Open Gov't Advocates Fear that Private Messaging Apps Are Being Misused by Public Officials To Conduct Business in Secret (pbs.org) 125
The proliferation of digital tools that make text and email messages vanish may be welcome to Americans seeking to guard their privacy. But open government advocates fear they are being misused by public officials to conduct business in secret and evade transparency laws. From a report: Whether communications on those platforms should be part of the public record is a growing but unsettled debate in states across the country. Updates to transparency laws lag behind rapid technological advances, and the public and private personas of state officials overlap on private smartphones and social media accounts. "Those kind of technologies literally undermine, through the technology itself, state open government laws and policies," said Daniel Bevarly, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition. "And they come on top of the misuse of other technologies, like people using their own private email and cellphones to conduct business." Some government officials have argued that public employees should be free to communicate on private, non-governmental cellphones and social media platforms without triggering open records requirements.
Re:You can’t have it both ways (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, because government is accountable to the people, not the other way around.
Exactly. The states and people delegated power to (Score:5, Informative)
Exactly, the US government is expressly empowered by the people to act for the people, in specific ways. We don't have the Divine Right of Kings here.
The Constitution explicitly delegates certain specific powers to the federal government, and reserves all other powers to the states and the people. Powers are preserved with the people because that's where they come from. Washington politicians work for us, at our pleasure not the other way around.
Re: Exactly. The states and people delegated power (Score:2)
Encrypted data is not information.
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Encrypted data is not information.
As long as you know the key, it is.
It's only random bits (and therefore, not information, if you've forgotten the key)
Re: Exactly. The states and people delegated powe (Score:2)
That's the point. Encrypted data is not information. Decrypted data is. If the government is collecting encrypted data then they are, by definition, not collecting information. It only becomes information once they have the ability to decrypt it.
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Depends on your definition of "information". For example, what comes out of an evaporating black hole is information. That we don't understand it makes it analogous to encrypted data...
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Exactly, the US government is expressly empowered by the people to act for the people, in specific ways. We don't have the Divine Right of Kings here.
At this point, I'm pretty sure that that's exactly what politicians think now. Especially the career ones.
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Re: Exactly. The states and people delegated powe (Score:1)
DID YOU KNOW:
That the Constitution holds more authority than the president?
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DID YOU KNOW:
That the Constitution holds more authority than the president?
At the moment.
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DID YOU KNOW:
The American people now beg their government for limited access to their "inalienable rights?"
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The last US Civil War was not about slavery it was about states rights. At the time the decision to declare slavery illegal at the federal level was just one example of the federal government trying to dictate laws that the states believed was a matter to decided at the state by state level.
The US Civil War was over the right of States to secede, and the States that seceded made it very clear that the "State's Right" over which they seceded was the right of a State to permit slavery.
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The US Civil War was over the right of States to secede, and the States that seceded made it very clear that the "State's Right" over which they seceded was the right of a State to permit slavery.
No, the US Civil War was about States rights which is only tangentially related to succession at best.
Re:You can’t have it both ways (Score:4, Informative)
Re:You can’t have it both ways (Score:5, Informative)
What we need are stronger punishments for this activity as we already have decided that these acts are against the law.
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I concur. Jail plus a lifetime ban on participating in politics or lobbying. I think that last bit would dissuade a lot of politicians planning to move to the lucrative lobbying sector after they get out of office.
Re: You can’t have it both ways (Score:1)
Good luck getting politicians to pass a law that restricts the political class
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The law already exists. Enforce it.
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I concur. Jail plus a lifetime ban on participating in politics or lobbying. I think that last bit would dissuade a lot of politicians planning to move to the lucrative lobbying sector after they get out of office.
How would you define lobbying in a way that wouldn't be full of loopholes? And how could that possibly be enforced?
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Define lobbying in a way without loopholes?
Easy.
If you talk to a politician about an issue that is important to you it's legal.
If somebody pays you to talk to a politician about anything you should both go to jail.
Make that the law and 95% of our troubles in the U.S. would go away.
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they really seem to like 'three strikes' type laws. How about 3 strikes and they remove you from office.
