Snoopers Out of Jobs

Helen Jones-Kelley, the head of the Ohio agency that snooped in Ohio computer records searching for dirt on Joe the Plumber has resigned after going on unpaid leave for a month. Two other managers were fired.

Two senior managers suspended for their roles in the scandal that spiced this year's presidential campaign also are leaving, The Dispatch has learned. The administration fired Doug Thompson, deputy director of child support. Fred Williams, assistant agency director, resigned effective Jan. 31.

The action came soon after the Republican-controlled General Assembly approved a measure cracking down on state workers who improperly conduct checks involving Ohioans' personal information.

Republicans complained that Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland, who promised to set a high ethical standard as governor, was letting Jones-Kelley off too lightly. Now, Strickland must decide whether to sign the bill, which Republicans say is a step toward restoring Ohioans' trust in government.

"The institution of state government and the trust is paramount and stands above any of us, and I think she made the right decision," House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering, said.

Both Strickland and Jones-Kelley rejected calls for her dismissal last month after a report by Inspector General Thomas P. Charles found that the database checks that Jones-Kelley approved on Toledo-area resident Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher were for no legitimate government purpose.

I'd call that a good start. She and the other people who used the computer records to search for dirt broke Ohio law and violated the public trust.

There are still other Ohio officials who used the computer systems to check Joe's records, and their status is still up in the air. I'd like to see criminal prosecutions go forward against these people because they not only violated the public trust, but actively engaged in a chilling of dissent and free speech by their conduct. The mere act of asking questions was sufficient to get these people to abuse their positions and run computer searches to try and dig up dirt on Wurzelbacher.

In fact, the media did much of the same - finding out more details about Wurzelbacher than they have done on Obama's relationships with Tony Rezko and Ron Blagojevich.

Yet, Jones-Kelley thinks that this now eliminates a political distraction from pressing state business. Maybe she should have thought of that before using her political position to further the partisan political agenda of her chosen candidate when he was outed as nothing more than a redistributionist tax and spend Democrat by a guy on the street who merely asked questions that the media steadfastly refused to do throughout Obama's coronation.