Jeb Bush Publishes Thousands of Citizens' Email Addresses 255
blottsie writes Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush hasn't even yet formally declared his desire to run for president in 2016, but he's already started what appears to be a major privacy blunder. His new project, the Jeb Emails, a massive, open database of correspondence to and from his jeb@jeb.org email address, publishes the full names, messages, and email addresses of his constituents who emailed him during his eight years in office.
Oops! (Score:5, Funny)
Not a good start.
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Jeb is very much the GOP "establishment" candidate, loved by those already in power and almost no one else (though I though he was great as governor of Florida, especially in the 4-hurricaine year, I think he's completely the wrong guy for president). The conservative base isn't rooting for Jeb, to be sure.
At the national level, few on the right really care that much about social issues right now, unless you want to consider "immigration" a social issue. Foreign policy, economic growth, and government spe
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When you look at the economic performance of states run by conservative governors like Scott Walker and Sam Brownback in Kansas you find it doesn't compare well neighboring states that weren't run so conservatively. The mantra of cutting taxes and spending doesn't hold up very well in the real world.
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These 'social issues' are working themselves out at the state level. Some states have legalized weed, many recognize gay marriage, and there's enough variety of pro/anti-gun and pro/anti choice balance to satisfy anyone except hard liners in each camp. There's more important shit out there to be worrying about on the national level: healthcare, immigration, our crumbling infrastructure, and our global reputation getting flushed down the crapper.
However what the states cannot do is anything about an overbe
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I don't know anything about Jeb Bush. But I certainly won't be voting for him now. If he cannot be trusted to keep confidential correspondence, including Social Security numbers, confidential, then he lacks some basic values that I regard as essential in a President. Or in anyone filling just about any other elected office.
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Jeb disqualified himself from being President on Terry Schiavo.
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Where do you see anything about social security numbers being published? It is names emails, and the contents of the emails. They should have been annonymized, but frankly, do you think he personally did this? It was an IT guy, just like many of us. It was a mistake, hardly a policy decision, and it is a mistake that happens everywhere.
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Where are you seeing evidence that the multiple reports of SSNs having been published are wrong? If that were the case it would have been hollered to the skies, for we are all very aware that the USA political Right scrutinizes the press very closely, and yells quite loudly over any hint of bias against their favorite sons.
And why do you feel that it is somehow not a problem for an aspiring Presidential candidate to be so incapable of managing his subordinates that this kind of stupid mistake could be made
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Another thing: I doubt very much that this was some IT guy's mistake. There cannot be anyone in IT at the level of this kind of decision who is not cognizant of the need to protect the privacy of private citizens. No, this was botched by some campaign guru who had been given a level of access to the databases that was well beyond his comprehension. JB is at serious fault for failure to manage his minions, and the proof of that is one of his minions just shot him in the foot. With a shotgun.
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And in the EU we will celebrate!
It's already high time that you get your GOP back into office, the Dollar is way to high, you are creating way too much jobs and Mr O'Bahma does nto provide us with the level of comedy the world expects of an US president.
Dubya set the stakes very high, IMHO the only thing that could match his performance would be one of these teabaggers. I think that an ideal inauguration would be the guy openly carrying an AK-47 and a baseball hat screaming "Yeeehaaa" while emptying a magaz
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Well, I'm European we are not too well informed about the fashion trends among the US wildlife
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He's not blaming current Christians. He's saying that if we're going to make the fallacy of blaming the Islam religion for all sorts of shit, we have to admit that the history of Christianity isn't exactly all warm fuzzy bunnies either.
And let's face it, when you have idiots like Eric Bolling saying that followers of every other religion (besides Islam) have never killed anyone in the name of religion, well, yeah, apparently we need to be reminded that they have.
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They were a response to the Muslim wars of conquest. Which they didn't teach you about because they weren't the fault of white men.
