Anthony writes:
It took me about 10 minutes to search the Pinellas
County court
records and find the two DUIs and the fugitive warrant from Virginia,
and that's without using her maiden name. That Jimbo says he was
"stunned" when he read it suggests you didn't even know about that.
There's plenty that you apparently don't know about. For example, did
you know that a company is legally liable if it mishandles a criminal
background check, and that this is why this service is now contracted
to specialized services?
You seem to be advising me to act in ways that make the Foundation
more likely to be legally vulnerable. I'm sorry, but I must politely
refuse.
Thomas Dalton writes:
Criminal
background checks take at least a day, and possibly a few
days, to do properly, at least in the United States. The allegations
made in the Register story would have taken significant time for us
to
confirm or refute.
So the Wikinews volunteers are better at legal research than the WMF
General Counsel? Great...
It has nothing to do with legal research or with my abilities to
conduct it.
Perhaps you should do some research on your own regarding how
corporations avoid liability when conducting background checks.
We're not talking about hiring and firing,
we're talking about giving
the community a heads-up rather than letting The Register be the one
to break the story.
Thomas, I'm beginning to think you've gone a little nuts. You've
confused two different things:
(1) a general background check on a WMF employee *before* the Register
story was published, and
(2) a specific check of the Register's references *after* the story
was published, which can be done a lot quicker.
If you are under the impression that Cade Metz called us and read to
us the text of his story over the phone, you are entirely mistaken.
He alluded vaguely to some issues when he called me after letting us
know his story would be running in a couple of hours.
And, in any case, because I think the insanity has gotten out of hand,
I want to underscore the fact that in no way was the Foundation going
to rush to publication of a story about a personnel matter in order to
beat the Register. Seriously. What a crazy idea.
The foundation seems to have a great deal of
difficulty realising that
they can say something without saying everything.
Oddly enough, I've been doing just that. The problem is that
sometimes people aren't listening when you're saying something but not
saying everything. Not that I'm pointing any fingers here.*
*Reminder: Americans aren't good at irony! We know sports!
--Mike