The List is 29 pages, single-spaced. 13-hundred names. Adults and children. Names, addresses, phone numbers, birthdays and a sprinkling of other even more personal information.
Evidence seems to point to the database at Workforce Services as the source of The List. That would most likely mean an employee took it.
You’ll notice I have yet to mention “illegal immigrant.” I make no argument “for” or “against” anything. I am stripping away all of that to get at what I think is the core issue with The List.
It is not about immigration. It is about trust. Period.
If indeed the information came from the computers at Workforce Services, a serious trust has been violated that could hamper the state agency from fulfilling its broad mission to help people in need.
Think about it.
What if you smoked? What if a secretary at a doctor’s office took your medical records along with those of all the other patients who smoked and published them?
You wouldn’t care one wit the person’s motivation. They wanted to prove smoking is bad? So what? You’d say, “Good intentions be damned.”
You’d feel violated. Angry. Perhaps you’d even be scared for what this might do to your relationships and possibly even your employment.
And … you’d swear (among other things) to never go back to that doctor. You would never trust him or his staff again.
Now, back to the possible link between The List and Workforce Services:
The people trusted their privacy would be protected. How can anyone go to Workforce Services if they cannot be sure their private information will stay private?
They feel violated. Angry. And yes, scared.
It does not matter if the person who took the information and compiled the list had “good intentions” or was frustrated at current immigration policy (or the lack thereof).
All that matters is this: There was an expectation of confidentiality that has now been shattered.
Trust is shattered.
My conclusion: If someone stole the information from a state database to make up The List, then they were flat out wrong.
Lets stop making excuses for an unethical and immoral act just because we may be sympathetic with the politics of the actor.
When will we finally figure out that “the end does not justify the means”?