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Jeb would be a much better choice, although he's still horrible in his own right. Walker would be completely unelectable except he's got the full backing of the Koch brothers & all the money that entails.
Scott Walker eliminated the collective bargaining rights of 175,000 public employees.
Scott Walker has led Wisconsin to last place in the nation in job creation.
Scott Walker has disenfranchised tens of thousands of young voters, senior citizens and minority voters with voter suppression and voter ID law
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He sounds better and better with every item you list.
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Ah, but I'm guessing you're a Democrat anyhow?
The conservative base has grown quite tired of "establishment candidates" that are inoffensive to the Democratic base, or the mainstream media (but I repeat myself). This is primary season, and for once I have a bit of hope that we'll get a conservative candidate who's fiscally conservative, instead of someone who pleases the current crop DC lobbyists and pork-senders. Walker has proven that he's willing to ignore 100% negative media coverage and do what he se
Re:Oops! (Score:5, Insightful)
Show me a Republican who doesn't spend, spend, spend and I'll show you a unicorn. Oh you mean *this* time they really mean it? GOP voters have Stockholm syndrome. Not only does the GOP spend, the reasoning they give for cutting spending is all wrong. You don't run a business like a household and you certainly don't run a nation like one. That's a line for fools.
Spending actually boosts the economy, not that the GOP voters would know any better. Spend when depressed, raise taxes during the boom. If you are business and your sales are down, you spend on advertising, R&D or whatever it takes to get income up. You certainly don't spend less. I mean you could, but you won't be around for long.
Besides, why do you think China is such a powerhouse? The government subsidizes it's industry, among other things. It's certainly not because they're laissez faire.
Where do I stand? Until things get better, I'm voting out the incumbent in every seat, in every election.
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Lowering taxes increases spending too, that is generally how the Republicans see it. Reduce government spending, and let the people spend the money to boost the economy. If you reduce taxes on corporations, they are more likely to hire more people and/or give raises, increasing tax revenue. It all depends on how you look at it. Has the government been known to spend money wisely? Not really, the government throws money at problems, but often the money is wasted on someone's brother's company, rather th
Re:Oops! (Score:4, Insightful)
That's called trickle down, and it has never, ever worked. Not once. If it did, we would be swimming in jobs. Heck, we'd be drowning in jobs.
Canada has much higher taxes than the US, and they also have a wealthier middle class, much more vacation time, better benefits, public health care, a year's parental leave, all those things that are supposed to crush the economy.
Guess what - the Canadian middle class is better off than the American middle class. But keep dreaming that you can cut and starve your way to health.
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You've drunk the Kool-aid.
I just posted this above, but here's a link to the results the one time it was tried. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... [wikipedia.org]
Please note the parts about economic expansion, 21 million net jobs, and the decline of the misery index.
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Seriously? Reagan drove the US into a financial crater. He wasted billions and billions on Sgt York, the 600 ship navy, Star Wars, and his recovery fas fueled by reckless deficit spending. The tax cuts were a small part of that.
We needed someone like Reagan at the time; we needed a "feel good" president. He delivered. But like any wild party, the hangover was pretty severe.
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Come on buddy, you want to lecture us about drinking the Kool Aid, but the very same link you provided to "prove" that Reaganomics worked shows that real wages fell almost 10% during the Reagan administration [wikipedia.org]. So yes, the economy expanded, but none of it trickled down. It all stayed in the robber barons' pockets. And that's the problem that the US has been facing for the past thirty years: not a lack of growth, but a lack of advancement for the middle-class.
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And, If you believe that trickle down policies were responsible for the 1980s economy, your position is equally the same to me as an anti-vaxxer or a climate change denier. You believe in fantasy.
