Will Bigham reports in today's Daily Bulletin that City of Claremont and Claremont City Attorney Sonia Carvalho had originally requested that Google, which owns the Blogger service hosting our blog, shut down our site after we posted the pay stub images we had legally downloaded from the city's public website.
Google responded by keeping our blog up but removed the pay stub images in question, claiming not that the employee pay information was priviliged information (the law in California is that it is public for city employees); rather, Google said Claremont's pay stub images were copyright protected. (Another questionable claim, according to copyright experts.)
Bigham's article states that through a public records request the Bulletin has obtained a copy of the September 7th letter Carvahlo sent to Google. According to the article today:
The day the Claremont Insider blog posted a scan of City Manager Jeff Parker's pay stub, City Attorney Sonia Carvalho contacted Google and demanded that the company "terminate the hosting service for this blog to prevent future violations."
. . . .
Carvalho's letter also states that the information in the blog post "was obtained in an illegal manner that appears to have involved trespass theft."
Besides Carvalho's false allegation of theft, the article goes on to say that City Manager Jeff Parker persists in claiming that the city cannot reproduce the search that produced the pay stubs. The article goes on to say:
Parker also said that the city contacted the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in the days following the initial blog post and notified the agency of a potential theft of city documents.
Parker said the city will forward additional information to the Sheriff's Department when its internal investigation is complete.
"There are two issues," Parker said. "How did the information get there, and was it done appropriately? And two, is it in the hands of somebody who is inappropriate?
"If there's information out there that is privileged and private, and it's not public information, then it's against the law for somebody to have that information."
A few points, Mr. Parker. First, you know how the information was obtained. The city knows. There was no theft involved, and the information was made public as soon as the city turned on its on-line, public document archive and made the information available to the world.
Second, as far as the information being in the hands of someone who is "inappropriate" who decides that? Jeff Parker? The City of Claremont? This is nothing more than a thinly-veiled threat of prior restraint.
Lastly, as to the claims of the information being privileged and private - we have asked that the city tell us what exactly it is they are concerned about. We have provided the very same information to the Daily Bulletin on a CD-rom. Why has the city not made the same requests of the Bulletin, which, by the way, also published images of the pay stubs on September 14th (minus the actual information)?
The truth is, this is nothing more than an attempt to silence a critic of the city. The article does quote Sam Pedroza, whom we've written about many times, actually questioning the legal basis for the city's request to shut the Insider down. Even Pedroza realizes the city is on pretty shaky ground here.
We actually hope the city will continue its false claims of theft and try to prosecute them. It seems to be the year for big Claremont settlements, so the Insider might as well line up for a big payday from the city's insurer.
We'll have more on this later.
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