"I thought I lived in America, where I had a right to privacy," Elgin City Council member Sue Moore fumed.

Absolutely right, Sue. You live in America, were you HAD a right to privacy.

Move along, nothing to see here.

King Something: "I thought I lived in America, where I had a right to privacy," Elgin City Council member Sue Moore fumed.

Absolutely right, Sue. You live in America, were you HAD a right to privacy.

Move along, nothing to see here.

No sympathy for elected officials on this. NONE. Fark them.

Public officials SHOULD be scrutinized. No 1984 here..

maybe they just don't want to tell everyone how much money they made from growing "ahem" some plants out back

Most of those resigning are volunteer officeholders from small towns, often in conservative inland areas with a strong mind-your-own-business attitude and a mistrust of flatlanders, as people from the urban areas around Portland and Salem are known.

Flatlander! Come out flatlander! We have your woman!

Wow, deceptive headline. Financial disclosure forms? Spit it out or we don't want you farkers.

The cool thing about it is...
People are voting with their feet...

there's more, down the road, in 2009

This is more a story of how stupid many elected officials are in Oregon. They are resigning, without even understanding what is being asked of them. No wonder the state is in such a crappy financial state. These morons wouldn't pass 4th grade reading comprehension classes.

Yeah, the Flatlander thing amused me, too.

Subby, do you even know what the Ministry of Truth is?

FTFA: Officeholders must list businesses in which they have an interest, sources of income (though not specific amounts), names of relatives over 18, and property held in their jurisdictions. The forms do not seek information about mortgages, personal bank accounts or credit cards.

Yeah, uhh, I want this level of accountability from my local officials. This sounds like a pretty good start at insuring that your local politicians aren't worried about their own personal or business interests over their constituents.

Anybody who wants to resign over this is probably afraid that their gravy train would be uncovered and they'd be ruined forever. This way, they can leave while making a "stand" for their "rights" or some such nonsense.

dj_bigbird: King Something: "I thought I lived in America, where I had a right to privacy," Elgin City Council member Sue Moore fumed.

Absolutely right, Sue. You live in America, were you HAD a right to privacy.

Move along, nothing to see here.

No sympathy for elected officials on this. NONE. Fark them.

Exactly. 100% agree. I submitted headline with that angle. Now I know why it got killed.

Particularly true for public, UNPAID positions. What better positions to bribe than someone who doesn't get paid for their duties?

worlddan:
Exactly. 100% agree. I submitted headline with that angle. Now I know why it got killed.

Who do you think has the farking power to reverse the surveillance society? Who do you think has the bloody motivation to reverse the surveillance society? Would you rather have a slightly inefficient and fallible government or an omnipotent and oppressive government?

These slightly corrupt officials are a necessary evil to reducing government oversight. Much like Congress, they're pretty much all that's standing in the way of a police state. You fools are killing off all your allies and then will have the bloody gall in 7-10 years to ask "Who'll stand up for me?".

Think of the bloody bigger picture.

*sigh* People applauding a loss of freedom and privacy in all it's meanings tends to annoy me. I've got nothing to hide, but I refuse to curtail freedoms for your picky little peace-of-mind.

People are so damned self-important they can't get over the fact that they need to feel protected and safe their entire lives.

Sandwyrm: People are so damned self-important they can't get over the fact that they need to feel protected and safe their entire lives.

I'm all for privacy, put elected officials are not private. I don't care about who they fark, what they do on weekends, or what color their underwear is, but I *do* care about who is supporting them financially.

Of course, in an ideal world, we wouldn't elect politicians that didn't disclose things voluntarily... so you do have a point still.

Mentat: Subby, do you even know what the Ministry of Truth is?

Oooh! Pick me! It's a Ministry specializing in revisionist history, so that past historical documents match the current stated positions, e.g. "We have always been at war with Eastasia". Yeah, nothing to do with this issue.

No, you can't know why your 30k a year public official can afford five $500,000 houses and a $50,000 car, and all their friends and family have $50,000 a year jobs.

