Surely you’ve heard of the Obama-Biden Transition Project and know it’s a 501c(4) organization, right? Have you visited the official website at change.gov, read the blog, and shared your vision for America?
If you think like I do, perhaps you agree with Josh Bernoff’s 3 tips how change.gov should be improved?
In my last post, I quoted co-chair Valerie Jarrett saying the transition process between now and January 20 will be “transparent.” I thought that would be a step in the right direction.
I still hope transparency is possible in the government, but a curious investigation led me down a path to conclude transparency is the tip of the iceberg and change.gov is not what it seems.
With a desire to work on social media efforts for the Obama Administration, I recently applied for a job on change.gov. Nothing fancy; just a simple contact form.
I saw an email response yesterday, pointing me to continue the application process by filling out a 7-page, 63-question tell-all survey that New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes summarizes:
Applicants are asked whether they or anyone in their family owns a gun. They must include any e-mail that might embarrass the president-elect, along with any blog posts and links to their Facebook pages.
The application also asks applicants to “please list all aliases or ‘handles’ you have used to communicate on the Internet.”
Declan McCullagh of CNet News expands upon Calmes’ summary with a closer look:
Translated into English, this means that President-elect Obama wants to know far more about you than his predecessors did. That requirement would force applicants to disclose information about Facebook and MySpace pages, profiles posted on dating Web sites, and even what was posted on Web sites like CNET and YouTube that allow readers to append comments.
If that doesn’t bother you, go ahead and fill out the application at change.gov/jobs/apply_app/ — but the information is not stored at change.gov.
Notice the bottom of the page where it says the application system is powered by Cluen technology?
Click the link and be redirected to the Cluen Corporation, an 18-year-old private firm that provides recruiting software solutions.
The basic idea behind the company’s Searchlight technology is a recruiting agency can collect data through online forms that are masked to be at the agency’s website and the data is stored on secure Cluen servers.
A tactic used by a recruiting firm should be different for a presidential transition team, right? Surely, job data would be stored on a government server somewhere?
Think again.
Check out https://searchlight2.cluen.com/CandidateLogin.asp?compid={BBCFD5B2-E18C-4307-BEFA-BD007B34C07D}&layout={D3264583-16A1-451A-A7DC-3BC1F4F61B56} which provides the true “power” of the attribution line at the change.gov application page.
In other words, not only are prospective applicants asked to submit 63 answers with personal information, but the data is stored at the Cluen Corporation. Perhaps this is included in the change.gov privacy policy under “physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards.”
Maybe I’m off my rocker, in which case you can donate money to the 501c(4) here.
If I’m not off my rocker, what are your thoughts?
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Comments:
Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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As I wondered on Friday, this just makes it worse – especially since they are asking these questions of you for a more routine application. There was some discussion that this was just for a handful of top-drawer posts, but if more than that it really a travesty. Also, I do background checks for a living and know that there is no way to go through these 63-question forms in a timely manner (to answer or to review!).Adriel Hampton´s last blog post..What Can We Learn from the Obama Campaign?
I thought about pushing back on those questions that are practically impossible to answer if you live your life online. I am a transparent soul and I can firmly say there is nothing I have done online or off that would be an embarrassment to me, let alone Obama. I have applied and I pushed back on those questions.
Although I did also apply during the Bush administration, albeit with far less experience, we didn’t go to a third party site to do so, IIRC.
Andrea Baker´s last blog post..Live Tonight Talking Government 2.0
Adriel, your links were pointing to bad pages so I edited your post. The application on change.gov (to my understanding) is for any non-career position, e.g. executive branch staffers, in-house specialists, etc.
Andrea, can you shed any light if existing Bush Administration employees are required to re-apply to remain in their jobs in the Obama Administration?
This is strange, I also tried the application process and I did not see anything like the 63 question survey that you mention. Did you go through the same process or did you just echoed the NY Times article?
Or would they have a different process for different people?
The application process I saw was the typical job application process that you would get from any one of the services that do that, like a Yahoo Hot Jobs application or equivalent.
Marc Dangeard´s last blog post..
@Marc there are two types of applications, ones for appointment which are more invasive and the other to be considered for other jobs within the administration. You might have been applying for the latter.
@Ari I think it depends on the position, some of them will hold their job, some will be replaced, others are being created. I didn’t think to ask my friends at the White House if they have to reapply for their jobs, but some of them let me to believe they will be there after January 20th.
Andrea Baker´s last blog post..Live Tonight Talking Government 2.0
To be fair, Marc, I did not go through the application process — once I questioned the powering technology of Cluen. The difference with Monster, HotJobs, etc, is those sites merely host the forms and don’t store data; the data is sent to the companies (or so I presume).
Thanks for the heads-up.
I don’t have much to really add here but I don’t understand why Cluen would need to store the data. I wouldn’t really mind sending all of the information to the employer but I would be hesitant to send it to a 3rd party. That being said I don’t really think privacy exists anymore.
Kim Woodbridge´s last blog post..5 New(ish) WordPress Themes
The key piece probably is transparency with respect to the relationship between Cluen and Change.gov and what their agreement is about the data stored as a privacy concern.
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