Massachusetts' welfare agency says public interest in case trumps privacy rights
BOSTON —Reversing course once again, Massachusetts' welfare agency made available new details Friday about state benefits received by the family of the Boston bombing suspects, saying public interest in the case trumped the privacy rights of Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev.
Questions about the brothers' time on welfare began to surface Wednesday when the Boston Herald reported that they had received benefits and the state confirmed some of the details. But the next day, the department said it had made a mistake and should have refrained from releasing the benefits information because of state and federal privacy rules.
On Friday, however, a letter from the interim commissioner of the state Department of Transitional Assistance, Stacey Monahan, was released to the news media along with an explanation from her that she now believed "the public interest outweighs the privacy interests of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in this instance."
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http://www.wcvb.com/news/local/metro...#ixzz2RbPJUCi1
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I have seen a lot of bizarre things occur under the guise of national security but this has got to be one of most idiotic rationalizations I have ever seen.