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As a public official in a small town, I have thought about doing this before. The legal issues always come up. But I also think that the people upset with the e

As a public official in a small town, I have thought about doing this before. The legal issues always come up. But I also think that the people upset with the exposure after emailing public officials maybe don't fully understand that anything you communicate to a public official is defacto public and can be requested from anyone at anytime. The alternatives to that default are terrible for public confidence in officials.

Alex3917 7y ago
> As a public official in a small town, I have thought about doing this before. The legal issues always come up. There shouldn't be any legal issues since it's already all public, but regardless there is some possible middle ground here: - All conversations regarding public policy and/or the allocation of public resources get published on the web by default. (With the possibility of making redactions on anonymizing folks, at the discretion of the public official.) - Things like emails from constituents asking for advice about personal issues and bulk newsletters would stay private unless FOIA'd. - Anything redacted or anonymized at the discretion of a public official can still be FOIA'd, and in the FOIA'd version of the email things would only be allowed to the redacted or anonymized to the extent allowable by law. This is similar to how NYC's proposed algorithmic transparency legislation would have worked, where software involved in allocating public resources needs to be public but the rest of the software does not.
vidarh 7y ago
In Norway all communications with the government at national levels needs to be logged in journals that are publicly accessible by default. Not logging everything is a crime. Personal details can be redacted, and some things can be marked as not for public view, but doing so tends to be inviting scrutiny, as the big media organisations have people trawling the post journals.
Keverw 7y ago
Nice to see public officials understanding this stuff :) So many cities have people untrained on this sort of stuff, I know there's been cities or other departments in cities deleting Facebook comments, and there's been some lawsuits over that. I kinda always got a feeling public officials feel like they are gods and above the law. Plus I think local officials can get away with things more compared to say a congress person or president since stuff they say and do have a bigger spot light on them. Probably more corruption happens at the local level is an assumption I've always had. Then if you go on YouTube can find tons of videos where cops or city officials get mad at being filmed, people go into the lobby of their local city and film the clerk there and some of them freak out or even goes as far as assaulting the camera person. However, I think some of those YouTubers though do it just to kinda just stir things up to see how people react so they'll get views, but technically it's still a first amendment protected activity.
- jawns 7y ago
  > some of those YouTubers though do it just to kinda just stir things up to see how people react so they'll get views, but technically it's still a first amendment protected activity. These are popularly known as First Amendment Audits, and there are some riveting ones on YouTube. I know it may seem like they're trying to cause trouble, but in almost all cases, they're really just trying to determine whether constitutionally protected activities are being respected as such. But, honestly, the videos that show unconstitutional treatment are the most interesting to watch.
  - Keverw 7y ago
    Yep, I watched some before and got distracted watching them for days once since YouTube starts showing them everywhere like on the home page if you watch a few. Kinda gets you in a very depressed mood by how these people get treated for filming and exercising their rights but even some of the people filming I think are wrong too. Like some are very professional acting though, sorta like what an investigative journalist would be doing but some are kinda punks and just cussing and making fun of people though doing their jobs like even unelected employees. I mean sure you can cuss and flip people off since it's your right as speech but I kinda like the idea of respect and treating people how you'd want to be treated. I guess one of those pick your own battles type of things. But also watching them it makes me wonder if sworn police officers even have read the constitution, or just raised their hands and repeated what they were told during the swearing-in ceremony ... Then some of them seem to think the first amendment only applies if you work for the local news outlet such as channels like 2, 5, 7 or 12, etc... Like in some of the videos cops ask what news station or paper they work for. On the other hand though maybe the cops know anyways but try to use it as an intimidation tactic. Kinda like if you even know your basic civil rights, and start trying to exercise them they ask if you are some lawyer or something or if you are young ask if you are some law student. I guess they think only lawyers can know the law?
    - ficklepickle 7y ago
      I believe that YouTube's algorithm can exacerbate mental health issues. Watching too much dark or otherwise unsettling material can absolutely lead to a downward mental health spiral for some people. After many years of dealing with mental health issues, I am constantly monitoring the effect that my behaviors and activities are having on my mental state. I have personally experienced watching YouTube contribute to a decline in my mental health. I've developed a few strategies for mitigating this: First off, I monitor my urges and behavior for warning signs. If I find myself drawn to dark or unsettling things, I try to determine the contributing factors. Often, I come up with things going on in my life or unmet needs that are likely contributing factors which I can then work on addressing, or at the very least acknowledging. Second, I only watch YouTube videos via the web interface while not logged in to a google account, with cookies being discarded at the end of the browsing session via incognito mode or a temporary browser profile. This helps ensure that any darkness I stumble into doesn't follow me around and drag me down. It does result in YouTube's recommendations being useless, but useless > harmful IMO. Take care of yourself. This pandemic is not only going to be hard on physical health. My email is in my profile if you ever wanna chat about anything at all.

