American Idol 2012 finale
Rollover crash injures 2
News hounds (5/24/12)
Michael D. Pitman reports about Butler County, Ohio, politics, county government, countywide issues and Butler County people just like you for Cox Ohio Publishing (including the Hamilton JournalNews, Middletown Journal and several weekly papers in Butler County). He wants your suggestions and questions for more news stories. Leave a comment for him here or e-mail Michael at Home > Blogs > Butler County News and Issues > Archives > 2010 > June > 14
Monday, June 14, 2010
Disclosure law doesn’t cover misplaced documents
If a government misplaces a pile of documents containing confidential information in a Dumpster, they don’t have to tell anyone. If they lose a password protected laptop computer, state law requires public disclosure within 45 days.
That is why Butler County wasn’t required to tell the 10,600 people potentially affected by a security breach in 2008 that their records may have been tossed in a public trash bin — where at least one member of the public saw it — according to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.
For more on that story, see the post below.
“(The law) applies to data in a computer system, security breaches,” said Ted Hart, spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office, which is responsible for enforcing the provision. “The law is specific to data theft and hacking and security systems.”
The state law created in 2007 requires state agencies and their political subdivisions that keep computerized data to disclose any breach of their system to residents made at risk of identity theft or fraud.
The law gives agencies 45 days after they find a security breach to notify the public.
The law was created the same year a data storage device containing information about 64,467 state employees was stolen from the car of an intern who worked for the state.
In response, the state paid $660,000 for all affected employees to be given access to a free credit monitoring service.
‘The right thing to do’
Similar laws also apply to some private agencies, such as hospitals. When Cincinnati Children’s Hospital discovered a laptop computer was stolen from an employee’s home in March, the hospital had to send a letter notifying more than 61,000 people.
The letter informs people that the laptop contained names, medical record numbers and hospital services received. It did not include Social Security numbers, telephone numbers or credit card info, the letter says. The information was password-protected, but not encrypted.
“While there is no evidence there has been an attempt to misuse any of the personal information, Cincinnati Children’s believes it is important to notify you,” the letter reads. “Cincinnati Children’s is committed to providing the highest level of care for its patients and families and that includes protecting personal information.”
In addition to the legal requirement, hospital spokesman Thomas McCormally said telling the public was “the right thing to do.”
“This is not the way that we like to do business, and we have staked our names and our reputation around patient quality and doing the right thing,” McCormally said. “When things like this happen, it means we have to redouble our efforts and see what we can do to do even better.”
The hospital also set up a hot line for those affected, and contracted with the Oregon-based company ID Experts to provide people with identity theft protection.
“Obviously, this is a big undertaking to notify families and then go the extra step of offering the credit protection that ID Experts will provide,” McCormally said.
State law mum on common mistake
In addition to a lack of enforcement of such matters, the state Attorney General’s Office says there is little in state law dictating disposal of confidential records.
Pari Swift, senior records manager at the Attorney General’s Office, said there is nothing in state law that “specifically governs the disposal of public documents.”
“There are other federal regulations that do specify how certain types of information need to be disposed, such as HIPAA,” Swift said. “I’d recommend just being smart about it. If a document contains confidential information, destroy it in a way that would completely obscure that information.”
Although cities are required to create a retention schedule for public documents, laying out exactly how long they will keep various items on hand, she said nothing controls how they are disposed of outside of that time period.
The Ohio Historical Society then receives those documents for review, where they determine whether a copy should be maintained for “enduring historical value,” Swift said. Once the Historical Society has a say, however, Swift said governments can go ahead and dispose of the records any way they please.
In March, a mound of documents from the city of Middletown was found to have been left in a public trash bin at Smith Park for weeks. Some contained Social Security numbers, phone numbers and carbon copies of checks.
City officials said they don’t know how it happened, but they suspect the documents started in a recycling bin, just as the county’s records did.
“Somebody made a mistake and threw something away that should have been shredded,” city Law Director Les Landen said at the time. “We do have a policy and process for getting rid of confidential and sensitive documents, but that clearly was not followed here.”
A similar incident of public information being improperly disposed of occurred slightly more than one year ago on June 26, when attorney William Bowen dumped stacks of business and real estate case files in a public trash bin.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Butler County
TweetCounty improperly disposed of documents, told no one
From Sunday’s paper:
When a mound of Middletown city documents containing people’s private information was found in a public Dumpster this spring, it wasn’t the first — or largest — such security breach by a local government.
