Even the federal government, which routinely requires background checks and security clearances to work there, don’t require this. Even in the federal government, a supervisor has no rights to an individual’s login credentials. There are policies in place to deal with violations of security, but collecting logins in advance isn’t one of them. It’s too draconian, and a little too ‘proactive.’ Bozeman has no right to that information, even contingent on what “might” happen. The social media accounts do not, or will not contain content that is exclusively related to the employee’s job. Therefore, potentially Bozeman is asking for access to content to which *they* have no rights. Tell Bozeman to stuff it! Or simply say that you don’t have any login. Taken to the extreme, if everyone who works for Bozeman that has a social media account just quits, and Bozeman’s government function comes to a halt because of it, how stupid will they, and the politician who proposed this, look then?

If you never post anything relevant to your job, or to indicate that you work for the city of Bozeman, there is no ‘damage.’ Bozeman is too full of themselves. If everyone who had an interest in visiting Bozeman were to write them and tell them that you’re now boycotting them because of their stupid policy regarding their employees, causing a hit in their wallet, perhaps they’ll back off. Tell Bozeman to take a flying leap!

Make a person responsible for what they post after the fact surely, but making a policy requiring their logins is simply showing their stupidity. I’d bet this particular story has done more “damage” to Bozeman’s “reputation” than any singe posting from an unknown individual ever could have. As the saying goes “Never ascribe to malice” what can adequately be explained by stupidity.

Forget you, Bozeman…