I'm sure no laws were broken....

I work for a state agency in Michigan. Recently a journalist took it upon himself to make an online searchable database of all state employees, it includes their salaries, hire in dates, job title, and location. No I know there is a freedom of information law, which I completely understand. Residents pay our salaries and have the right to know what they are paying for. But I do have several concerns with this.

First off, if I went to our HR department and asked what a coworkers pay rate is, they would tell me to take a hike. With this database we all have access to each others information. Second, if you go onto our state website, you can look up the pay rates for every job in the state anyway, theres no reason anyone needs to know a specific persons salary. My third reason is completely personal. I have an ex who was very abusive and controlling. After I left him he bagan stalking me, and now I have a ppo against him. I ended up moving and changing agencies, but now he can find out where I work again. My list can go on and on really.

Now I don't believe this journalist broke any laws, it was probably just ethically wrong. Is there anything we can do to stop this? Were there any laws broken?

Thanks in advance for any info

Unless the state will agree to protect and keep secret your information--and they may do so even for reasons of the restraining order--then there is little you can do about the database. It is a problem in many areas now that the internet makes info so easily combined and searched.

I thought the weekend would help me get over this, but in reality it just made things worse. I just found out 3 major papers in Michigan are running the story... I feel so violated. When I hired in no one informed me this could happen. And really it doesn't make sense to me how it was allowed. I'm told "The public has the right to know", and I agree they have the right to know the pay scale for each job, but I dont agree that the law should allow personal information on every employee to be known to the public. I deal with a lot of hostile people every day. Now on top of the problem they already have with my agency, I will be getting double the complaints because of our wages. We deal with schitzo/bipolar/depressed clients every day, most of wich are coming to our office because they physically harmed someone. Am I supposed to feel any safer about going to work now?

what do you mean--why will they complain?