NOT YOURS!

DeadZone: No, you can't know why your 30k a year public official can afford five $500,000 houses and a $50,000 car, and all their friends and family have $50,000 a year jobs.

NOT YOURS!

Fail... these are mostly unpaid positions.

Ceph: DeadZone: No, you can't know why your 30k a year public official can afford five $500,000 houses and a $50,000 car, and all their friends and family have $50,000 a year jobs.

NOT YOURS!

Fail... these are mostly unpaid positions.

No, you fail. They get paid 50k a year, but they have to work 50 hours a week holding signs & handing out fliers for the politicians reelection campaign, during work hours, the same politicians who got them the jobs, while drawing their pay off your tax dime. So you get NOTHING, the pols get fre reelection workers.

/trust me, I've seen this. This is the reality.

"More may quit by Tuesday, when the forms are due from elected or appointed public officials in 97 towns and six county governments that exercised their right to opt out of a 1974 Oregon law requiring officeholders to disclose their business interests. The Legislature voted in 2007 to end that exemption, reasoning that everyone should play by the same rules."

Basically, they're quitting because they're no longer allowed to leverage their official positions to illegally benefit their private business ventures (well, rather, it's just as illegal, but now they're not legally allowed to bar the public from accessing the evidence). This is not the same thing as what the headline implied at all.

If you take a job that involves disbursing public funds, expect to be required to give an accounting of those funds to your employer, as well as a record of your other employment. When your employer is the county, it becomes a public record. Enough said.

Do rumors really spread faster in rural areas?

On a per capita basis I mean.

WTF does it matter if they are volunteers? If you work for the public, then the public has a right to expect a full financial disclosure. Does being a volunteer somehow make you immune to corruption?

Yes, but would they rather die of dysentery then fill out these forms?

2+2=5, Winston.

Sandwyrm: worlddan:
Exactly. 100% agree. I submitted headline with that angle. Now I know why it got killed.

Who do you think has the farking power to reverse the surveillance society? Who do you think has the bloody motivation to reverse the surveillance society? Would you rather have a slightly inefficient and fallible government or an omnipotent and oppressive government?

These slightly corrupt officials are a necessary evil to reducing government oversight. Much like Congress, they're pretty much all that's standing in the way of a police state. You fools are killing off all your allies and then will have the bloody gall in 7-10 years to ask "Who'll stand up for me?".

Think of the bloody bigger picture.




Wow. That's a lot of crazy right there. The problem with the police state (as someone who has actually lived in one (Egypt)) is not the privacy of ordinary folk. The problem is that there is a class of people who believe that they deserve power. The logic they use varies from time to time and place to place but it all comes down to the same thing: how dare you challenge me!

Everyone has a right to privacy. No one has a right to power.

Power over others is both a benefit and a responsibility that is earned and which in a democracy is subject to the vigilance of the people. If a person wants power then they should (1) expect to be subject to a higher standard of vigilance. (2) Subject to repeated challenges from the public. If they are not willing to accept that price, then they should no be in a position of power.

The moment that we stop insisting that our leaders pay a price for their power is the moment America will have a police state.

worlddan:

You're mixing two separate concerns and attaching them with a common thread that makes sense on it's own, but overall doesn't add up. My point is that we fight fire with fire, corrupt government officials with surveillance that'll make the government grow powerful and corrupt enough that it's interests will conflict with those of said corrupt officials.

Our leaders don't really pay a price for their power now anyhow. They get preferential treatment everywhere they go, people treat them like royalty hoping they'll turn around and react in gratefulness later.

When our government leaders have to go through a whole bunch of bs in the name of security and safety, they'll be faced with a choice to align their reality with everyone else's. They can either shrug and say they're serving the public interest, or say that since THEY have to suffer, everyone else has to suffer too.

The former option would require a strength of character, a sort of nobility. Honestly, who really believes politicians to be altruistic, anyhow? Maybe some are, but their entire profession is tainted with lust, suggesting that a good majority of them will choose the latter option. After all, misery loves company.

