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Facebook Used by Officials to Spy on Welfare Clients
BC officers cruise social sites for fraud evidence.
NDP's Brar: 'Huge waste of time.'
The provincial government is using social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to investigate when there are allegations people lied on their welfare applications.
A message circulated in recent weeks to advocates working with people who receive financial help from the government warns that investigators use the Internet sites to look for evidence of "undisclosed co-habitation (living with someone), spending beyond what is provided by the ministry, casual employment, leaving the province for more than 30 days, gifts, pets and other income."
In each of those cases, the information might affect how much welfare a person could receive, or whether they would be eligible for help at all.
"They are using this information, based on postings on personal websites, to deny welfare and disability pensions," the warning says. "Anyone on long term disability or involved in collection action or the Canadian Revenue Authority should also be aware: Information posted on sites like Facebook is not private!" reads the e-mail, which the Tyee could not trace back to its original source.
Spies log on
The Ministry of Employment and Income Assistance does not use the websites to assess whether an applicant is eligible for welfare, says ministry spokesperson Richard Chambers, but if workers receive allegations of fraud they could use the sites for confirmation.
"Facebook or MySpace, yeah, depending on what kind of allegations are brought to our attention, we might use that to follow up on a complaint," he says.
When people apply for welfare they fill out forms stating their income levels, savings, assets and whether they own a vehicle, says Chambers. They also include their marital status, number of children and other personal details. "They voluntarily sign documents stating the information they are about to provide is accurate and the ministry is able to verify the information they provide is accurate."
If they do not sign the documents, the government will not give them welfare.
"One of the policies is to make sure income assistance is going to people who are eligible," says Chambers. "We take allegations of fraud seriously. In fact we are mandated to investigate every allegation of fraud we get from any source."
That might mean reading a story in a local newspaper about someone who is selling crafts at a community market, then checking to see if the person is receiving welfare, he says. Or it might mean looking for details on Internet sites.
"Obviously people's privacy is very important and if we had no reason to look at someone, we would not," says Chambers. "We do not routinely scan people. We'd only scan if it was brought to our attention there was a reason to scan."
Serious warning
While the ministry has over 100 workers investigating welfare fraud, it is unclear how commonly they cyber spy.
"I haven't encountered anyone who's had that happen, but I wouldn't be surprised," says Maria Montgomery, an advocate with the Together Against Poverty society in Victoria. She estimated she talks to 80 people on welfare each month.
Such an investigation would be invasive, she says. "I don't know it would be honest of them to do that without warning people," she says. "I think there'd be some concerns they might be going beyond what the legislation says they can do to verify people's personal information."
People working in the field are taking the warning seriously, says Bruce Wallace, a researcher with the Vancouver Island Public Interest Research Group and a co-author of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives' report Denied Assistance.
There are problems with relying on the websites, he says. Any information could be posted by people other than the client, perhaps even for malicious reasons. There may be confusion when people have the same or similar names. Not everything that people post is true or up to date.
The ministry would not rely on information from the Internet in making decisions, Chambers says. Instead workers would use it as a point to start a conversation with the client.
New medium, old tricks
In the past the ministry has done things like cross referenced its welfare roles with lists of lottery winners to see if anyone had undeclared winnings, Wallace says. Officials used to also make unannounced home visits until a B.C. Public Interest Advocacy Centre lawsuit changed the practice in 2006.
"This is the new form of the spouse-in-the-house attack," says Wallace. Since officials can't visit homes and count the toothbrushes in the bathroom, they are turning to cyber spying.
Everyone should be careful about what they post publicly, he says, adding he has personally avoided joining Facebook and similar sites. There are plenty of stories of normally cautious people, the sorts who keep unlisted phone numbers, posting their names, pictures of their kids and other personal details on the Internet.
The NDP's income assistance critic, Jagrup Brar, says he does not condone fraud, but he's not sure the government should be paying people to check social websites for evidence of client wrongdoing. "This is a huge job to look into these kinds of thing," he says. "I think this would be a huge waste of time if ministry officials are doing something like this."
The ministry employs over 100 investigative officers and another 22 ministry investigators. In the 2006-2007 fiscal year the finance ministry's loss management branch recovered about $1 million in "overpayments." That represents about 0.1 percent of the $1.25 billion the ministry paid to clients that year.
