Maybe there’s something in the water in these municipalities, but these cities have taken the need to protect the populace to a new level.

First up is Bozeman, Montana. A sleepy little nondescript town who now requires all applicants for city jobs to release all login names and passwords for social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo!, or Google. Give me a break. Ostensibly this is only to ascertain if the prospective employee is engaged in any illegal activities. However, it’s one thing to search for prospective employees on the Internet to get a sense of what their public face is. It is completely another to gain access to their private world. What they do on their own or with their friends should be their business. This would be akin to requiring that all job applicants submit to a complete search of their homes prior to getting an employment offer. It takes invasion of privacy to a whole new level. It’s bad enough that the NSA is likely still reading your email and eavesdropping on your calls. Now your employer wants in as well?

On an equally perplexing, yet more comical note, comes Brooksville, Florida. I’m not sure what’s been going on it Brooksville that required them to pass such legislation, but the city council there has passed a new dress code to improve their public image. From now on, all city employees must adhere to the following rules:

• underwear is now required;
• employees must use deodorant;
• no halter tops or Spandex at work;
• no skirts worn “below the waistline”;
• no other clothing that may be “distracting, offensive or revealing”;
• only ears may be visibly pierced; and, perhaps most disturbingly,
• all cuts or wounds must now be covered.

Now many of these are similar to decency standards enforced by most companies and schools. No trouble there. I do find it curious that they felt the need to require that all cuts or wounds must be covered. Did the Band-Aid lobby get in there? Or did they have a problem with people sporting open oozing festering sores in the workplace?

But I’m most intrigued by the rule against going commando at work. Exactly how are they planning to check on that? And what constitutes underwear anyway? Are you okay if you just put a Band-Aid on your butt? The mind boggles…