Second, for a current example of those same "cut taxes results in boom" ridiculous ideas in action today, you need only look as far as the state of Ka
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Excellent points all, except for the premise of your last sentence:
The facts are, the stock market is at near record highs, unemployment is way down, oil and gasoline prices are down, more people have health insurance and there's been a huge slowdown in the increase of healthcare costs. We have tighter emissions standards for vehicles, and lower CO2 emissions for industry, more renewable energy. Net neutrality is inevitable. Immigration reform is on the horizon. Privacy reforms have begun (though they h
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The problem with fiscally conservative Republican candidates is that they also tend to be on the extreme end of social conservatism. The only kinda sorta exception I can think of is Paul, but that's precisely why he'll be fucked in the primaries.
Not that it matters much, since from here on, just based on the number of "solid" states, we're looking at a string of Democrat presidents for the foreseeable future until some really major upset of the political system (like, say, GOP reinventing itself as a more l
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Or a *real* 3rd party choice... or pigs fly, pretty sure I know which of the two I'm more likely to see in my lifetime.
Re:Oops! (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that the people with the skill set needed to be a good President never run or get anywhere near politics. Being a US President is a nightmare of a job. Non-stop 24/7 scrutiny and shrill demands from both foes and friends. Unrealistic expectations and never ending criticism over every decision or statement made. The most critical part of being a good President is choosing the right inner circle policy advisers. These advisers are selected with very little or no legislative review process and they are the ones the President relies on to provide the information need to make wise decisions. These advisers have an enormous amount of influence on the President. Obama has been poorly served by his advisers. He ended up with to many relatively inexperienced idealists who have made the President look hesitant and indecisive on just about every major decision made.
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I think HW Bush was one of the more recent Presidents who did have the skill set and experience needed to be an effective President. He seemed capable of making independent decisions without being overwhelmed or maneuvered by those close to him. His served in the military in actual combat, was a US Senator, was the US UN Ambassador, was head of the CIA, and spent 8 years as the VP. That is an impressive resume even if you did not agree with his brand of politics or decisions.
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Easy... the republican trolls do it for free.
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Within the existing political system, the only way a third party can get into the game is by displacing one of the two major parties. The only pair that has any even remotely viable chance of doing that is LP displacing GOP, but I think that it's more likely that GOP will eject the social conservative ballast before that happens.
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Until such time as corporations get the rig
Scott Walker 2.0 (Score:2)
During his reelection campaign, his opponent hammered at the pending 2 billion dollar budget hole, to which he replied, "I fix
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I suggest you look at what happened to Greece over the last few years and be happy that you've never actually had one of those get into a position where they can destroy an economy.
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Greece's economy was and is being destroyed by leftists. Aside form being completely wrong, you have point.
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How can you be so out of touch? Greece fiscally conservative? Really?
Greece spent so much more than it was making that it finally ran out of other people's money. Then it went totally to shit. We're spending like crack addicts now ourselves. Eventually we will run out of other people's money. Then we will go to shit.
The fiscal conservatives are the ones saying "we should live within our means to avoid that fate". Because consuming more than you produce is unsustainable, full stop. You can wean your
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any possible GOP candidate will get 100% negative media coverage
Yes, even an outsider like myself knows that the entire US media are nothing more than a front for the Communists/Illuminati.
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Sure, if like most zealots you define "idiot" as "person I disagree with" then I'm sure that's me. Partisan? Not sure what you mean by that. I don't think I can name a single federal politician whom I like or support from either party. It's not about party - it's about not wanting to see the US enter the troubled times that I expect overspending to cause. I'm a "hot-button issue" guy, who sees nothing to like in the current DC establishment on either side, but only sees hope for one side to possibly, m
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I'm defining idiot as "person who is willfully ignorant of how things really are", actually. Nobody on the right nationally caring about social issues, indeed. That level of [self-deception|barefaced lying] isn't worthy of being dignified with a response.
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Try reading the thread again. You've got the DC GOP, which demagogues social issues (which you seem obsessed with), which only hurts the conservative cause. Then you've got the base, the actual voters, whom the GOP at the national level is increasingly disconnected from - the surveys I've seen don't put social issues in the top "important issues today" among conservatives.
