Employers, including the government, have for decades now done background checks and even psychiatric screenings on job applicants to ensure that new hires are above reproach.
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In recent years, those checks have grown to include Internet searches; if you go to a job interview today, count on being asked about those embarrassing photos of you and your drunken college roommates posted on your Facebook page, or the blog on which you've expounded your views on affirmative action and abortion.

The city of Bozeman, Mont., now is taking those background checks into a new arena, though, and what it is doing has privacy advocates howling.

Bozeman is asking anyone who applies for a job not only to provide criminal and police records, credit histories and references, but also "any and all current personal or business Web sites, Web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums."

The city not only wants applicants to list those sites they have visited, but also to provide user names and passwords for the sites.

That information would allow job screeners not only to check those things that applicants have posted in public places, such as the forum at stevenspointjournal.com, but also private message boards and chat rooms and other places that people might reveal even more personal -- and damning -- information about themselves.

One surely can see where Bozeman leaders are coming from. Who would want to hire a new cop, only to find he previously had made inflammatory comments on a message board for skinheads and other racists? Or a social worker who -- to merge a hypothetical situation with the real world -- believes parents shouldn't be punished if they treat their children with prayer, rather than medicine, leading to the death of a child?

"So, we have positions ranging from fire and police, which require people of high integrity for those positions, all the way down to the lifeguards and the folks that work in city hall here. So we do those types of investigations to make sure the people that we hire have the highest moral character and are a good fit for the city," said Bozeman city attorney Greg Sullivan.

It's also easy to see the point made by privacy advocates. The Internet now makes it possible to delve deeply into facets of one's life that once were shared only with close friends and relatives -- and that applicants assumed would forever be kept private.

What's the difference between a post in a private chat channel about a miserable ex-husband and a personal letter to a friend about the same worthless ex? Only the technology used to transmit the message -- and now, the ability to find that message, perhaps years after you wrote it during a particularly difficult time in your life.

Ultimately it will be up to courts to decide just how far employers can go in screening applicants and poring over their e-profiles.

For now, though, we offer this advice:

Assume everything you post online will one day be seen by someone, somewhere, and attached to your name.

You might want to think twice -- or three or four times -- before you post those bachelor party photos or hit the send button.

That was the case for one person who applied for employment with the City. The anonymous viewer emailed the news station recently to express concern with a component of the city's background check policy, which states that to be considered for a job applicants must provide log-in information and passwords for social network sites in which they participate.

The requirement is included on a waiver statement applicants must sign, giving the City permission to conduct an investigation into the person's "background, references, character, past employment, education, credit history, criminal or police records."

"Please list any and all, current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, MySpace, etc.," the City form states. There are then three lines where applicants can list the Web sites, their user names and log-in information and their passwords.

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Another concern the applicant raised was that by providing the City with a Facebook user name and password the City not only has access to the applicant's page but also to the pages belonging to all of the applicant's Facebook "friends."

They bagged the idea.

     Potter

I will probably get flamed for this, but... who would want to live in Montana?