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Government officials have been refining their tactics in this arena since Nixon hung himself with those tapes.
If it isn't one thing it will be another. Or, in other words, it's not the technology that creates the clandestine act, and even without it, the clandestine acts will continue. Focusing on the tech is another way to scapegoat the whole conversation and avoid the hard questions about how to eliminate this kind of behavior by our elected officials.
Sadly, I get the feeling that partisan people are in
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People who enter public service must be held to a different standard. They are being temporarily given a large amount of power over other citizens along with the opportunity to personally profit by that power. That requires trust, and the only way to assure trust is making all their communications and actions subject to public review.
If someone doesn't like that, fine. They don't have to be a public servant, they can be a private citizen like everyone else. Traditionally, going into politics was underst
Re:You can’t have it both ways (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, I think public servants also need to be allowed the right of being private citizens when they don't work, except for the few positions that really are 24/7, like president.
But the lines between the two need to be fairly firm - a private encrypted e-mail to your cousin is one thing, and a "private" encrypted e-mail to your cousin who runs a company that bids on government business is a different thing.
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They are held to a different standard. Laws and regulations never apply to them!
Just my 2 cents
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It is wrong in both instances. Enforce the law in all circumstances.
Oh, and it has been done before.
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But a publicly elected official should go to jail for keeping secrets from the people who elected him or her.
Ironic, isn't it? (Score:5, Insightful)
We have the government saying encryption is thwarting their efforts to gather information on people, while at the same time (some) government folks are saying it's perfectly reasonable for them to use apps which thwart the public's effort to gather information on them.
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No, not ironic.
And rest assured: they will still have strong encryption long after you've lost your ability to use it
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Re: Ironic, isn't it? (Score:1)
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Until we get public officials that don't believe Microsoft Support wants them to install VNC on their computer to resolve a virus issue, this will be continue to be done for us at no charge by benevolent third parties.
Before the digital age ... (Score:5, Insightful)
But open government advocates fear they are being misused by public officials to conduct business in secret and evade transparency laws.
Before the digital age, the government employees would have meetings in person and just not write down what was said. That doesn't make restaurants and bars somehow complicit or instrumental in government officials' malfeasance.
Face it, there is generally a de facto expectation that private meetings and discussions in person are not automatically subject to transparency requirements. I mean, should a government official be required to record every single meal they have and with whom and what, if anything, was discussed?
Granted, there is a blurring of the lines with things like Twitter. Everyone wondered whether President Obama would blur that line, though he did a very good job separating himself from his personal social media presence once he became president. On the other hand, President Trump has not done the same and Hillary Clinton most definitely acted wrongly with her private email setup (she was not the only, but by far the most willful and egregious example). In any event, the discussion needs to be had because of the nature of social media and other technological means of communication.
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Before the digital age, the government employees would have meetings in person and just not write down what was said. That doesn't make restaurants and bars somehow complicit or instrumental in government officials' malfeasance.
The difference is that you could camp out a favorite restaurant and see who went into the private back room. You lack even that transparency with IM apps.
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We have transparency laws. Are you unfamiliar with this fact?
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One major US party has come out recently and quite vociferously in opposition to transparency in government officials communications. They have what seems to be universal support from their adherents.
Sentiments like "I may not agree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it," that show dedication to the principles that America was founded on, are being eroded by the same party. Similarly, the idea of a government that serves the people and is responsible to them, rather than one
Re:Before the digital age ... (Score:5, Informative)
There's nothing illegal about a government official buying a burner phone to call people with.
But it is illegal to use that phone for government business.
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They can still meet in person and do that.
There are companies that will journal and archive IM and email, because of SOX compliance. There is nothing wrong with government officials conducting business through private, encrypted electronic messaging to prevent 3rd party eavesdropping. The messages still must be recorded for future FOIA requests. The can still make them top secret and avoid release for many years, if it is in fact a secret that must be kept for national security. They just have to be rec
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President Trump has not done the same and Hillary Clinton most definitely acted wrongly with her private email setup (she was not the only, but by far the most willful and egregious example).
