I noted how Joe the Plumber was attacked for participating in the democratic process by asking a pointed question of one of the two major party candidates for president. What we now find out is that laws were broken in the process. Where are the howls of outrage from the media and the activists who object to spying on terrorists intent upon attacking American interests and their associates?

Public records requested by The Dispatch disclose that information on Wurzelbacher’s driver’s license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database three times shortly after the debate.

Information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why. Direct access to driver’s license and vehicle registration information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.

His criminal records and child support records were also accessed during the same time period.

Now Obama’s campaign denounced folks looking into the presidential candidate’s passport file (as well as those of Hillary Clinton and John McCain) just a few months back, and people were fired. Why are they silent about this breach of privacy against a private citizen simply because he engaged in protected First Amendment activity?

UPDATE: This does raise an interesting question -- if it is so easy to get a look at the records of a private citizen who has the audacity to exercise his First Amendment rights during a political campaign, why can the American public still see a copy of Barack Obama's original birth certificate? After all, receiving indisputable evidence that Obama is a constitutionally eligible for the office he seeks would certainly seem to be a much more serious matter of public concern than anything about Joe the Plumber.