An investigation by this newspaper has found that Butler County’s Department of Job and Family Services learned in 2008 that confidential records from that agency were being “periodically” improperly disposed of in a public bin.
An internal analysis by the agency found that 10,600 people could have been affected.
This is the number of people who used the JFS office at 4122 Tonya Trail in Fairfield Twp., where the documents originated. They included case notes and verification forms dealing with the Ohio Works First, food stamps, Medicaid and child care programs.
Though the records were supposed to be shredded using a document disposal company, county officials found that office had been simply throwing the records in a recycling bin.
That’s where they were found by a member of the public on July 18, 2008.
The county took action to make sure the records were disposed of properly, and considered notifying the people who may have had information compromised.
Officials drafted a letter suggesting people could use a free Internet service to guard against identity theft.
But they never sent the notice out.
Instead, they decided to “wait and see if there is any response from clients,” according to internal memos.
Two years later, those clients still have no knowledge their information could have been compromised.
“They should have told us from the very beginning,” said Christina Cruz, who used the JFS office during that time.
County held back on response to a records breach
When Jerome Kearns first saw the pile of confidential records from his office in a Dumpster by Butler Tech, he thought they were stolen.
It was July 18, 2008. County records lay out in detail what happened next: what county officials did — and didn’t — do.
There were piles of papers — files from Butler County Job and Family Services, where Kearns is assistant director, and from LifeSpan, the county engineer’s office, Children Services, and Butler County Child Support Enforcement Agency.
Some of the records contained confidential information, such as case notes and eligibility verifications for food stamps, Ohio Works First, subsidized child care and Medicaid programs.
Kearns estimates there were about 10 60-gallon trash bags of records. He called co-worker Adam Jones because Jones had a pickup truck.
“They weren’t going to fit in my Elantra,” Kearns said. “There was a significant number of records there.”
The records had been found by a member of the public.
“Some member of the community (was) throwing their stuff in there, and picked one up and thought they were important,” Kearns said.
Kearns took the records back to where they presumably came from, the JFS office at 4122 Tonya Trail, off Liberty Fairfield Road in Fairfield Twp.
Documents pitched ‘periodically’
It didn’t take long to solve the mystery.
The next day, Kearns asked Kim Gay, manager of that office, where the bins were that she used for confidential information. In other county offices, special bins were periodically picked up by the company Royal Document Destruction for shredding.
The Fairfield Twp. office, which had been open since January 2007, had no such bins. Staffers there had been throwing records in the recycling bins. Believing that there was no confidential information involved, a worker for Butler County Environmental Services, which handles recycling for county offices, “had dumped these bins at community sites periodically over the last six months,” Kearns wrote later.
County officials went into action.
They brought new, secure bins to the Tonya Trail office. They pulled records and found 10,600 people who had used that office in the prior 12 months. They researched a company that provides protection for people at risk of identify theft, and what it would cost to cover all those people.
They put together a list of addresses, and drafted a letter notifying people who may have been affected.
“Although we consider the risk to you to be relatively low, the fact is that we failed to adequately protect your confidentiality, and we want to rectify that now,” the letter said.
Then, they did nothing. The letter never went out.
“I asked Tim (Williams, then county administrator) for direction regarding our records that were found in a (D)umpster,” says a Aug. 19, 2008, memo from Kearns. “Tim indicated that (county) commissioners would like to wait and see if there is any response from clients.”
“Tim does not want us to send a letter out notifying clients that their records might have been compromised,” the memo says.
Commissioners respond
Two commissioners said they were satisfied there was no proof that anyone had their information misused, and that the risk of that happening was low.
“There was nothing to lead us to believe there was more (records dumped in public bins),” said Commissioner Donald Dixon. “We were advised the risk was not sufficient to warrant any other action at that time.”
Dixon said his concern was that making the situation public might make someone more likely to look for the records.
Commission President Gregory Jolivette said notifying the public was also an expensive prospect.
“From my recollection, it was going to cost a lot of money to go another route,” he said.
Commissioner Charles Furmon declined comment for this story.