It could be argued that Kushner's private e-mail was an even more wilful and egregious example, especially as it came after the Clinton debacle, so there wasn't even a question of ignorance.
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Only problem I have with that statement is the most willful and egregious part
You are falsely equating random cabinet officials occasionally using personal emails for government work with an individual that never, in her 4 year stint as Secretary of State, ever logged in to a government provided email account - 100% of her work email was sent to/from her private server, which she hired consultants to set up for her.
Hillary's 100% exclusive use of private (AKA non-gov't) email is, by definition, the most egregious example mathematically possible - at least until some clever politician
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Mail, etc. was recorded. In the digital age, much more is being done via mail equivalents. And?
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Hillary Clinton most definitely acted wrongly with her private email setup (she was not the only, but by far the most willful and egregious example).
And also refusing to use an officially provided phone because it didn't work the way she was used to, in fact. Of course, she got her own email server on the advice of Colin Powell, who was speaking specifically about its utility in keeping things you didn't want seen out of other people's hands. Sadly, too many Trumpanistas will declare that it's OK when their side does it, while frothing about Clinton, for anything to improve.
...and they're correct. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ever since the founding of the nation, everyone has had conflicting agendas.
Personal, business, family, religion, township, state, nation - they all have different optimal outcomes.
Folks become politicians because they think they can work out something that will work for most, if not all of those levels - and yeah, often, those motivations are corrupt.
Like in science though - the answer should be that matching up to reality should be the goalstick - and conflicting motivations should bow towards that.
The problem is that when we allow motivations to become too corrupt, reality itself becomes the enemy of those motivations.
Open government is an important motivation because it prevents folks from straying too far too long from being compared with reality.
That's the role of the press in recent centuries - to take conflicting biases, and hold them against reality, one story at a time. Even in the yellow journalism eras, and now in the Fox news and social media era - it made it difficult to operate too far away from reality as a politician.
But it's not an infinite effect - it can be washed away by enough motivation against reality.
And to folks that love science and honest study of reality, it's something of a disgusting transformation of a nation.
Especially in the sense of what's going to happen when reality reasserts itself after the current illusion wears thin.
Ryan Fenton
Wait. What? (Score:2)
Throw away everything except:
Public Officials Conduct Business
HOW isn't important.
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HOW isn't important.
How is important. In fact, it is probably more important than what.
For example, would you be OK with the state department of transportation awarding highway maintenance contracts based on who the current secretary's best friends were in college? Or should criminal sentences be "adjusted" based on sexual favors granted by or coerced from the defendant to the judge? Of course not. Those things are ridiculous. Yet, they have happened and they demonstrate the great need for transparency in s
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So you're going to throw away the part where they're avoiding transparency laws, and claim how isn't important?
Are you a fucking dumbass, or a corrupt government official?
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Are you a fucking dumbass, or a corrupt government official?
But then, you repeat yourself...:)
Strat
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Precisely. Thanks.
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politicians who refuse corporate PAC money
Including Hillary, Bernie, Obama, John Kerry, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Mike Dukakis, etc and so on and so on.
If you're not condemning Democrats along with Republicans, you are a shill and liar.
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Do you seriously think all of that?
You do realize the one tax return they got was from him. He leaked it. Turns out he pays more in taxes than all of the rest put together.
If anything we now have a president the media is willing to pay attention to. Instead of slurping his jizz. If you think 'your team' is any better *think* *again*. They are *all* corrupt with a very small handful not being so. The non-corrupt ones you can identify by how they do not always vote with the crowd. This 'corrupt admin'
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I agree, and I think the problem is that the public (media?) has knee-jerk responses to what looks like misuse of funds without really paying attention to the relative scale. I remember the complaints when a GSA conference had an expensive sushi dinner in Las Vegas - when the per-person cost wasn't actually out of line with typical conference food. Yet that got as much media attention as 10s of billions of overruns on a F35 project, and those got more attention that the question of whether a multi $100B
The problem with the public media (Score:2)
I just read an article [nbcnews.com] talking about "moderate" Democrats (e.g. the right wing) opposing Bernie Sanders and it made the point that single payer health care is popular but threw in the phrase "government run". Bernie and his ilk aren't talking about government run-healthcare. Nobody except a very tiny number of loons is (roughly the same as the number of Republicans talking about expelling black Amer
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You're missing the point entirely (Score:4, Interesting)
We know our public officials are corrupt because they're making no real effort to hide it. We need a litmus test for all politicians. If you take corporate & PAC money you don't get elected. You don't even make it past primary season. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can serve two masters.