Related Tyee stories:
- 'Welfare to Work' Didn't Work
BC Libs sat on own report showing no real gains. - LSD as Therapy? Write about It, Get Barred from US
BC psychotherapist denied entry after border guard googled his work. - How BC Trimmed 107,000 People from Welfare Rolls
Some got jobs. Red tape, death likely knocked out far more.
![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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41
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Grumpy
4 years ago
What fool would put........
........any personal information on the net. If they are that stupid, they deserve what they get!
James Burns
4 years ago
Riiiiight
It sounds to me like a ministry worker came up with a good excuse for all that time he or she was spending on Facebook.... "er... uh... I was tracking potential fraud by clients... yeah, that's the ticket."
towelpower
4 years ago
journalism?
Why is this even a story? Isn't it entirely reasonable that a person working at a welfare office would check out publicly available information about someone to verify financial claims they deem suspect? And don't journalists often do the very same thing? Facebook isn't exactly a bastion of privacy.
I know if I were a social assistance worker and felt someone was lying to my face, I'd have no problem taking a look at their Facebook page for evidence of bling.
I really like the Tyee, but this type of fear mongering is just immature.
David Beers
4 years ago
not about 'fear mongering'
towelpower,
The story isn't meant to instill fear. Rather, I found it interesting and worth publishing simply and for its description of new techniques by government officials using a fairly new technology. We're all still trying to figure out the implications and uses of Facebook and other social networking sites. This well reported piece by Andrew helps us understand, I think. Thanks for the comment!
wc_canuck
4 years ago
100 employees at what? 44k/year?
....adds up to ...hmmm 4.4 million dollars in salary alone (and a modest salary at that). Haven't even counted benefits or vacation pay...or the overhead for running the department....
And they caught $1 million dollars? Yep, really efficient. Sounds like a money-making proposition from a government elected on the basis of making sure they were open, accountable and fiscally responsible.
Luke Skywalker
4 years ago
Investigative departments of
Investigative departments of CRA, RCMP, ICBC, et al all use the same public information available to everyone else. Be it Google, Facebook, Court Registry, talking to one's neighbours....
So what's the newstory?
Frank
4 years ago
What a tangled web we weave
Remember how the Right screamed when Bud Smith's cell phone conversation was recorded?
Obviously the Socred/Liberals were just upset that the NDP didn't realize that only the Right is allowed to eavesdrop on people. Even when its over public airwaves while driving on public roads breathing the public air.
Nice to see that the Right's outrage at the time was completely manufactured.
ubiquitous
4 years ago
Misleading headline
As a long time Tyee reader, this is the first time I've really questioned the judgements implied by an article. First, the title of the article is something I would expect to see in the Province as it impies something more sinister. Second, the analysis by Andrew is a bit suspect. The one quote that refers to Facebook and MySpace hardly suggests that the government is 'spying'. It suggests that investigators use the internet as a tool in their investigations. Therefore, I too ask: "So what?".
My opinion is that investigators of welfare fraud would know better than to use anything on the internet as definitive proof of anything - it's like a researcher using wikipedia, it may point you in down a certain path of inquiry, but that's it. Furthermore, at least with facebook, to see one's details, they have to accept you as a 'friend'; therfore, one's personal details are protected - to a certain degree.
Nevertheless, I think that discussing social networking, as it exists today via the internet, is something that I'd like to see more of, just be careful of the conclusions that you're drawing from your analysis.
dolphin
4 years ago
Spying?
I have to agree with towelpower here. We all know that some people commit fraud by claiming welfare when not eligible. I expect the government to try to prevent that, and deal with those who are guilty of it. Looking at a public website that people voluntarily post personal information to is not spying. For Brar to suggest that fraud investigators using some initiative to do their jobs is a "huge waste" is ridiculous and frankly, makes me grateful we don't have the NDP running things. This is a non-story.
BC Dude
4 years ago
Fraud, grand theft, "bearing
Fraud, grand theft, "bearing false witness" lying, tampering with justice, etc huh, sounds like Gordo's BC Fiberals and BC Railgate and much more!
clo3
4 years ago
Newflash: The Internet is not private...
I agree with everything that has been said so far. Looking people up on the Internet is not an invasion of privacy. Both Facebook and MySpace allow users to make their profiles as private as they want, so if a person decides to make their profile available to the world, that's their problem. I could see this being a problem if the government was hacking into people's private profiles, but otherwise this is story is really not newsworthy.