By removing the BIGGEST block to total government oversight (and therefore power) these guys are just paving the road to become subjects of the government, instead of citizens. The voting public is heavily influenced by fear. If fear of each other overrides their collective desire for privacy, up go the cameras. The voting public can't be depended on to safeguard the nation's freedoms.

Loss of privacy is only an effect of prominence, not a rule and not a requirement.

Mentat: Subby, do you even know what the Ministry of Truth is?

From wiki: The Ministry of Truth Fox News is involved with news media, entertainment, the fine arts and educational books. Its purpose is to rewrite history and change the facts to fit party doctrine, for propaganda effect.

This makes me sad that I live in the same "progressive" state as these idiots. It just reaffirms my belief that most people outside of Portland or Eugene are crazy rednecks and this state would be a red state without those two cities.

Sandwyrm: ...These slightly corrupt officials are a necessary evil to reducing government oversight. Much like Congress, they're pretty much all that's standing in the way of a police state. You fools are killing off all your allies and then will have the bloody gall in 7-10 years to ask "Who'll stand up for me?".

So what you're telling me is a slightly corrupt politician is just the cost of doing business? If our gov't has so much oversite that they are peering in the goings on of the politicians, then there is nothing to stop them from completeyly dominating the ordinary citizen. The corrupt politicians work "for us" by trying to keep the gov'ts ability for snooping (to protect their own behind) at a minimum.

Interesting concept.

Flatlanders are Illinoisans. Get a new smear.

So, the conservative blowhards who mistrust government get jobs in government and don't want to fill out forms designed to prevent corruption in government.

It's like a tiny black hole of hypocrisy. MY HEAD ASPLODE.

I like the clerk whose husband gets contracts from her city but she's resigning because she doesn't want to tell anyone in her small town who her children are. Honey, they know who your granddaddy's girlfriend was.

The only "progressive" parts of Oregon are some parts of Portland, about half of Eugene and some clusters in the middle and southern Cascades and maybe along the Coast Range and coast.

I'm from a Reservation in central South Dakota who spent most summers in Eugene, I really had no idea how ignorant people could be till I met folks out in rural Oregon. I mean, even Reservation kids have travelled to Pow-wows or rodeos, playing sports. Here in Oregon, Portland is a once in a lifetime experience, never been out of the state, a 20 mile trip is "too far".

/Lived in Eugene for too long
//Lived in Portland since '94
///Worked in Newberg for way too long

FTA: In tiny Elgin, six of the seven City Council members are quittingon the take. The entire five-member planning commission resigned last week is on the take.

ftfy

ElQue: This makes me sad that I live in the same "progressive" state as these idiots. It just reaffirms my belief that most people outside of Portland or Eugene are crazy rednecks and this state would be a red state without those two cities.

Speaking as a fellow Eugenean, and some one who has lived in Mcminnville, has close friends in; Prineville, Amity, Newport, and family in Portland. Every where except portland and Eugene sucks for more than a visit, and most are conservative.

They should all be drug tested randomly too.

I thought Eugene was radical and cool till I moved to Portland. I even got my mother to call Eugene provincial after a couple trips down there.

I do get a chuckle when friends from the Black Hills whine about "traffic" around Rapid City. "Try the rush between Newberg and Portland on 99 at 4pm boys."

I think Eugene sucks for a visit, or maybe cause my Mother lives there...

I got drunk in Prineville once, it was kinda rednecky come to think of it...

I'm assuming that if we looked into their finances, we'd find that many of them came up with extra wagon wheels and axles without ever having record of purchasing them. Most of them probably engaged in shady deals with Injuns trading sets of clothes to get safe passage across rivers.

"I thought I lived in America, where I had a right to privacy

According to TFA, many who won't file are conservatives. I wonder if they lady quoted above is. The right to privacy is what was used for the Roe v. Wade decision.