Slashdot Mirror
Liberal Watchdog Questions White House Gmail Use
MexiCali59 writes "Liberal watchdog CREW has joined Republican Congressman Darrell Issa in calling for an investigation into whether White House staffers regularly use private email accounts to communicate with lobbyists. The allegations, first reported last week by the New York Times, would likely constitute a violation of federal law as well as an ethics pledge created by Obama upon taking office last year."
I've learned to ignore the bulk of what the President pledges when it comes to administration transparency. That was a campaign promise that I don't feel he lived up to at all.
I think the point is that Obama pledged to stop this from happening and it hasn't.
"Maybe this world is another planet's hell"
Aldous Huxley
I thought this was how every politician operated? Palin, The previous white house, etc, all used non-government assigned email addresses to avoid archiving and disclosure laws.
--jeffk++
Wasn't Palin's email full of personal stuff and not full of emails from lobbyists and the like offering bribes?
There's nothing forbidding politicians and their staffers from having personal email accounts. However, it is illegal to use them for official, government business as is being alleged here.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Well, the other way to look at it is that they used private e-mail to avoid violating the law prohibiting use of public e-mail accounts for conducting political business. Most folks who work for the White House have, for example, 2 cell phones. One is paid for by the taxpayer and is used when conducting official government business. The other is paid for by the party or by a campaign committee and is used when conducting political business which the government employee, by law, must do in their "private" time and using private, not government, resources.
Since the law expressly allows federal employees at that level to remain involved with the political process, so long as they don't use public resources to do so, I don't see how they can function without having a separate e-mail account just as they have a separate cell phone. The only legal issue is whether they are using that separate e-mail account properly for political business, or whether they are improperly using it to conduct official government business, which would be a violation of the law for circumventing the archiving and disclosure laws.
And yes, I took the same position with the last President as I do with this one, even though I really don't care for the current President.
Good for CREW. Most of these partisan advocacy groups play team red / team blue and have to check the roster to decide where they stand on an issue. It is great to see one of them finally standing on principal and holding their own team to the same standard. It would be nice if every "issue advocacy" group would stick to its guns without regard to party affiliation.
Even if it is true that all politicians do this, that does not make this right. Archiving and disclosure laws are there for a reason.
So we've gone from "Hope and Change" to "STFU, everybody does it"?
This administration has been terrible. All this promise, and then failure. And now there is news that the voter intimidation case got dropped for political reasons? I mean, there the guy is, holding a baton.....seriously, WTF.
Using Gmail should not be allowed. Government officials need to have ALL their activities OPENED to us, the people, unless it is personal stuff. This stuff is NOT personal, it is skirting the law. I don't care if PREVIOUS administrations did it or not. I don't care. Obama promised to do things DIFFERENTLY and I see nothing but business as usual if not more of an orgy type atmosphere there since they have a hold on both houses as well right now.
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
Well what is the ordinary citizen?
What is their education, what do they do for a living, what services do they need, what don't they need...
You say who is fighting for the ordinary citizen's like it is a simple statement. If you are too tough on corporations they cannot operate and move out and kill the economy, if you are too lax they will take over. Every choice has a tradeoff. Lobbyists work for a big slue of sectors including many non-corprate groups, and other groups that you may call the Good Guys...
Hey if I worked for a Oil company I just may like the Oil Lobby as it is defending work for me as the average joe... But if you don't then they may be the enemy.
Unfortunately without lobbyists I see politicians swerving to whatever the general population thinks at the time, and then money and resources are put in and by the time it gets going it is dropped as their values change overnight...
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Yes, but this is "the most transparent administration in history"
Don't forget that being the best at transparency does not mean being good at something. It just means being less terrible than the other guy(s).
Nah, you have to register as a federal lobbyist, the Lobbying Disclosure Act and Honest Leadership and Open Government Act cover this. There isn't any vague area here.
Once you get into a public trust position you are expected to keep your contact with certain people, like lobbyists and contractors, strictly professional. If you have a personal relationship with someone you have to work with in this capacity it will be a problem and you will be expected to break it off or quit your position. There are rules outlining everything from gifts to phone calls. There isn't any room to maneuver here with the "yeah but what about the grandmom that gave us $100" defense. This isn't about her. This is about your "friend" over at Big Oil telling you to keep cameras off the beach in Pensacola because it might look bad, etc. A legit need for oversight.
No wharrgarbl like political wharrgarbl, amirite? Read this. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/
Which leaves me facing the next election to choose between the candidate who says he'll do things I care about, but won't, and the candidate who says he'll do things I hate, and will.
Sigh.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
That is exactly the problem in Government right now. These HUGE bills that no one knows what they contain.
Only because they don't appear to know how to use THOMAS, where activity up to floor actions from the day before are available. It's the web version of the Congressional Record and has been around since the Clinton Administration. If you want things before they even leave the committees, you may have to look somewhere else, but everything else is available there.
One of the main problems in our federal government right now is that we have millions of armchair quarterbacks who don't properly understand the rules of the game.