One things I am curious about is WC Canuck's comments. Do you think that the amount of fraud would increase if there were less investigators and people had a better chance of getting away with it? I'm just thinking that if the province only had 10 investigators, it might allow for more fraud which might end up costing the province well over $4.4 million.
ripponfalls
4 years ago
Frank, we all know that the Right are
[OFFENSIVE COMMENT REMOVED. -MODERATOR.] and that their supporters differ only in size. But judging from some of the responses, there are still a few who need it rammed down their throats.
B.C Dude: It's true, but their voters don't care... and they never have. I remember one of our neighbours; good church goers, saying of Phil Gaglardi "Someone is going to steal! It may as well be him!"
Frank
4 years ago
The Liberal attitude
Actually wc_canucks's comment drives to the heart of the matter. We've all heard ad nauseum the cry of reducing gov't spending by eliminating waste and making sure only the truly deserving needy get gov't dollars. Well, it turns out that it costs $4 for every dollar saved.
Yet I don't think politicians are suddenly going to modify their speeches and say they will spend $4 to prevent even $1 going to someone who is lying about their situation.
Spending $4 for every dollar in welfare fraud recovery has to be viewed against the cuts made to children needing help in this province. Many of whom are living with parents on welfare. Perhaps even with parents cut off welfare because they tried to collect more than the "stale bread and gruel" allowance the Liberals have grudgingly deemed they're allowed.
Perhaps if welfare rates were higher there would be less fraud?
And just to jog the memory, we're talking about a government that has made it harder to collect welfare, harder to live on what is distributed and harder to get help when the problems are not just financial (as Paul Willcocks pointed out)
http://willcocks.blogspot.com/2007_11_25_archive.html
So what sort of information might be gathered off a Facebook page? Perhaps that Client A with 2 kids is now cohabiting with a guy making minimum wage so bang, her benefits are taken away because she didn't declare that? Well excuse me for wishing my government paid as close attention to the money wasted on all their silly circuses and convention centres than worrying about a mum collecting a few extra dollars.
dorothy
4 years ago
welfare schmelfare..
"...making sure only the truly deserving needy get gov't dollars. Well, it turns out that it costs $4 for every dollar saved."
Deserving, eh, that is a hard one to figure. How would you define that? I did once take welfare for a few short weeks, much against my will and due to reasons I will not go into here, but certainly they were 'not fair'. I had one case worker laugh in my face, because I was 'still' looking for work, times being as bad as they were then. Well, I looked for work till I found it, and since then I have paid taxes through the nose for a good many years. When I connected to 'the system' I declared everything I owned down to the last ingrown toenail, and I had no little comfy extras in the background, no family with warm cheesemac or the occasional twenty to offer, so this is where my kids learned serious survival skills.
How much patience do you think I have with scmoozing and double-dipping at my expense? This is no way to solve the problems! Cheaters take care of themselves, and falsely leave the impresssion that one can live well on the dole. Those resourceful enough to cheat should also be able to figure how to work.
I think we cannot judge by what the return is now. To get a valid comparison, we need to take all checking away, and then see what goes down. The presence of 'spies' does work as a deterrent for some weak souls. This is why justice must not just be done, but must be seen to be done.
chester3
4 years ago
thats economical
lets see, they recover 1 million a year by employing 100 investigators. if an investigator earns $40,000/yr, they spend 4 million to recover 1 million. good deal, eh?
Frank
4 years ago
dorothy
I don't, its not my phrase. But if I had to say what I think it means when the other side uses it, it would appear to be shorthand for really poor people who don't use drugs, don't commit crimes, perhaps are disabled, aren't lazy, actively look for work etc etc
So you were "deserving"?
Bullshit. You were on welfare, give other people the same respect as you ask for. People have lots of reasons to have been on welfare and its bad enough they have to go in front of people who look down their noses at them simply for being poor.
Why bother? The amount of taxable income that isn't reported probably exceeds the entire budget spent on welfare recipients. Why not just hire all the people on welfare at $50,000 a year to hunt down tax cheats? Since we don't care about the cost as long as "justice is done".
dorothy
4 years ago
What is it that we value?
So you were "deserving"?
According to your criteria, I was.
"..its bad enough they have to go in front of people who look down their noses at them simply for being poor."
