Archive for the 'Government Corruption' Category
Thursday, April 12th, 2007
The publically funded federal agency that traditionally keeps tabs on earmarks, the Library of Congress Congressional Research Service (CRS), has announced it no longer will respond to requests from congressional members on the number or scale of earmarks. This, because of political pressure, some say.
Regrettably old habits — and hypocrisy — die hard on Capitol […]
Posted in Government Corruption, Financial Records, Government Control of Information | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 10th, 2007
Corporate America’s traditional secrecy on political spending is under attack from an investor drive for greater transparency before the 2008 presidential election campaign.
Now that pension fund managers are facing vast shortages in pension fund balances they are going to get a lot more interested in how their corporate investments manage their expenses - including political […]
Posted in Government Corruption, Financial Records | No Comments »
Friday, March 30th, 2007
Sixty years after the fall of the Third Reich, the secret Nazi archive with millions of files on concentration camps and their victims is still being kept secret.
Two benefits of the open records process are:
- Changing human behavior and
- Building community trust.
Embarrassment and shame very effectively change individual’s behavior. The Nazi archives […]
Posted in Open Records, Government Corruption | No Comments »
Friday, March 23rd, 2007
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his Argentine counterpart Nestor Kirchner, facing the fastest price increases in Latin America, are employing a new tool to bring down their inflation rates: control the data collectors.
Governments often mislead their citizens as a means to quiet discontent. Citizen discontent is the fuel that changes government behavior. Those […]
Posted in Open Records, Government Corruption | No Comments »
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
A Waterford Township man arrested last month for operating under the influence of liquor and driving on a suspended/revoked license has eight prior suspensions and nine drunken driving convictions.
In any given year, about 300,000 of Michigan’s 7.2 million licensed drivers have their driving privileges suspended. Studies show that about 70 percent continue to drive anyway.
An […]
Posted in Open Records, Government Corruption, Crime, Personal Behavior | No Comments »
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
Europe’s citizens must be on their guard against political correctness and moralising politicians, says the European Commission President José Manuel Barroso in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
The former Portuguese premier and centre-Right politician is concerned that freedom can be the loser in European culture wars over climate change, cheap air travel, Islam and free […]
Posted in Open Records, Government Corruption, Terrorism | No Comments »
Saturday, March 17th, 2007
Brushing aside a veto threat, the House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to overturn a 2001 order by President George W. Bush that lets former presidents keep their papers secret indefinitely.
The House bill would give current and former presidents 40 business days to object to requests to view their papers, allow a sitting president to […]
Posted in Open Records, Government Corruption | No Comments »
Thursday, March 15th, 2007
Some argue that individual votes should be public for all to see. Others argue that making the votes public exposes the voters to intimidation or even physical harm.
Related issues are whether legislators’ votes should be public combined with publicizing legislators’ contributors. The thinking is that legislators would not want to appear to be […]
Posted in Open Records, Government Corruption, Business Corruption | No Comments »
Thursday, March 15th, 2007
Two dozen countries block or limit Internet access. Middle East Muslim countries appear to be overrepresented.
The Internet is one of the great productivity enhancers of the last 100 years, on a level with the light bulb and the automobile. Limiting the Internet would not appear to be a step toward positive economic growth.
Full […]
Posted in Open Records, Government Corruption | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 14th, 2007
A German court convicted holocaust denier and anti-semite, Ernst Zundel, of 14 counts of incitement of racial hatred and sentenced him to five years in prison.
The First Amendment of The United States Constitution would have protected Mr. Zundel in America. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free […]
Posted in Government Corruption, Personal Behavior | No Comments »