‘No affirmative obligation’
County officials consulted with the prosecutor’s office and the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. They came to the conclusion that a state law requiring agencies to tell the public about security breaches didn’t apply to them.
“Final discussion with (Ohio JFS attorney Ramesh Thambuswamy) on Aug. 6, 2008, concluded that there was no requirement to contact client(s) about a potential breach,” reads a memo from Roger Clark, Butler County JFS legal supervisor. “Ramesh also restated that he does not think (the law above) should be used as guidelines for our county.”
The attorney recommended they take corrective action and document everything in writing, which they did.
“There was no affirmative obligation … ( for JFS) to contact anybody,” said Bruce Jewett, interim county administrator.
“We thought the likelihood of any of that information being used was extremely low, and I’d say that was a position that developed over time,” Jewett said. “That’s not to say I didn’t treat the matter with the appropriate level of concern.”
Jewett is and was director of Butler County JFS, and is currently president of the county’s records commission.
“Ultimately, I was comfortable with the decision that was made,” he said.
Kearns said it was unlikely any of the records they found were compromised because they didn’t sit in the Dumpster very long.
But no one knows how often or how many times such records were tossed in a public bin since the office opened in 2007. That makes it unclear exactly what kinds of records were improperly disposed of over that year.
“We have no proof there was confidential information put in those Dumpsters,” Kearns said. “I have no way of knowing that number was 10,600.”
Kearns said no one was disciplined because the person who opened the Tonya Trail office, and so was deemed responsible for not providing the proper bins, left the county. That office closed in April of this year.
Part of the reason the risk of identity theft was deemed low was because those affected were low-income, Kearns and Jewett said.
“Our clients typically don’t have assets,” Kearns said.
‘That’s messed up’
“That’s messed up,” said Christina Cruz, 30, one of the people who used that office during that time period. “They should have told us from the very beginning,”
Cruz, who lives in Hamilton, collected Ohio Works First money when she was pregnant with her daughter, now 2. She said all someone would need is her Social Security number to steal her benefits.
Constance Iredale said when her daughter Christa, now 26, applied for Medicaid, food stamps and child care benefits at the Tonya Trail office during that time, she provided all kinds of confidential information.
“It’s household income, everybody in the household … my Social Security number, my cell number, my work number, copies of check stubs, all that information is on there,” she said.
“We were never informed that any of this happened,” said Iredale, a Liberty Twp. resident. “Hopeful, thank God, knock on wood, none of my stuff has been compromised,” she said.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Butler County
TweetMeet Dave Kern, and the challenges he faces
After nearly 30 years as a Liberty Twp. trustee, Dave Kern said it was President Barack Obama who finally riled him up enough to take a more active role in the local GOP.
The 68-year-old said it was “a calling to get out of my comfort zone.”
“The direction our nation is taking under President Obama is not the direction I want my children and grandchildren to live under,” he said.
Kern, a proud Tea Party activist, has not been quiet about his distaste for the president. He famously called Obama a “Marxist” last year and voted against the township applying for any federal stimulus funds.
But while he’ll get a chance to campaign against Obama in 2012, Kern’s job as party chairman is more immediately focused on helping local candidates get and keep their jobs.
He said he’ll do this by opening up the party to more people than ever before.
“I want to make it more inclusive for like-minded citizens,” he said.
It’s a big tent he’s trying to build, with the huge number of Republicans in the county.
Kern doesn’t believe the increased role of the Tea Party movement in the GOP — embodied by his election — will alienate the more moderate conservatives or represents a radical shift to the right.
“For the party to succeed, the party must also hold to its principles,” he said. “Republicans strayed from our true beliefs.”
Those beliefs are the same for the Tea Party and the Republican Party, he said: limited government, fiscal responsibility and support of free markets.
Kern said the November campaign is well under way. Phone banks are being set up. He has already canceled the party’s annual October picnic so volunteers can spend that time canvassing neighborhoods.
Other changes are in the wings.
Kern is looking, for example, at the $2,000 monthly rent of the party headquarters in the Bridgewater Falls shopping center.
“We’re examining all options,” he said. “We’re going to be lean and effective.”
Kern also is owner of the Kern Nursery on Millikin Road in Liberty Twp., a family business, and he served in the U.S. Army in the 1960s.
He is married with four grown children.