This is at least partly because the GOP establishment is quite a bit older than the average voter (bizarrely, the average Dem congress
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Why don't you ask the corporations that pocketed a good chunk of that money?
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There was never a surplus. There was one projected surplus that went away when .com popped under Clinton.
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Considering the Democrats aren't all that much better recently, I don't know what you are spouting off about.
Heck, I'm trying to find this $300m deficit, it looks like that didn't exist under Clinton, and was already gone by the time Bush took office:
http://www.usgovernmentspendin... [usgovernmentspending.com]
2001 should be counted under Clinton, and 2009 under Bush as it was their budgets. If you look, Bush had 1 year over a trillion, Obama had 3 years. The GDP is also handily there, and goes up the entire time except in 2009, whi
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Mr. Walker is so out of touch with his own state, I can't imagine how he could effectively lead a nation.
So far he has won three statewide elections (including the recall), so I don't think he is too "out of touch".
Re:Oops! (Score:4, Funny)
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Mr. Walker is so out of touch with his own state, I can't imagine how he could effectively lead a nation.
I guess his election was an accident then? Or are the majority of voters also out of touch with their own state?
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LOL, Walker doesn't know anything about foreign policy so he'll have to make up some positions quick!
Every governor will have this problem. Senators can bring some foreign policy experience, but typically have no experience as an executive, and tend to not be good at getting things done (plus good luck finding one who's credible as a fiscal conservative without "Paul" in his name).
I think a GOP candidate can do fine as long as he has some clear positions he can explain on foreign policy issues, even if he stumbles on ambush questions about east Elbonia. There's don't seem to be any Dem candidates on dec
Re:Oops! (Score:5, Insightful)
So the assumed front runner for the Democrats isn't credible when speaking about foreign policy? Not saying she's the best for the job, and you may not agree with her policy ideas, but her being a First Lady, a Senator, and a Secretary of State, you have to give her some foreign policy chops. Much more than any state governor may have.
I will give Jeb some chops just for hanging with dad and W, but not much.
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US foreign policy has been an unmitigated disaster for the past few years. It's hard to think of a time when we've done so poorly on the world stage, though Carter maybe ties. I don't see how Hillary can put enough distance between her and the administration she was a part of, even with the mainstream news being 100% in the bag for her. Experience? Definitely. But credibility requires successful experience.
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Um, I do believe that it was Iraq that was claiming they had WMD, and had been witnessed gassing the Kurds. Heck, Saddam was preventing the UN inspectors access to known chemical weapon plants, while threatening to attack other people (as a smoke screen to prevent Iran from invading, but it was a credible threat). The chemical weapons were even found and disposed of, but it of course makes a good sound bite to claim they never existed.
This was hardly the wrong country, you just conveniently forget what wa
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Hillary doesn't have a chance, IMO, but even if she does, America needs to stop treating the office of the President like a hereditary monarchy. She needs to follow Romney's lead and bow TFO.
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Her problem is she has a track record. A terrible track record of incompetence.
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I'm rooting for the American voter. Who are you rooting for?
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I'm rooting for the American voter. Who are you rooting for?
The voters in Poutineville, Kanuckistan.
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I'm rooting for a sane candidate. The last time I voted for a Republican for President was for Gerald Ford in 1976 (well, John Anderson in 1988 but he was running as an independent). That doesn't mean I always vote for Democrats either, I voted for Rocky Anderson in 2012. Jeb Bush is probably one of the more sane people running on the R side but he's got too much baggage for me to consider him.
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Re:Oops! (Score:4, Interesting)
I am not a fan of the current republicans but I don't see how this is a bad thing. He is in public office. Any communication involving his position should be available by FOIA. So how is this bad again?
At least we can see when he says "hey shut down that bridge in NJ" or "I will let you write the law and I will say I wrote it if you pay me $25,000"
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The error, apparently, was in failing to properly review for and redact personally identifiable information (such as SSNs) from the emails.
