Legislator faulted for seeking staff passwords

[dtwarren]

From: http://www.buffalonews.com/city-regi...words-20141208

Majority Leader Joseph C. Lorigo, C-West Seneca, several weeks ago began an internal investigation into who on his team might have leaked a string of emails between two other staff members for the Legislature’s Republican-aligned majority.

In one of the email exchanges, staffers who work in Democratic legislators’ district offices were disparaged as employees who “steal taxpayer time,” a potentially politically embarrassing accusation.

Lorigo last week denied having demanded passwords from the legislative staffers under his purview, insisting that it was merely a request to which they all willingly complied.

Lorigo made no bones about the propriety of his request.

“I have every right, in my administerial duties as majority leader, to review all internal emails from my staff. They are all public records. They’re not private,” he said.

Ummmm, if they are all public records and not private then why does it matter that they were "leaked"?

[nogods]

From: http://www.buffalonews.com/city-regi...words-20141208





Ummmm, if they are all public records and not private then why does it matter that they were "leaked"?

LOL...amazing what some people will spit out before thinking.

I'm betting if someone filed a FOIL for the internal emails, they would suddenly become non-public information.

[4248]

Can we FOIL Mr.Lorigo's emails since he claims : "They are all public records. They’re not private,”

I am quite sure the Bufnews is working on that

[grump]

The information that is not subject to FOIL is contained in the FOIL law. As for the Snooze they'll run whining to the pompous little fop Freeman in Albany if they can't get what they want.

[WNYresident]

Can we FOIL Mr.Lorigo's emails since he claims : "They are all public records. They’re not private,”

I am quite sure the Bufnews is working on that

Valid point.

[dtwarren]

I would be curious to learn what exactly is the County's e-mail policy. Do they allow incidental personal use of e-mail? If so then at least one court has held that a similar provision provided a public employee with a limited expectation of privacy in the Fourth Amendment context in People v. Wilkinson, 20 Misc. 3d 414 (Onondaga County Court, 2008).

The U.S. Supreme Court has held that "In sum, a public employer's intrusions on the constitutionally protected privacy interests of public employees for non-investigatory, work-related purposes, as well as for investigations of work-related misconduct, 'should be judged by the standard of reasonableness under all the circumstances,' and under this standard, 'both the inception and the scope of the intrusion must be reasonable.' (O'Connor v Ortega, supra, at 725-726; see also, New Jersey v T.L.O., 469 US 325, 341, 105 S Ct 733, 83 L Ed 2d 720.).

Perhaps what occurred here may be grounds for a civil suit.

[4248]

Yea - lets ignore the fact of who got into the emails - lets try and turn this into workers suing the County(Taxpayers) -

The people who copied and released the emails should be exposed and prosecuted.

Isn't it funny how they get "Leaked" - yet no one tracks back where they came from ! The Political attack was accomplished - now lets have the employees sue. Waste tax dollars to defend and hide those who leaked the emails and why.

Just keep blowing more smoke !

[dtwarren]

Yea - lets ignore the fact of who got into the emails - lets try and turn this into workers suing the County(Taxpayers) -

The people who copied and released the emails should be exposed and prosecuted.

Isn't it funny how they get "Leaked" - yet no one tracks back where they came from ! The Political attack was accomplished - now lets have the employees sue. Waste tax dollars to defend and hide those who leaked the emails and why.

Just keep blowing more smoke !

First, assuming it wasn't public information, how was it being leaked unlawful?

Second, what gave Lorigo, the authority to demand passwords from anyone even if leaking the e-mails were unlawful?

Third, I think you need a new script.

[4248]

Scripts were developed in the early AI work by Roger Schank, Robert P. Abelson and their research group, and are a method of representing procedural knowledge.

They are very much like frames, except the values that fill the slots must be ordered.

A script is a structured representation describing a stereotyped sequence of events in a particular context.

Scripts are used in natural language understanding systems to organize a knowledge base in terms of the situations that the system should understand.(Voters,readers,people)

The classic example of a script involves the typical sequence of events that occur when a person drinks in a restaurant: finding a seat, reading the menu, ordering drinks from the waitstaff...

So, given that - I cant change my "Script" until the players change their actions. Hope that helps you !

You are so used to subterfuge -you cant see the truth any more - just your needed perceptions to bolster your reality.

[dtwarren]

Scripts were developed in the early AI work by Roger Schank, Robert P. Abelson and their research group, and are a method of representing procedural knowledge.

They are very much like frames, except the values that fill the slots must be ordered.

A script is a structured representation describing a stereotyped sequence of events in a particular context.

Scripts are used in natural language understanding systems to organize a knowledge base in terms of the situations that the system should understand.(Voters,readers,people)

The classic example of a script involves the typical sequence of events that occur when a person drinks in a restaurant: finding a seat, reading the menu, ordering drinks from the waitstaff...

So, given that - I cant change my "Script" until the players change their actions. Hope that helps you !

You are so used to subterfuge -you cant see the truth any more - just your needed perceptions to bolster your reality.

