> information about public employees is uniquely available It really isn't unique. This report is clearly part of an agenda to establish a two-tier surveillance state. > The report advocates for legislation that would specifically address privacy concerns for all public servants, Instead of taking the obvious stance that legislation should ensure the privacy of all people equally, they are only interested in protecti…
Yes, the public nature of government payrolls is unique. Many of the other concerns mentioned in the article are more broadly problematic, but private payrolls are not published. Government payrolls are. You can seek out the names, titles, and salaries of most public employees.
> information about public employees is uniquely available It really isn't unique. This report is clearly part of an agenda to establish a two-tier surveillance state. > The report advocates for legislation that would specifically address privacy concerns for all public servants, Instead of taking the obvious stance that legislation should ensure the privacy of all people equally, they are only interested in protecti…
Yes, the public nature of government payrolls is unique. Many of the other concerns mentioned in the article are more broadly problematic, but private payrolls are not published. Government payrolls are. You can seek out the names, titles, and salaries of most public employees.
Yes, the public nature of government payrolls is unique. Many of the other concerns mentioned in the article are more broadly problematic, but private payrolls are not published. Government payrolls are. You can seek out the names, titles, and salaries of most public employees.
Private payrolls are published though.
Not to the general public. Your neighbor very likely cannot just go to a website and look up your title and current salary, like I can for the guy who lives down the block who currently works for the city I live in.
> information about public employees is uniquely available It really isn't unique. This report is clearly part of an agenda to establish a two-tier surveillance state. > The report advocates for legislation that would specifically address privacy concerns for all public servants, Instead of taking the obvious stance that legislation should ensure the privacy of all people equally, they are only interested in protecti…
Yes, the public nature of government payrolls is unique. Many of the other concerns mentioned in the article are more broadly problematic, but private payrolls are not published. Government payrolls are. You can seek out the names, titles, and salaries of most public employees.
You phrased this as "many of the other concerns mentioned in the article", but this concern is not mentioned in the article, nor in the linked report. It falls on the article/report to make the case for its claims, not for charitable HN comments, and it fails to do so. The article highlights three specific concerns: that there is no ability for public servants to compel the redaction of personal data from public records, that there is no broad law preventing data brokers from selling information obtained from property records and court filings, and that there is no recourse to sue data brokers for violating local laws that do exist. All of those apply equally to private citizens, and therefore the claim that these problems are "unique" to public servants is not supported. Furthermore, these claims are the basis for which the report goes on to suggest making a carve-out in legislation specifically covering public servants rather than the general public for the problems it identified, when all of those problems should very much be addressed on a general basis.
> information about public employees is uniquely available It really isn't unique. This report is clearly part of an agenda to establish a two-tier surveillance state. > The report advocates for legislation that would specifically address privacy concerns for all public servants, Instead of taking the obvious stance that legislation should ensure the privacy of all people equally, they are only interested in protecti…
I cannot speak for the US but in Germany there is certainly some amount of violence towards local politicians but also other parts of administration (job centers, etc) Traditionally there was maximum transparency (names of every single reponsible person for each minor municipal job) with little choice for employees to opt out. This is changing not under special rules but mostly under GDPR adoption. However, particula…
Perhaps a uniquely American opinion, but employees can opt out quickly and easily by not getting paid by public funds. Most public sector jobs have private sector equivalents. If you want to help people find jobs and your privacy is important enough to make public sector work untenable, get a job with one of the private sector organizations that does that.
> elected officials...have to expose their street address to get elected. This generates real risk.
Is there an epidemic of local German politicians being harassed and assaulted at their homes?
I can think of no reason why constituents should not know where the people in power over them live. Elected officials should not be able to hide from their constituents.
Yes, the public nature of government payrolls is unique. Many of the other concerns mentioned in the article are more broadly problematic, but private payrolls are not published. Government payrolls are. You can seek out the names, titles, and salaries of most public employees.
A bunch of leeches would come out from the crevices acting like something that has only been around for a few decades is paramount to American democracy and capitalism where any regulations are akin to a struggle session against liberty, freedom, and justice.
See also: DHS/TSA/ICE, credit scores, stock buybacks and self-dividends. All very, very recent systems in the grander scheme.
For the life of me I can't figure out what point your trying to make. These things are new so we should ban them? Some people will say these are good even though they're new?
"In the grander scheme" interstate highways and air travel and scuba diving are new too, what about them?
I cannot speak for the US but in Germany there is certainly some amount of violence towards local politicians but also other parts of administration (job centers, etc) Traditionally there was maximum transparency (names of every single reponsible person for each minor municipal job) with little choice for employees to opt out. This is changing not under special rules but mostly under GDPR adoption. However, particula…
Perhaps a uniquely American opinion, but employees can opt out quickly and easily by not getting paid by public funds. Most public sector jobs have private sector equivalents. If you want to help people find jobs and your privacy is important enough to make public sector work untenable, get a job with one of the private sector organizations that does that. > elected officials...have to expose their street address to…
> I can think of no reason why constituents should not know where the people in power over them live.
I can think of plenty of reasons. Political violence in democracies is on the rise globally, and not the sort of organized political violence that people might use to liberate themselves from the chains of oppressors, but rather the kind of lunatic political violence that is committed by irrational lone actors who are fundamentally mentally unwell.
I believe you can have political transparency without involving people's homes and families.
Anyone who says anything, anywhere, gets threats. Is there any data showing the follow-through percent is any higher for public servants?
Asking the wrong question IMO. Even if the "follow-through" happens at a higher rate that doesn't necessarily influence whether this data should be hidden or not. You have to look at why the data is public in the first place - "I pay this person's salary, so I am entitled to know how much their salary is (among other things you typically know about an employee)."
Whether or not violence committed against public servants happens at a higher rate than the private citizenry doesn't impact the truthfulness of that statement. So if the article wants to make a coherent argument for hiding this type of information about public servants from the public, it needs to attack that point.
Perhaps a uniquely American opinion, but employees can opt out quickly and easily by not getting paid by public funds. Most public sector jobs have private sector equivalents. If you want to help people find jobs and your privacy is important enough to make public sector work untenable, get a job with one of the private sector organizations that does that. > elected officials...have to expose their street address to…
> I can think of no reason why constituents should not know where the people in power over them live. I can think of plenty of reasons. Political violence in democracies is on the rise globally, and not the sort of organized political violence that people might use to liberate themselves from the chains of oppressors, but rather the kind of lunatic political violence that is committed by irrational lone actors who ar…
When an overworked air traffic controller in Germany gave a plane an instruction that happened to be the opposite of TCAS automatic collision avoidance system, and one pilot followed TCAS to avoid a collision and one followed the controller, the planes crashed and everybody died. A family member of one of the passengers looked up, hunted down, and murdered in cold blood the air traffic controller.