Saturday, January 9, 2010

Funny Stuff

There's some funny (odd) stuff going on at Town Hall lately. The most interesting oddities seem to be completely ignored by our local investigative reporters. Wonder why?

2 comments:

mudpuppy said...

Funny Stuff and Gundecking sound like you're laying ground work! Could gun decking refer to the auditors? Did the old one gun deck and the new one didn't? That would answer some questions! Hmmmmmm! I've got one for you: The 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court wrote that, depending on circumstances, when office doors are locked there is a presumption of privacy, which means it can't be searched without a warrant. Hmmmmm!

David Cox said...

Max:
Thanks for the comment.

I'll have more to say on the topic of gun decking. I'm just verifying a few things first.

As for office doors, I assume you are talking about government offices. It has always been true that private offices can't be searched by the federal government without a search warrant. That right is protected by the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution.

The US Supreme Court decided in 1961 that the Fourteenth Amendment to the US Constitution extends the protection of the fourth amendment to actions by state governments

But what about government employees? In 1987, the US Supreme Court [See O’Connor, 480 U.S. at 716-19] ruled that a public employee has a reasonable expectation of privacy in personal items, papers, and effects in office, desk, and file cabinets provided by a public employer.

A possibly related issue is that government offices also often contain information concerning private citizens which is required by law to be protected. A warrantless search of a government office could easily result in compromise of protected information. This is a particularly sensitive issue in respect to possible identity theft and other issues.

Under North Carolina law, businesses and state and local governments are required to notify the Attorney General's Office if personal information has been compromised by a security breach. Individuals possibly affected must also be informed by a Security Breach Letter.

A security breach occurs if personal information (Social Security Numbers, bank account numbers, driver's license numbers, etc.) is lost, stolen or accessed improperly.