Regulators OK work card rules

By Liz Benston

Friday, Dec. 20, 2002 | 11:24 a.m.

Rules aimed at simplifying the process by which all rank-and-file casino employees in Nevada can obtain work were approved by the Nevada Gaming Commission Thursday and will take effect next year.

But the American Civil Liberties Union, which has repeatedly fought the rules and maintains they violate workers' constitutional privacy rights, said after the meeting that it will petition the Legislature next year to add more privacy protections to the state gaming work card law.

Should new legislation fail, the ACLU may file suit to block the implementation of the rules, local ACLU Executive Director Gary Peck said.

Nevada law requires casino workers to obtain criminal background checks from local police departments and other authorized issuing authorities across the state. Workers who move to new jobs must often apply for another work card from the new local authority. The new regulations, aimed at saving time and money for both applicants and local authorities, create a statewide work card that is valid for five years for work at any casino in Nevada.

The ACLU, which approves of the statewide work card concept, remains opposed to language in the rules allowing law enforcement officials unfettered access to a central database of background information on prospective casino applicants maintained by the Gaming Control Board.

Law enforcement agencies could misuse that access by pursuing their own investigations that go beyond the scope of criminal background checks for work cards -- checks that could include a person's financial history, medical records and even their sexual orientation, Peck said.

"There's absolutely no limits on what can happen to information gathered during the application process," Peck told commissioners Thursday.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Stan Olsen objected to those concerns.

The department doesn't collect financial information on applicants, said Olsen, Metro's government liaison.

"We're checking the database for criminal history," he said. Such records are also destroyed after six years, he told commissioners.

To satisfy the ACLU, the police department would need to create and maintain a separate database for work card applicant information, an unnecessary waste of taxpayer dollars, Olsen said.

The department has comingled work card applications with other police data, creating a "tangled mess" of information, Peck said.

"I attribute no malevolence (to the police) in this regard," he said. Still, he said, the department has "systemic and widespread problems with how information has been disseminated."

Control Board member and enforcement expert Bobby Siller said he wasn't aware of any incident in which law enforcement officials in Nevada have violated applicants' privacy rights or misused background information.

Under the new rules, Metro will continue to fingerprint, investigate and issue gaming work cards for employees at both city and Clark County casinos. It will forward the information to a central database maintained by the Control Board and issue cards valid anywhere in Nevada.

Only people involved in money-handling at casinos -- such as casino cage counters, dealers and slot change personnel -- must obtain gaming work cards.

Existing state laws require the gaming regulators to keep records on applicants confidential. But law enforcement officials may have access to such records to allow for the proper enforcement of the Gaming Control Act, the law that requires that casinos -- which are vital to the state's economy -- be clean of criminal elements and that they maintain the public's trust and confidence, commission Chairman Peter Bernhard said. Any violation of the Gaming Control Act, which could include disseminating private information, is a crime subject to penalties associated with a "gross misdemeanor," he said.

It's the Legislature's job -- and not the role of the commission -- to "rewrite existing state laws," he said.

Regulators undertake lengthy background checks of casino executives that can pry into any aspect of a person's life. The depth of such checks -- said to surpass those required for the highest levels of military and government intelligence operations -- surprise industry neophytes yet are considered vital to maintaining the integrity of an industry once run by the Mob.

The ACLU says it respects that system and understands that running a casino isn't a right but a privilege granted by the government.

Peck says he faults the new rules for potentially subjecting hourly employees -- the hundreds of slot change personnel and other workers that make casinos tick -- to a similar invasion of privacy.

Existing work card law, along with the new rules, are unconstitutional with regard to privacy rights, he said.

Berhnard said the board and commission did a good job of balancing privacy rights against the rights of the casino industry to regulate itself according to state law.