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I think publishing all the emails is fantastic! However, I think he needed to redact PII and notify senders that their message will be published.
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Illegal (Score:3)
Update 2:15pm ET, Feb. 10: It gets worse. The Verge has uncovered emails that contain Social Security numbers, home addresses, and other personal information from Floridians.
Releasing PII data is a Federal crime, and there should be criminal charges filed in addition to civil charges by anyone with PII data exposed by this. I'm not saying there will be any charges or case filed, but that there should be (In other words, I know how the good'ole boy network is).
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"Dot org" is not "dot gov." The latter is subject to FOIA (with PII removed unless it's pertinent), the former is not. Rightly or wrongly, people have a general expectation that their correspondence is not going to be published unless they're writing specifically to have it published.
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Wrong! It's perfect, it shows that he is an open person and more, it shows also that his is not like this Nerd O'Bamer !!!
And anybody saying the contrary is a Socialist Liberal who only wants to take away our guns and discriminate against Christians!
not to defend this but... (Score:5, Informative)
If you're sending an email to the government and expect it not to be subject to foia, maybe you should think again.
This disclosure appears in his signature on most of the messages I looked at...
Please note: Florida has a very broad public records law.
Most written communications to or from state officials
regarding state business are public records available to the
public and media upon request. Your e-mail communications
may therefore be subject to public disclosure.
Re:not to defend this but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Didn't the article state that it was email sent to jeb@jeb.org ?
Doesn't look like a government domain. Admittedly, he's a very public figure, but he took the step of establishing a non-government domain for these emails. Perhaps you should look at the privacy policy of jeb.org to establish whether publishing contact details is OK or not.
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It this were FOIA, I'd defend you. But no, it's not. It's about Jeb releasing mails to Jeb.
"Mails to Jeb released in response to FOIA" is a FUCKTON different from "Jeb releases everything for apparently no real reason."
FOIA has a protocol to classify or hide information as appropriate. Jeb does not have such a protocol.
Your idiotic post said that Jeb = FOIA, and you should be kicked in the gender-specific gonads or, lacking those, appropriately burned in strategic places for suggesting such.
FOIA is a ris
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So the bare minimum of transparency required by FOIA is fine, but we should vilify people for going above and beyond? Fuck that noise!
Transparency is good; more transparency is better; and complete transparency is best.
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It Get's Worse (Score:5, Informative)
Update in the article:
The Verge has uncovered [theverge.com] emails that contain Social Security numbers, home addresses, and other personal information from Floridians.
It Get's Worse (Score:4, Funny)
Where do SSN's come into this? (Score:4, Interesting)
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"So if I put my own SSN in a Slashdot post..."
Why bother using your SSN? Just pick a random one. This (http://socialsecuritynumerology.com/prefixes.php) is a good start.
412-44-0001 412-44-0002 412-44-0003 412-44-0004
412-44-0005 412-44-0006 412-44-0007 412-44-0008
412-44-0009 412-44-0010 412-44-0011 412-44-0012
412-44-0013 412-44-0014 412-44-0015 412-44-0016
412-44-0017 412-44-0018 412-44-0019 412-44-0020
412-44-0021 412-44-0022 412-44-0023 412-44-0024
412-44-
he's just committed to transparency (Score:3)
now lets see him release audio and video recordings of every meeting and informal chat that lobbyists and corporate representatives have with him, and all correspondence to and from them too.
Thousands? Really? (Score:4, Interesting)
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I didn't expect there would be thousands of Floridians who were smart enough to know how to use email yet interested in contacting Jeb. Are we sure they aren't thousands of throwaway email addresses used by just a few people?
well sure i'm responsible for like 170 of the addresses but i didn't write ALL of them.