I don't see anything wrong with being held accountable for the money you ask other people for, as well as acountable for really needing it. It is a fact that some working poor, who pay taxes, make far less money than some people on welfare, who are able to pad their handouts with help from family and friends, as well as a little sideline they don't happen to mention. Is that fair and just? Where will you draw the line?
I do not ask for respect, as that is a meaningless thing to do. If you need to ask for it, you already haven't got it. Respect is earned, and those who deserve it get it without asking, but you can ask for civility. Getting respect is not the same as not getting disrespect.
"Why bother? The amount of taxable income that isn't reported probably exceeds the entire budget spent on welfare recipients."
Have you heard me advocate, that we should let tax cheats get away with what they do? You are changing the subject, it's not what the article is about...
'..Since we don't care about the cost as long as "justice is done".'
Do you not agree? Is justice not important? Is injustice in some corners of society a reason for throwing it all to the winds? Are you advocating anarchy, because things aren't perfect? Is cost a more important consideration than priciples of justice and equality? Do you not see, that as long as welfare cheating is rampant, and can be shown to be so, then it becomes more difficult to advocate for better terms, and those few who cannot or will not cheat will continue to have it hard? Do you care?
You were asking me on another thread, whether I did not set store by the community-based model. I do, but I do not agree with the laissez-faire thinking, which accepts a muddle, behind which gross misuse can sheltered.
Frank
4 years ago
Dorothy
Not my criteria as a closer reading of the text would explain. Note, I don't believe in dividing the poor between those we should lend a hand to and those we should leave on the street.
So family and friends should not be able to help out people on welfare? The family and friends have already paid taxes on that money so I don't see the problem with them giving it to someone on welfare?
Also, what "little sideline" are you talking about?
I'm pretty sure the other people reading this were able to follow my logic and don't think I strayed that far from the subject.
Not at all, but ignoring injustice when it doesn't suit you and yelling it from the rooftops when it does is a reason to toss it to the winds.
Its certainly a consideration. I wouldn't spend $5,000 on making sure a $1,000 payment got to someone. I wouldn't spend billions on a subway if only a few thousand people would ride it. I'm sure we can all think of examples where cost would be a factor.
History does not bear you out. Welfare rates have not risen at the same time as more investigators have been hired. Nor has the evidence that less people are allowed to collect welfare created a groundswell of support for higher welfare payments.
A community-based system where we show compassion for each other has my support. This isn't such a system.
G West
4 years ago
Welfare cheating rampant?
Could we have some evidence please?
Most of the guys and gals I see panhandling on the street corners these days carry signs saying 'I'm not on welfare'.
I believe them - although they sure ought to be
I think there are fewer problems with welfare cheats than with corporate welfare boondogglers and always have been. Every generation comes up with the same Looney theory that shirkers are lurking in the bushes to pilfer their ‘hard-earned’ goods.
Without some evidence anyone who believes such things is looking for an excuse to justify bigotry and selfishness.
When no more developers (like the ones building Bear Mountain community in Langford) can get the city council there to borrow 25 million dollars for an interchange to serve 'their' private development (without ever submitting the transaction to a vote) then I'll start worrying about a single mom who's living in sin and collecting welfare while she supports two pre-school kids and puts her story on facebook or whatever the flavour of the month happens to be…
Everyone has this idea that welfare cheating is a big problem.
I say it's not and anyone who claims it is better have something more solid to prove it than one flimsy anecdote.
rousseau
4 years ago
'Frank, we all know that the
[OFFENSIVE COMMENT REMOVED. -MODERATOR.]
dorothy
4 years ago
The meat of the matter
“….then I'll start worrying about a single mom who's living in sin and collecting welfare while she supports two pre-school kids and puts her story on facebook or whatever the flavour of the month happens to be…”
Eh? This is not a stock flimsy anecdote? How many single moms have you encountered as parents of your children’s friends? I mean – do you know whereof you speak? Does it occur to you, that the message some of these kids grow up with is, that the rest of us are a bunch of suckers with a ring through the nose, there to provide and be leaned on and felt better than, because we’re not ‘free souls’?? I have some flimsy anecdotes to back that up, but I do not hang people out to dry as a matter of custom.
