Here is my pass word (sic):

KISSMYASSBOZEMAN

please note that all are capital letters.

In all, the e-mails are a collection of outrage, poorly researched criticism and threats of boycott against the city or state. Pretty much what I expected when I asked for them a few weeks ago.

We don't really learn anything new from these letters. In fact, we confirm a very old social more of the Internet -- all online discussions, if drawn out long enough, eventually mention Hitler or the Nazis. Still, I thought it was important to get a feel for the kind of barrage that flew into the e-mail inboxes of city officials on those days.

And note this: after the word began to spread that the city had revoked the policy, some of the e-mails turned into praise for such a quick reaction. I have to imagine those were better to read than the deluge of criticism and insults.

This is not meant to defend the city in way, but we have to look at the reality of the situation. The policy was wrong, but it was not evil. It was created by people who thought it would help; it just so happened that those people didn't think through the consequences of the policy or consult the right legal minds about it beforehand.

The policy is gone. An investigation is set to begin. Now it's time to move past the outrage and insults and start looking at this event critically, even academically. It's time to learn from this fiasco, to learn about the power of the Web to influence government, about the appropriateness of online background checks and even about the public's sense of perceived privacy.

I'd be interested to learn if any other cities out there have been influenced by this episode. If you know of any, please drop a comment.

Related posts:

1. E-mails to City of Bozeman about privacy fiasco not yet available to the public
2. City of Bozeman releases report on hiring policy investigation
3. A letter to the Bozeman city attorney
4. Update on request for documents from Bozeman
5. Notes from a brief talk with Greg Sullivan