Hartmann responded to accusations that he would be equally soft on identity theft in a press release dated the following July, “My experience fighting identity theft as Hamilton County clerk of courts makes me uniquely qualified to advocate on this issue.”
Hartmann’s fate was sealed when the Dayton Daily News (DDN) nailed the Republican candidate for his 'willful negligence and foot-dragging in not protecting sensitive personal information on the Hamilton county website, despite being told by law enforcement officials and private citizens of what might happen if he didn't act in a timely manner'.
The DDN documented that it took Hartmann three years after taking the clerk’s office to take down sensitive information from his predecessor’s website despite being prodded by citizens and local law enforcement officers and sued over the records. So flagrant were his violations, that not only did the site experience about 400,000 hits a month, but in 2002 it got the attention of the New York Times as well.
Democratic candidate Jennifer L. Brunner produced a plan that promised to stop the outsourcing of confidential information to private contractors and return the responsibility of protecting Ohioans’ private information to Secretary of State employees. She ran televised ads explaining her plan and showing over 100 victims of identity theft entering a courtroom to testify against the alleged criminals who had used Hartman's website to steal their identities. Brunner won the election by a margin of 55%.
Last year, voters punished Blackwell for his online security breach as secretary of state. Blackwell, a republican hopeful in the Ohio gubernatorial race, received only 36.65% of the vote against democratic candidate Ted Strickland’s 60.54%. Thus making Strickland the first Democrat in 16 years to win the Ohio governor's seat.
In a free society, ignoring the wishes of the people has always been a dangerous proposition. The constitution promises each of us that we shall be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects. In an age of rampant identity theft, elected officials who breach our security via the Internet may be committing political suicide in the 21st century.
The voters were talking in 2006, were you paying attention?
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