I note that you answered all my questions except the one that couldn’t be answered in a reactive fashion: Where would you draw the line? I’m still waiting for you to answer that. I grew up with a generation that considered it a position of virtue to know, not what it wanted, but what it did not want. I never credited that, but I do credit Saul Alinsky’s rule # something, that the price of victory is a succesful alternative. Let’s hear yours in positive terms, not just a rant agaisnt the haves. They are what they are – members of the wild hunt, whom you do not want to meet in a dark night. No, I do not accept their right to do what they do, but they cannot be vanquished in a pitched battle, only undercut. And I have said, in the manner of a broken record, how we can do that.
Frank
4 years ago
dorothy
Where would I draw what line? In reference to what? Welfare cheating? All social programs? Cheating in general? Or injustice in general?
The generation you grew up with created our social programs and they provided more then than they do now.
Quite a few. Not half, but I'd say about a quarter or a third. Plus there's two single dads (both divorced) who are in bad straits financially.
No, never, not once. All of my kids friend's parents have been to our house at one time or another and I don't see any of them as freeloaders.
What I support is a rise in the basic personal exemption to $25,000 which would help low income earners. I would also like to see the marginal tax rate of the lowest bracket reduced to a maximum of 10%.
I also support the abolishment of EI, welfare etc and their replacement with a guaranteed annual income that would arrive in the mail just like the old family allowance did and would simply be taxed back from those that don't need it. As this article points out there would be considerable savings made from not having to check up on everyone. One of the advantages to a guaranteed annual income is there would be no stigma attached as there is to welfare.
For those concerned that some people wouldn't report all their income, well that's the case already.
G West
4 years ago
Sorry, I think it is
Just like my immigrant friend from university days who used to love to show up at parties and go on about lazy Canadians who were all on welfare or illegally collecting UI.
I took him to the place where I was living at the time (as a student - working two part time jobs and going to school) and introduced him to my landlord - a recent immigrant from Europe - who had a wife working two jobs and collecting UI - plus renting three illegal suites in his home in Kits...
Did that mean every immigrant to this country was a cheat?
Nope!
Any more than the claim that more than a tiny minority of single Moms are taking advantage of the system or cheating on the welfare rolls. A better idea than fraud police looking over the shoulders of the poor would be a small group of corporate forensic auditors going over the books of the corporate masters of the universe and realty flip artists.
It's just another useful lie that people are fed to keep them pulling in harness and believing the garbage that makes the real cheats into pillars of the community.
Which sounds almost precisely like one of your lines Dorothy. Is that fair?
anarcho
4 years ago
A sense of justice
I see. They gain $1 million by spying on welfare recipients. In the meantime, hundreds of millions are squandered on nonsense like the Olympics and other forms of corporate welfare.
switek
4 years ago
Public support needs this
You have to remember the newsmedia never cover stories about just how important welfare is to those in need. But guaranteed if even one person is caught scamming the system in a major way it is all over the media. I think public support for social programs is enhanced if people know that their tax dollars are going to those in need and not those trying to commit fraud. Ultimately looking for fraud artists on facebook is not a bad idea. Not to mention I doubt those most in need would even know what Facebook is so I am in support of the Ministry on this one.
SharingIsGood
4 years ago
dobell dipper
Too bad some of these welfare investigators are not turned toward the premier's office, what with its Dobell-dipping enroute to a $450,000,000 convention centre over-run; there was the 100s of milliion$ spent on accounting just to sell BC Rail, thereby making the sale, itself, an extra bad joke on the people of BC; and finally we have 5-star upgrades to government offices while record numbers of citizens go homeless. It seems nobody has been fined or gone to jail over these acts that seem to contain some element of graft/fraud to me.
dorothy
4 years ago
I had to ask, didn't I...?
"I also support the abolishment of EI, welfare etc and their replacement with a guaranteed annual income that would arrive in the mail just like the old family allowance did and would simply be taxed back from those that don't need it. As this article points out there would be considerable savings made from not having to check up on everyone. One of the advantages to a guaranteed annual income is there would be no stigma attached as there is to welfare."
This sounds just like the so-called cradle-to-grave TLC that some Scandinavian countries are so proud of. Quite aside from the 'stigma' attached to welfare, which I still think is a reasonable degree of accountability being asked for, all I can say is, if this is the dream of forward-looking Canadians, and they are going to get it that way, I will be looking for yet another, even more backwards place to go to, where one's own resourcefulness and work ethic still make a difference. The other thing is just too darn boring, and I have already crossed one ocean to get away from it. When all is said and done, Brave New World cannot be far off, and it is no doubt going to be all-hell money-saving, streamlined and lickety-split expedient; you know where you can send my mail - out to the reservations for the misfits...I'll be the one with the bow and arrows, doing target practice...
