A Detroit television reporter was able to confirm that the Kilpatrick Civic Fund, a nonprofit created by Detroit mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, paid the luxury La Costa Hotel and Spa $8,605.03 for two rooms for Kilpatrick, his wife and sons while the mayor, according to fund officials, was there fundraising for the group.

At the insistence of the mayor, police investigators in California have recommended felony charges against Channel 7 TV reporter Steve Wilson for obtaining Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s personal hotel and billing records by impersonating the mayor.

Mayor Kilpatrick has been involved in spending controversies throughout his administration. He is known for having his cash-strapped city pay $25,000 to lease his family a Lincoln Navigator. In May 2005, the Detroit Free Press reported that over the first 33 months of his term, Kilpatrick had charged over $210,000 on his city-issued credit card for travel, meals, and entertainment.

Time Magazine ranked him one of the three worst mayors in the country for 2005.
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A Scottish police officer has been accused of revealing confidential details about paedophile, Albert Hay, to a resident of the town where the man was living.

Gerard McCartney, 41, of Grampian Police, denied a charge brought under the Data Protection Act at Elgin Sheriff Court earlier this week.

Last July more than 200 people in Keith signed a petition urging Moray Council to remove Hay, 68, from a flat in the town’s Mar Court.

Britain and the EU have a different view of the relationship between government and citizens than America does. Through most of history Europe has been ruled by royalty. The royal subjects were taught to trust the benevolence of the monarch in a paternalistic system somewhat similar to that of a parent and child. The monarchies are gone, but the paternalism persists.

Some question if you can trust a government that secretly places a convicted pedophile in an apartment near children.
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Brian D. Kelly is facing a felony wiretapping charge in Pennsylvania for running a video camera pointed at a police officer during a traffic stop.

This case would seem to indicate that Pennsylvania has a law that needs changing. The Rodney King beating is the best known of hundreds of cases of police misbehavior caught on tape.

According to the defense attorney cited in the story, “An exception to the wiretapping law allows police to film people during traffic stops.” This would seem to give law enforcement the right to capture and possibly edit their version of the truth while simultaneously criminalizing a citizen doing the same thing.

The District Attorney on the case noted that he had handled other video taping cases, “Some involving ex-lovers or divorcing couples who are trying to record former partners doing something improper for leverage in court battles.”

The DA’s use of the word “leverage” would seem to imply a hostility toward the truth as represented by a video.

Using the DA’s logic the video of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Representative John Murtha negotiating an apparent bribe with an Arab shiek is to be frowned on because of the “leverage” it offered opponents to congressional bribery.
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The Boston Herald has placed the salaries of all Massachusetts state employees on line.

It appears that the state payroll may be loaded with friends and family of well connected Massachusetts politicians.

Maybe the list will give Massachusetts taxpayers the info to ask a few pointed questions.
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The Arlington Police Department has begun posting the photos of men and women busted for prostitution on its Web site as it tries to cut down on criminal activity.

The photos “could put some pressure on people to modify their behavior,” police spokeswoman Christy Gilfour said.

This statement by Mrs. Gilfour describes the purpose the Open Records Project, changing people’s behavior.

Opening records to public inspection subjects individuals to peer pressure and embarrassment. Crooked school district employees are less likely to steal money if they will be exposed as theives to their friends and coworkers. Sex offenders are less likely to reoffend if everybody in their neighborhood knows who they are.

AIDS infected individuals are less likely to spread the epidemic if they are known to likely sexual partners.
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Suwalee Iamkhong was an AIDS infected Thai stripper who immigrated to Canada. Her husband, Percy Whiteman, met her when she danced at a Canadian club called Zanzibar. They married 8 years ago, but after 4 years she fell ill with one of the many AIDS-defining diseases. He is now infected.

Suwalee’s identity is only known now due to a lawsuit brought by her infected husband.

This case raises several interesting open records related questions:
1. Does an AIDs infected individual have an unrestricted right to privacy that allows them to kill unsuspecting individuals?

The tradeoffs would seem to balance death on one side versus embarrassment and restriction of sexual opportunities on the other.
2. Should a country allow unrestricted immigration of AIDS infected individuals?
3. What about TB, or hepatitis, or any of a dozen or so infectious diseases?
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Proponents of the Open Government Act have determined that Republican Senator Jon Kyl has placed a “hold” on the bill preventing a vote. By tradition, a senator may anonymously block consideration of a bill he finds objectionable.

Previously Mr. Kyl had objected under a Senate rule that allows members to hold legislation anonymously. He seems to have forgotten that objection.
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Repeated grenade bombings have forced the Mexican daily newspaper Cambio Sonora to close. The newspaper is based in Hermosillo, 165 miles south of Nogales, Ariz.

Following editorials critical of narcotic trafficers, the paper was bombed on April 17 and again on May 16.

Free flow of information is required to establish the trust relationships necessary to create a successful civilization. Mexico appears to be losing its grip on civilization.
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Virginia Tech officials claim that federal privacy statutes prevent them from releasing the medical records of the campus shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, to the Governor’s panel investigating the murder of 32 students.

The Open Records Project has argued since its inception that federal privacy statutes and the Supreme Court rulings that preceeded them are not only not constitutional but create great harm by keeping wrongdoing from prying public eyes.

The Cho case would seem to an intesting example of balancing rights of individuals. On the one hand, did Mr. Cho have the right to be dangerously insane in anonymity?

On the other hand, did the 32 students and faculty who died have the right to know that their personal safetly and ultimately their lives were in danger from a crazy person?

The arguments for privacy appear to mostly about preventing individual hurt feelings, embarrassment, and shame.

The arguments for disclosure of information, whether it be about sex offenders, insane individuals, or those infected with AIDS, mostly relate to personal safety and in the case of Virginia Tech, life itself.

One of the attendees at the Virginia Tech student safety seminar following the murders argued that training students to survive a future attack was wrong because those who survived would only feel guilty about those who did not.

Distilled to its essence, feelings are more important than living. This would seem to be the case for some of the privacy statutes.
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A WEB site now offers photos and names of purported confidential informants, undercover agents, and those who cut plea deals by testifying against others.

The defense bar loves the site, since it is their job to keep guilty parties out of jail. Prosecutors are not so happy. They claim that informants may be intimidated or killed.

There would seem to be a risk of incorrect information being posted as a way of harrassing an individual.
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