In November 2008, the Ohio state inspector general concluded that Helen Jones-Kelley, then-director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, had no legitimate reasons to check state computer systems for confidential information on Joe Wurzelbacher — the citizen who audaciously called out Barack Obama’s wealth redistribution agenda in a viral campaign trail exchange between the candidate and the plumber.

In December 2008, Jones-Kelley was forced to resign from her job.

Three years later, she’s baaaaack on the government payroll.

The Columbus Dispatch reports (h/t @icwhatudo):

A county agency has hired Ohio’s former social services director, who quit over a records check on the campaign figure known as “Joe the Plumber.”

Helen Jones-Kelley resigned in December 2008 as director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services. That was after an investigation found she improperly used state computers to find personal information on Samuel J. Wurzelbacher of the Toledo area.

Jones-Kelley was hired yesterday to lead the Montgomery County Drug Addiction & Mental Health Services Board.

Perks.

***

Flashback October 2008:

If Joe the Plumber were Jawad the Suspected Terrorist, civil liberties activists would stampede the halls of Congress on his behalf. Liberal columnists would hyperventilate over the outrageous invasions of his privacy by Ohio state and local employees. The ACLU would demand the Big Brother snoopers’ heads. And Democrat leaders would convene immediate hearings and parade him around the Beltway as the new poster boy/victim of unlawful domestic spying.

But because peaceful American citizen Joe Wurzelbacher is an outspoken enemy of socialism, rather than an enemy of America, the defenders of privacy have responded to his plight with an impenetrable cone of silence.

After the last presidential debate, in which John McCain invoked Joe the Plumber’s anti-socialism shot heard ‘round the world, several taxpayer-subsidized employees in Ohio immediately rifled through government databases in search of damning information. The Columbus Dispatch identified Helen Jones-Kelley, director of the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, as one of the dirt-diggers. She also happens to be a Barack Obama supporter who contributed the maximum amount to his presidential campaign.

On Wednesday, Jones-Kelley admitted that the records checks on Joe that she approved were far more extensive than she first acknowledged. In addition to pawing through his child-support papers, the agency “also checked Wurzelbacher in its computer systems to determine whether he was receiving welfare assistance or owed unemployment compensation taxes.”

Obama supporter Jones-Kelley argued that plumbing the plumber’s information was no big deal because the agency always checks up on citizens who come to public light. Democrat Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland quickly pooh-poohed the civil liberties infringements and denied any nefarious political motives.

If that doesn’t send a chill up your spine, maybe you don’t have a spine.

ORDER IT NOW

In addition to Jones-Kelley, investigators have uncovered at least three other suspicious uses of state computer systems to access Wurzelbacher’s data. A Toledo police clerk, Julie McConnell, has been charged with gross misconduct for accessing the Law Enforcement Automated Data System to retrieve Wurzelbacher’s address. She reportedly did it as a favor to a reporter. Authorities also say the Cuyahoga County social services office was compromised and an outside contractor with access to the state Attorney General’s test account similarly searched Joe’s data. Moreover, driver’s-license and vehicle-registration data about Wurzelbacher were obtained from the Bureau of Motor Vehicles.

I contacted the ACLU twice for comment this week about this rampant plundering of Joe the Plumber’s records. Like the Genesis song goes: No reply at all. (That was the same reply the ACLU gave me two months ago, when I asked if they had any reaction to the Chicago gangland tactics of a MoveOn spin-off group that announced it was trolling campaign finance databases and targeting conservative donors with warning letters in a thuggish attempt to depress Republican fundraising.)

For the last seven years, these left-wing privacy champs have lobbied on behalf of foreign enemy combatants. The ACLU fought unsuccessfully to kill the Bush administration’s post-9/11 effort to monitor terrorist communications in the U.S. The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and USA Today went ballistic over the government’s bank surveillance program to trace terrorist financing.

All those papers fumed earlier this year when State Department contractors illegally sifted through the passport files of Barack Obama (and Hillary Clinton and John McCain). Obama mouthpiece Bill Burton intoned after the passport scandal: “Our government’s duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes.”

But when freelance members of the Obama Goon Squad take it upon themselves to do opposition research on The One’s citizen critics and rummage through government databases, where are all the privocrats when you need them? How safe will your state tax and IRS records be if Dear Leader is elected?

Welcome to Barack Obama’s America.