How about addressing my first two points, if you can.

And I was referring to prescription in the third.

[dtwarren]

Yea - lets ignore the fact of who got into the emails - lets try and turn this into workers suing the County(Taxpayers) -

You fail to grasp that a lawsuit is already on the horizon From: http://buffalopundit.com/2014/12/16/...-leaked-email/

Susan Gregg has retained the services of attorney Jim Ostrowski, who told me that he had served the County with a “notice of claim”; a statutory prerequisite to filing suit over this personnel matter. Lorigo refused to comment, citing the pending litigation.

You also forgot that it was the voters/taxpayers who put Joe Lorigo in office. If they do not want to be liable for his acts then they should vote him out. (I am not sure if the County would be liable for his acts or if it would be ultimately held that he was not acting within the scope of his duties and therefore he would be personally liable and the County would not be)

[WNYresident]

You also forgot that it was the voters/taxpayers who put Joe Lorigo in office. If they do not want to be liable for his acts then they should vote him out. (I am not sure if the County would be liable for his acts or if it would be ultimately held that he was not acting within the scope of his duties and therefore he would be personally liable and the County would not be)

From past practice I would say us property/business owners are always liable for our employees acts. When was the last time you heard of someone suing the "government" employee versus suing a town/city directly?

[dtwarren]

From past practice I would say us property/business owners are always liable for our employees acts. When was the last time you heard of someone suing the "government" employee versus suing a town/city directly?

In civil rights cases it happens all the time. A good practitioner would typically name the municipality and the government employee in his personal capacity.

"Municipalities are not subject to § 1983 liability on the basis of a respondeat superior theory." Burgos v. Grenier, No. 13-CV-6533-FPG, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103477, at *6 (W.D.N.Y. July 29, 2014). In order to maintain a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against a municipal defendant, a plaintiff must identify a municipal policy or custom from which the alleged injury arose. Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 694-95, 98 S. Ct. 2018, 56 L. Ed. 2d 611 (1978). "Monell does not provide a separate cause of action for the failure by the government to train its employees; it extends liability to a municipal organization where that organization's failure to train, or the policies or customs it has sanctioned, led to an independent constitutional violation." Segal v. City of New York, 459 F.3d 207, 219 (2d Cir. 2006) (emphasis in original). In order to prevail on a Monell claim against a municipality, the plaintiff must establish the underlying constitutional violation as well as a municipal policy or custom. Sethi v. Nassau Cnty., No. 11-CV-6380 (SJF)(GRB), 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 77069, at *21 (E.D.N.Y. June 3, 2014).

Courts in the Second Circuit apply a two-prong test for § 1983 claims brought against a municipality:First, the plaintiff must prove the existence of a municipal policy or custom in order to show that the municipality took some action that caused his injuries beyond merely employing the misbehaving officer. Second, the plaintiff must establish a direct causal link between [the] municipal policy or custom and the alleged constitutional violation. Cuellar v. Love, No. 11-cv-3632 (NSR), 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 51622, at *27-28 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 11, 2014) (internal quotations and citations omitted) (emphasis and alterations in original).

Lin v. County of Monroe, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 174976, 12-14 (W.D.N.Y. Dec. 8, 2014)

[dtwarren]

From past practice I would say us property/business owners are always liable for our employees acts. When was the last time you heard of someone suing the "government" employee versus suing a town/city directly?

As for this part it is not exactly true either:

"Under the doctrine of respondeat superior, an employer will be liable for the negligence of an employee committed while the employee is acting in the scope of his [or her] employment" (Lundberg v State of New York, 25 NY2d 467, 470, 255 NE2d 177, 306 NYS2d 947 [1969], rearg denied 26 NY2d 883, 258 NE2d 223, 309 NYS2d 1032 [1970]; see Riviello v Waldron, 47 NY2d 297, 302, 391 NE2d 1278, 418 NYS2d 300 [1979]). "The general rule is that an employee acts within the scope of his [or her] employment when [the employee] is acting in furtherance of the duties owed to the employer and where the employer is or could be exercising some degree of control, directly or indirectly, over the employee's activities"

Carlson v. Porter, 53 A.D.3d 1129

[4248]

Lerigo, as I understand the situation was trying to track down who leaked the emails. Not saying what he did was right or wrong - I have my own take on using cell phones and computers at work.

But you are trying to blur the issue again - "WHO SPREAD THE EMAILS" - to some of us that shows that insiders were already tapping into accounts of workers. Notice I didn't say "Hack" - a hacker is usually a "Outsider" breaking into a system.

Who was reading other workers emails - why are workers using tax funded computers for personal/political use ? That's what your trying to dismiss.

The computer system and its networks for the County are managed/controlled from with in County Hall. The people with complete access are tax funded - usually Politically appointed/hired party members.

This was a failed attempt to make someone look bad - it back fired on the perpetrators.

The biggest problem with County Hall Government is its loaded with marginal patronage workers at best. Many have little serious work to do - many resist using computers or learning new skills. Its one big "Party Support Tool" all paid for by County tax payers.