Frank
4 years ago
Dorothy
Take a look at the fact the richest 20% of the country own more than 70% of the country and the bottom 20% own zero.
Don't worry, you're living in your nirvana right now.
Assuming of course you believe the richest 20% got that way from hard work. And yes I'm having trouble keeping a straight face while typing this.
dorothy
4 years ago
Frank, we don't really disagree here.
"Don't worry, you're living in your nirvana right now."
That's actually what I said. It's only if it changes to something similar to what I left behind, that I would be unhappy. You have no idea, what it does to people's attitudes. Quite aside, of course, from the fact that one doesn't live in Nirvana, as it denotes extinction of the self, and I hope to go to Valhalla, when I come to that pass...
"Assuming of course you believe the richest 20% got that way from hard work. And yes I'm having trouble keeping a straight face while typing this."
I don't concern myself with the richest 20%; they are not living my life, I am. And I know that if I had been running less, I would have had less to do something with of the things I wish to accomplish. I consider the richest 20% to be pathological, as we cannot take it with us, and they are slaves to their own illusion of 'wealth'; it's like a millstone of monumental proportions around their neck, and they will never have any kind of real life.
I do not know why you assume that I think that people act in a fair and just way, but your idea of 'making them', to the best of my knowledge, ends up in more or less the same place as not doing anything. What 'we' need to do is apply intelligence to the problem, work out the math and then work on the independent variables we actually have some control over from the factory floor.
G West
4 years ago
dunno about that dororthy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5224306.stm
Most measures I've seen say Denmark isn't only the best place on earth - but also the happiest.
Certainly a lot more like 'nirvana' than what's been happening here in North America of late..
I think Europe is doing a pretty fine job - and compared with North America - it wasn't too difficult.
OneWomanArmy
4 years ago
We need more Franks and less Dorothy
I'm a single disabled person who understands all too well the stigma that comes along with being poor.
Now as far as proof that the Ministry spies on people. Let's see, 6 months ago I was called into the office and they placed a 4 inch stack of my internet activities in front of me. They had conversations I had with community leaders and other activists from the DTES who are doing great work to help the poor and stigmatized. A FOUR INCH STACK of internet activity!! That was hours and hours of work.
I looked through ALL of it. It didn't show anything except the fact that I was disabled and spend a good portion of time online.
So if you don't think they're spying on you, you're daft and naive. They most certainly are.
The Tyee is reporting a FACT, and a very uncomfortable one at that.
Do I care if my neighbour here in the DTES has 3 kids and makes some extra $ under the table? No, I don't. I'd be happy for him. You cannot reasonably live off the pittance given by social assistance or disability.
But by Dorothy's logic we're all a bunch of lurking thieves trying to get what doesn't belong to us.
In a first world nation, people like me should NOT have to live in squalor because of a disability. PERIOD. There's no reason for the DTES to be the way it is except it's a nice cozy little system that makes certain wealthy people more money and makes the poor suffer more.
It's a DISGRACE to humanity, which some here have simply forgotten about.
dorothy
4 years ago
And??
"..6 months ago I was called into the office and they placed a 4 inch stack of my internet activities in front of me. They had conversations I had with community leaders and other activists from the DTES who are doing great work to help the poor and stigmatized. A FOUR INCH STACK of internet activity!! That was hours and hours of work."
You are not putting this in any context. I never said I believed 'they' weren't spying. But what was their point with your activities, and did you lose anything in consequence, or was it just a darn waste of time? I would like to know what the agenda was, and what they proposed to use the information for. Without saying that, you're not really making a point.
G West
4 years ago
what context is required dorothy?
The action was clearly inappropriate - if not a violation of an individual's right to privacy and security of the person.
Surprisingly, that simple fact has been missed from nearly every comment on this thread.
The ministry of children and family services needs hundreds more workers to address real problems - take away the investigators laptops and put them to work doing something useful.
BC Dude
4 years ago
Dorthy, you actually see
Dorthy, you actually see nothing wrong with what happened to OneWomanArmy?
Try, as G West pointed out that "it is an extreme violation of an individual's right to privacy and security" from thugs like Gordo's bunch of pigs at the public trough!
Gordo's $65,000. a year increase is tantamount to grand theft of "OUR" taxpayer's hard earned money on top of his despicable base salary of about $185,000.!