As township trustee, Kern said he is proud of how he helped manage the township’s growth.
As GOP chairman, he hopes to lead the party to a similar expansion.
“This area is by nature a conservative area, and I have absolutely every confidence that we’ll prevail,” he said.
Permalink | Comments (3) | Post your comment | Categories: Republican Party
TweetMeet Jocelyn Bucaro, and the challenges she faces
From staff jobs at the Bill Clinton White House to the Senate seat later held by Barack Obama, Jocelyn Bucaro has been around the political dance floor a bit.
But with the Liberty Twp. resident’s recent election to the top job in the local Democratic Party, Bucaro has to learn a new beat: Butler County courthouse politics.
The 34-year-old, stay-at-home mother holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from DePaul University in Chicago. After graduating in 1997, she worked staff positions in the White House and for Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun before joining Al Gore’s unsuccessful presidential bid as deputy national field director.
She moved to Ohio with her husband and earned a master’s degree in secondary education, then taught one year at Amelia High School. After a several year child-rearing hiatus, she got back into politics as a volunteer in Obama’s local campaign.
“I never left politics. It always stayed with me,” she said. “(The Obama campaign) grabbed my interest locally because of the sheer number of people we were able to get active locally.”
Republican Arizona Sen. John McCain carried Butler County in 2008. Bucaro said their goal wasn’t to win the county — it was to bring out voters to help win the state, which they did.
But as chairwoman of the county party, she’ll have to help candidates win Butler County. The only Democrat to win a countywide race in recent years ran in a non-partisan race after being named incumbent by the governor.
After the Obama campaign, Bucaro and other volunteers formed the Change Butler Political Action Committee to push progressive issues locally.
Bucaro believes that local Democrats — if they can organize — can win.
“I think there’s a lot of frustration in county government right now,” she said. “Voters who pay attention will hear a message from Democratic candidates that will resonate.”
That message will involve renewed get-out-the-vote efforts in the Democratic strongholds, keeping the races focused on the economy, and putting forward a slate of candidates who might be embraced by conservative-leaning independents.
And it will involve raising money. Bucaro is trying to bring back the party’s annual dinner in September, and start an annual golf outing.
This, she hopes, is a blueprint for a rare event for local Democrats: a win in November.
“The county is changing. It’s changing demographically. It’s changing politically. And we hope we can take advantage of that,” she said.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Democratic Party
TweetParty leaders practically neighbors, far apart on issues
This story ran Saturday about the new leaders of the Butler County Democratic and Republican parties:
The county seat is still in Hamilton, but the seat of power of Butler County may have moved to the suburbs.
Both the local Democratic party’s new chairwoman and the GOP’s new chairman live in Liberty Twp. And though they are nearly neighbors, they couldn’t be farther apart on the political spectrum.
Republican Party Chairman Dave Kern, 68, is an avowed Tea Party activist who made headlines by calling President Barack Obama a “Marxist.”
Democratic Party Chairwoman Jocelyn Bucaro 34, got into local politics through Obama’s campaign, which led her to help form the Change Butler Political Action Committee.
“I’m probably more to the left than maybe your average Democrat, but not as far to the left as people even portray Barack Obama as being,” she said.
This may be what got her the job. Some say she was the compromise candidate between the incumbent party structure — largely union and inner-city — and a growing liberal movement out of Oxford.
Both new leaders say one of their main goals is uniting their parties.
Kern — who has served as Liberty Twp. trustee for nearly three decades — took the local GOP’s helm with a 108-98 vote split in the party’s central committee that unseated the incumbent chairman.
He did so with the backing of Tea Party members, as well as U.S. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-West Chester Twp. — who rarely gets involved in local politics — and state Sen. Gary Cates. It was yet another party infight, following a six-way primary battle for county commissioner.
“We need a unified party that remains focused on advancing our causes,” he said, saying divisions within the party are “not something that is insurmountable and can’t be healed.”
For Bucaro, success will be adding at least one Democrat to Butler County’s elected leadership. For Kern, it will be maintaining near-complete control of local government.
This week, both Bucaro and Kern could be found at their parties’ headquarters — talking to volunteers, lining up supplies and preparing for a face-off in November that could shape all of Butler County.
Question: Has the county’s seat of power moved to the suburbs?
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment |
Tweet