Couldn't Jeb's CTO help do this right? (Score:3)
Transparency (Score:2)
Perhaps Jeb Bush is trying to show voters that he believes in transparency for government officials. Instead he is showing that he has entirely misunderstood the point.
I thought he was the "smart" Bush (Score:2)
First he hires a communications director with a history of sending out ugly tweets (that are, apparently, being deleted in an attempt to keep Bush's potential campaign from imploding before it even begins). Then he publishes constituents' email addresses. Doesn't seem all that smart to me.
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The PII might (maybe, possibly) be something that could legally be redacted. Or not.
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I can't imagine anyone being okay with this, either. Anyone can submit a FOIA request, b
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So its okay for a black hat to harvest email addresses in Florida by simply sending a FOIA request to the Guvner?
Oh wait, in Florida you don't even have to do that...
Jeb just lost any chance of getting my vote. Not because of what he's done, but because he has demonstrated a level of ignorance about how the world now works that is just unbelievable.
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Did anyone else hear that "Whoosh?" I thought it was pretty loud.
"jeb@jeb.org" is almost as official as "whatmeworry@gmail.com". Or my favorite for the email harvesters: "nobody@nowhere.nul".
Gathering data piecemeal through FOIA requests is so yesterday, now that we have a highly placed politician who just lays the feast out there on a streetside table, where every black hat passer-by can help themself.
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First off, jeb@jeb.org isn't a government domain. Second, an SSN is usually considered PII and should not be released to anyone. Third, I wonder if any of those e-mails had the standard legalish boilerplate signature saying the e-mail is intended for the recipient only.
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Doesn't matter if he is using it in an official capacity. Public records laws apply to all official communications.
Public records laws do not automatically exempt PII; they would be rather useless if they did.
Again, you can't circumvent public
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Public records laws do not automatically exempt PII; they would be rather useless if they did.
What?
http://www.justice.gov/sites/d... [justice.gov]
...if a privacy interest is found to exist, the public interest in disclosure, if any, must be weighed against the privacy interest in nondisclosure. If no public interest exists, the information should be protected; as the D.C. Circuit has observed, "something, even a modest privacy interest, outweighs nothing every time." If there is a public interest in disclosure that outweighs the privacy interest, the information should be disclosed; if the opposite is found to be the case, the information should be withheld.
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Again, what?
This release was anything but accidental. Jeb did it intentionally and never bothered to have the e-mails scanned for PII. Just because you tell the government something doesn't automatically make it public record. My tax returns are protected, my passport information is protected. You can't just march up to a government official and demand they hand over every record of communication. That's why there are FOIA offices - to make the determination of what can be released to meet the need of
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Doesn't matter if he is using it in an official capacity.
If he's using it in an official capacity, then the records may not be his to release. It would have to be up to the state of Florida to release them.
Re:Testing to see if slashdot is really working (Score:5, Informative)
We were in read-only mode most of the day while some server issues were fixed. Sorry for the downtime!
Re:Testing to see if slashdot is really working (Score:4, Funny)
You ruined my workday. I had nothing to do but *shudder* work all day.
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LOL, me too.
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Slahdotted, were you?
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Re:Holy shit is it over already? Isn't this ILLEGA (Score:5, Informative)
It's Florida. All metadata is automatically considered public record, and contents are also public record if they bear on a state official's duties. Jeb was a state official (governor), so his e-mails are all automatically public record.
It's not a mistake, and it's not illegal: in Florida, public officials have no privacy on anything that pertains to their job. Every state official's salary, from the janitors' to the governor's, is listed in a giant, public-facing database, searchable by employee name. Colleges have a separate excel sheet, with salaries listed by name. The stuff you think people would want to keep quiet: in Florida, it's public. It's called the Sunshine Law.
Governor's e-mails? Of course that shit's public.
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No his IT guy just got shitcanned for being a mysoginist and a gay basher.
http://onpolitics.usatoday.com... [usatoday.com]
I'd say good ol' Jeb is not off to a good start.