This is the NWO of things to come, fascism! Feb 16, 08 get out and protest against SPP's!
G West
4 years ago
Dude
Don't know if you've been following some of the comment and controversy surrounding the actions of the Victoria Police...something very similar has happened in that case too.
Instead of concentrating on the Police Department's behavior (which would clearly have been denied completely were the monitor video not available) there is a species of comment which seeks to transfer the responsibility from the police officers in question (who are and were totally out of line) onto the parents of the minor child involved in the incident.
I understand that an investigation is being conducted by the 'Vancouver Police' - - wonderful!
Guess they couldn't get any RCMP Officers from Richmond to handle it!
OneWomanArmy
4 years ago
It's a Clear Violation In So Many Ways
Let me tell you something Dorothy. For months after that happened to me I felt so violated and so unsafe that I went online and made tons of aliases. I felt RAPED of my privacy.
THAT'S the context. THAT'S the point.
This has been mentioned here that these 'investigators' make upwards of 50K a year, and in my case the investigator was about to be promoted to a directorship position making upwards of 60-70K a year. She made so much money in the waste of time she spent investigating me that all that money could've been taken and disability rates adjusted to reflect the TRUE cost of living in this province.
My life has completely changed since a half year of my entire life was handed to me in a huge stack of papers. I can't stress to you enough how vulnerable I feel now. I feel like everything I do is being watched by someone. It's not something I would wish on anyone.
It's a waste of taxpayer dollars. It's a disgusting thing to do to someone. It's a huge slap in the face to people who are already poor whereby the disabled have to live in an SRO in the DTES. It's a shameful thing for this province and for Canada as a whole.
Absolutely disgraceful system for a first world nation.
dorothy
4 years ago
Aha!
"I feel like everything I do is being watched by someone."
I see now where our perceptions differ. I have always taken for granted, that everything I did on line could and likely would be 'watched by someone'. I think we are stumped in trying to uphold some sort of old-fashioned privacy in the face of the incredible techincal ease of 'spying'. There is of course a limit to the capacity that can be applied to spying by anyone party. But this is the same thing as crossing the border: don't weave around in your speech and push people's red buttons and freak them out, and no one will bother you or take your car apart. One flippant remark can produce a completely different outcome. We have been too far removed from our natural way of living. That there are beasts in our jungle should not come as a surprise: 'Out there', the rules are about not being downwind of a grizzly mother with cubs, not moving too quietly through the bush, in order to give the beasts time to clear out, so you don't take them off guard, etc., etc.
In the urban, techno-ruled environment, it is about not using the explosive words on line, and not being in the decededly wrong company. It requires a differernt kind of savvy, but it sounds like you haver time to acquire that, instead of sitting there paralyzed by fear and feeling violated.
You didn't really answer my question, did the enterprise have any practical, as in losing benefits, kind of outcome? what was the rationale to begin with? I am guessing at worry that you were, in fact, and unpaid worker for DERA, and that someone thought public money should not go into subsidizing an organization, which already has charity status and can pay its workers. If this is wrong, correct me.
What I hope to make people see is that if 'we, the people of BC' start acting with less than total accountability, we are buying into the 'everybody cheat everybody to the best of their ability' morale, which we accuse the powerbrokers of subscribing to. We therefore have no credibility, as anyone can (and will) say, that we simply are envious of those with more, envious of their greater ability to screw their fellow citizens, and, given the power, we would clearly do the same. If you want to fight for 'social justice', you must have clean hands; else you make it too easy to dismiss everything you have to say.
OneWomanArmy
4 years ago
Stop Guessing, and Listen
There is NO reason why any governmental organization should have that kind of power to spy on people the way they do and have done in my case. NONE.
For people who have to go on social assistance and/or disability, it's not a damn dinner cruise and people usually need the help.
So using up very expensive resources to bash a poor person is conceptually disgusting and this province and this country should NOT be doing it.
The financial reasons have been laid out but I'm talking about the social reasons. Spying on someone and then showing you they've been following you does not make for a psychologically healthy approach, especially when its coming from a government who treats you like a piece of shit anyway because you're disabled or you have barriers.
Nobody is buying into this crazy idea of 'everybody cheat everybody.' What I do see is a bunch of poor people who are systematically treated as 'less than' because of their social position, which could EASILY be remedied but instead the government employs spies to intimidate and harass people who already have many barriers.
