For almost 2,200 employees of Sacramento State, any degenerate with a DSL connection can access an overview of their financial situation.

It all comes back to the Freedom of Information Act.

The public does have a right to know what state employees make because its taxes provide it, but the Internet is not always the best forum for posting personal financial information. Ideally, one could access this information through phone calls and FOIA requests, the data should not be just handed over to any slob with some free time.

However, the public’s right to know trumps any right to privacy these workers may feel they have. It can be considered unfair, but is the way the world works.

All employees at Sac State are workers for the state of California. As state workers, the amount they earn is considered public information. What does this mean? It means that with a few keystrokes, students can look up their professor’s salaries during a lecture. Then a student can judge if their professor is worth the salary they take home.

But it is not just lecturers and administrators whose income is easily accessible. The incomes of custodians, parking officers and facilities workers are all fair game as well. Some positions pay far less than others, does the public care what a landscaper at Sac State takes home?

Usually only worthless scumbags, like the IRS or journalists, will take the time to look up the contract of a university president or department chair and use it against the individual.

But this is the 21st century, and identity theft is a crime growing at an exponential rate. Should there be a restriction to accessing information this sensitive on the Internet?

The answer is a difficult one, and both arguments are valid. On one hand, the public has a right to know who and what its taxes are spent on. Adversely, not many people would enjoy having the amount of money they take home every year available to anyone who was bored enough to look for it. Life is not fair, and a couple thousand employees at Sac State can attest to that.

The Hornet greatly appreciates the database that contains the yearly salaries of all state workers of California, because it helps us track down information vital to stories about our budget and deficit. However, this transparency is not fair for everyone. The workers on the lower end of the totem pole do not deserve to have their income posted across the Internet. It is not newsworthy and there is limited public interest in their income. The FOIA is a useful and necessary tool, but it is not without its price.

The State Hornet Staff can be reached at [email protected].