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When Bill and Hill left the White House they were loud about the fact that they were 'dirt poor.'
And since then they're now three figure millionaires?
That doesn't pass any sort of smell test.
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And since then they're now three figure millionaires?
We call that 9-figure wealth.
That doesn't pass any sort of smell test.
unless you consider they gave speeches for mid-six figure fees ($500K) because Hillary was going to be the next President.
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When Bill and Hill left the White House they were loud about the fact that they were 'dirt poor.'
And since then they're now three figure millionaires?
That doesn't pass any sort of smell test.
If you are not rich after being elected to high office, then you are doing it wrong.
Simple solution (Score:2)
Any Official caught using said systems to circumvent the rules ( by accident or intentionally ) are to be removed
from office immediately. None of this " I didn't know " bullshit.
They are to be stripped of any retirement or pension benefits they have accrued, any assets they own in any form
are to be confiscated and they are to be blacklisted from holding any office. In addition, no book deals, no " speaking
fees ", no movie deals, nothing about their period where they held an elected position can be utilize
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"Public Officials" should NOT BE using anything but agency issued electronic devices while conducting themselves as agents of said agencies. Period.
Unless, of course, you are Secretary of State, right?
Like a private email server? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Or a private cell phone. Or a super-secret Cone of Silence that was built into the office of the EPA administrator at taxpayer expense.
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In other news, sky blue! (Score:2)
Water wet!
Politicians dishonest, corrupt shysters!
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Water wet!
Politicians dishonest, corrupt shysters!
The definition of a good politician in the US is the same as any other country; once they are bought, they stay bought.
Odd (Score:4, Interesting)
I fear that government officials are using the telephone and the USPS to cheat, lie, steal and otherwise abuse the system they are supposed to be supporting. I think messaging apps are just the latest tool in the hands of some of the worst crooks on the planet, our elected officials. I could of course be wrong, but I'd not bet my lunch money on it.
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They are some of the worst crooks on the planet, in terms of them being pretty bad at it. The slick crooks don't go to Washington much. Just enough to make certain it's a district run by bumbling idiots.
Worth mentioning (Score:1)
For the record, with the exception of Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer, who chose for some reason to do this via an executive order, which leaves it open to challenge and other forms of circumvention, all of these new laws requiring all government communications to be public were proposed by Democrats.
This just in... (Score:1)
This just in - "Open Gov't Advocates Fear that Private Rooms Are Being Misused by Public Officials To Conduct Business in Secret" - Open Gov't Advocates are calling fro the immediate removal of all doors and walls in all government buildings. In addition, every government worker must register every cellphone, email and social media account, as well as accept a GPS microchip to allow workers locations to be tracked to ensure no gov't business is conducted in secret.
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Half of the country voted for Hillary Clinton
No, about 20% of the country voted for Hillary Clinton - nearly 66 Million voters voted for HRC, but the population of the country is closer to 330 Million.
More voting-age Americans chose not to vote in 2016 than voted in the election.
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... and less than that 20% voted for the scary clown that is now in the Whitehouse.
I sure hope that the roughly 60% that didn't vote learned their lesson.
Do you mean the lesson that they were right about not having a choice as shown by what the DNC did to Bernie Sanders?
What we need (Score:2)
Nahh, I'm kidding myself. Soon as they realize the plebes can access the security backdoor they'll demand encryption without that backdoor. Only available to them of course, the plebes don't need that kind of privacy
To Late! (Score:2)
Talking about closing the barn door now is irreverent the cows are already out of the barn!
Just my 2 cents
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Why does the Department of Education need a SWAT team [huffingtonpost.com]?