{"id":411464,"date":"2010-03-10T10:08:29","date_gmt":"2010-03-10T15:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogs.courant.com,2010:\/capitol_watch\/\/9.73495"},"modified":"2010-03-10T19:06:42","modified_gmt":"2010-03-11T00:06:42","slug":"bysiewiczs-database-blasted-as-political-intelligence-file","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/411464","title":{"rendered":"Bysiewicz’s Database Blasted As ‘Political Intelligence File’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reaction was swift and sharp Wednesday morning to The Courant’s story about politically-oriented “special notes” on people among the 36,000 names listed in Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz’s office’s “constituent database.”<\/a><\/p>\n

Bysiewicz immediately drew blasts from Republican State Chairman Chris Healy and her two rivals for the Democratic attorney general’s nomination this year — former state Senate Majority Leader George Jepsen of Stamford and state Rep. Cameron Staples, D-New Haven.<\/p>\n

Jepsen said: “This database was used to further her political ambition. This is a misuse of state resources and taxpayer money. She violated the personal privacy of the citizens who approached her office for help — she owes them an apology. She should also give the people on this list an opportunity to remove their information.”<\/p>\n

Staples said: “The violation of people’s right to privacy is truly shocking. No one should be concerned when they seek assistance from the state that their personal information will be publicly displayed. This database ought to be deleted before any further invasion of privacy occurs.”<\/p>\n

In a statement to the Courant Tuesday, Bysiewicz had denied that the notations were intended for political use.<\/p>\n

Healy said: “I am amazed that she can contrive these farcical answers to justify what she is doing. It’s a political intelligence file for her own use, which is being paid for by the taxpayers.”<\/p>\n

Jepsen said it was particularly wrong for Bysiewicz to include information about people’s medical conditions in a public document, even though in at least some cases the health status of the individuals was not a secret. “This information may not have been secret,” he said, but it shouldn’t become “part of a public document” in the computer files of an office that has nothing to do with public health.<\/p>\n

Jepsen recalled that when Bysiewicz was defending the existence of the database last month — before this latest issue about it arose — she “stressed what a great public document this is, and said it’s freely accessible to the whole world, available to everyone. Then why are you putting people’s medical conditions on a list that you are offering up to the whole world?”<\/p>\n

“This is completely inappropriate,” he said. “I’m surprised and disappointed that she shows no contrition for this.”<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Colin McEnroe, in his Courant blog “To Wit,” compared Bysiewicz to oldtime NBC network sports broadcaster Curt Gowdy<\/a>. Referring to Gowdy as “the master of the possibly irrelevant personal detail,” McEnroe said: “It now turns out that Susan Bysiewicz has been keeping little Gowdyisms on all of us.” <\/p>\n

And Kevin Rennie, in his Daily Ructions blog, criticized Bysiewicz’s database<\/a>, saying: “It includes mentions of people’s health, political connections, and even ideological leanings.  What this has to do with being the ‘managing partner’ of the office, as she has described her job, will require a better explanation than she provided in today’s [Courant] story. … The campaign will get rougher for the candidate who’s known more for her ambition than her achievements.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reaction was swift and sharp Wednesday morning to The Courant’s story about politically-oriented “special notes” on people among the 36,000 names listed in Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz’s office’s “constituent database.” Bysiewicz immediately drew blasts from Republican State Chairman Chris Healy and her two rivals for the Democratic attorney general’s nomination this year — former state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4002,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-411464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4002"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}