By your logic, a man who has a hungry family and needs food right now and who steals a loaf of bread for his family is a thief instead of a person who's been marginalized and needs assistance.
Oh, but he could've gotten a JOB! Yes, while he lives in an SRO with no clean showers or clothes! I see your reasoning Dorothy and it's what Kohlberg would probably call pre-conventional morality.
Unfortunately I have a more evil leftist slant to my way of thinking. How dare I think that a first world nation could accept places like the DTES? Silly me.
dorothy
4 years ago
My logic, eh?
"By your logic, a man who has a hungry family and needs food right now and who steals a loaf of bread for his family is a thief instead of a person who's been marginalized and needs assistance."
No, he is both. What I have been trying to say is, that by stealing, he solves the immediate problem for himself, but he also disappears from the radar as a person with an unsolvable problem, and so leaves everybody else in the lurch, who is less resourceful, clever or even physically able as a thief. that may be understandable, but it is also what 'they' keep having to hang it on, that increase in welfare rates are not needed.
"...their social position, which could EASILY be remedied.."
I would like to hear how we can do that so EASILY. Other than, of course, by handouts. For that does not change one's social position, only the material one.
"I see your reasoning Dorothy and it's what Kohlberg would probably call pre-conventional morality."
I do not know what Kohlberg would call it, as I am not into descriptive sciences. But I do know that I do not care diddly about external or structural authority; I follow the two rules I was taught in scouts, and which still make sense to me: One, before you do anything, think through every consequence it may have on anything and anyone anywhere, and two, think about what would happen to all of us, if everyone did what you are thinking of doing.
You can see from my previous reference to people such as Sun Tzu and Saul Alinsky, that I am very much a practical person. It fits the model, though, that just about this time, you would try to slap a derogatory label on me. Enjoy. I am not in that invory tower with you, I am out there doing a job and paying taxes. Among all the kinds of morals I was ever taught and worked my way trough in my studies, none of them contained the idea that the World owes me an existence. And, for the record, with all your circuitous rhetoric, you are still not answering the questions I asked you to begin with. This is my bottom line, you cannot have a discourse with people by ranting at them for asking you questions to deepen their understanding of what you are saying, that is not complete in its meaning.
G West
4 years ago
Oh come on dorothy
This:
I am not in that ivory tower with you
is clearly uncalled for.
Being "... a single disabled person..." who presumably relies upon social assistance for whatever meager 'style' of life one leads in those circumstances is hardly...living in an ivory tower. The suggestion that it is, is both unfair and prejudicial.
The simple fact is that the incident described above here was a glaring example of a malign misuse of power – in my view.
The emails, correspondence and internet activities of this individual (whatever they are so long as they don't include illegal activity) are NONE OF THE BUSINESS OF THE STATE. If onewomanarmy supports DERA’s activities – fine and dandy – that’s what political freedom and freedom of association is all about. What she does with her own time is her business.
The activities of these ministry trolls have nothing to do with saving the public purse a single penny - in fact, I'd suggest the exact opposite is the case. But it has really nothing to do with the real issue at hand.
Freedom cannot be subdivided and portioned out according to some bureaucrat's dream.
This whole program is a complete crock – if anyone is scamming the taxpayer, it is the mental midgets who came up with this crap.
dorothy
4 years ago
Which is it?
"I am not in that ivory tower with you
is clearly uncalled for.
Being "... a single disabled person..." who presumably relies upon social assistance for whatever meager 'style' of life one leads in those circumstances is hardly...living in an ivory tower. The suggestion that it is, is both unfair and prejudicial."
Oh, I was waiting for this one, hoping against hope, that it would not appear….
Now I am getting my knuckles rapped, because I take exception to being called a moral washout, with the use of some name-dropping, intellectual hatchet, and I am supposed to take it and not be ‘prejudicial’, because the other person is disabled. Sorry, there are disabled people in my family, and none of them ask for special treatment, other than what is strictly practically necessary. They sure as Hel don’t ask for the right to whack others verbally without repercussion as a feature of their disability. I do not happen to subscribe to that convoluted philosophy, by which disabled people should be written off as lesser people, not worthy of meeting others on equal terms. If that is what is being requested here, be my guest. But I find it pretty hard to swallow, that I ask a straight question and get attacked personally simply for asking. I have to wonder, wheter people are in or out of this discussion?