Alex3917 7y ago

> As a public official in a small town, I have thought about doing this before. The legal issues always come up. There shouldn't be any legal issues since it's already all public, but regardless there is some possible middle ground here: - All conversations regarding public policy and/or the allocation of public resources get published on the web by default. (With the possibility of making redactions on anonymizing folks, at the discretion of the public official.) - Things like emails from constituents asking for advice about personal issues and bulk newsletters would stay private unless FOIA'd. - Anything redacted or anonymized at the discretion of a public official can still be FOIA'd, and in the FOIA'd version of the email things would only be allowed to the redacted or anonymized to the extent allowable by law. This is similar to how NYC's proposed algorithmic transparency legislation would have worked, where software involved in allocating public resources needs to be public but the rest of the software does not.

vidarh 7y ago

In Norway all communications with the government at national levels needs to be logged in journals that are publicly accessible by default. Not logging everything is a crime. Personal details can be redacted, and some things can be marked as not for public view, but doing so tends to be inviting scrutiny, as the big media organisations have people trawling the post journals.

Keverw 7y ago

Nice to see public officials understanding this stuff :) So many cities have people untrained on this sort of stuff, I know there's been cities or other departments in cities deleting Facebook comments, and there's been some lawsuits over that. I kinda always got a feeling public officials feel like they are gods and above the law. Plus I think local officials can get away with things more compared to say a congress person or president since stuff they say and do have a bigger spot light on them. Probably more corruption happens at the local level is an assumption I've always had. Then if you go on YouTube can find tons of videos where cops or city officials get mad at being filmed, people go into the lobby of their local city and film the clerk there and some of them freak out or even goes as far as assaulting the camera person. However, I think some of those YouTubers though do it just to kinda just stir things up to see how people react so they'll get views, but technically it's still a first amendment protected activity.

jawns 7y ago
> some of those YouTubers though do it just to kinda just stir things up to see how people react so they'll get views, but technically it's still a first amendment protected activity. These are popularly known as First Amendment Audits, and there are some riveting ones on YouTube. I know it may seem like they're trying to cause trouble, but in almost all cases, they're really just trying to determine whether constitutionally protected activities are being respected as such. But, honestly, the videos that show unconstitutional treatment are the most interesting to watch.
- Keverw 7y ago
  Yep, I watched some before and got distracted watching them for days once since YouTube starts showing them everywhere like on the home page if you watch a few. Kinda gets you in a very depressed mood by how these people get treated for filming and exercising their rights but even some of the people filming I think are wrong too. Like some are very professional acting though, sorta like what an investigative journalist would be doing but some are kinda punks and just cussing and making fun of people though doing their jobs like even unelected employees. I mean sure you can cuss and flip people off since it's your right as speech but I kinda like the idea of respect and treating people how you'd want to be treated. I guess one of those pick your own battles type of things. But also watching them it makes me wonder if sworn police officers even have read the constitution, or just raised their hands and repeated what they were told during the swearing-in ceremony ... Then some of them seem to think the first amendment only applies if you work for the local news outlet such as channels like 2, 5, 7 or 12, etc... Like in some of the videos cops ask what news station or paper they work for. On the other hand though maybe the cops know anyways but try to use it as an intimidation tactic. Kinda like if you even know your basic civil rights, and start trying to exercise them they ask if you are some lawyer or something or if you are young ask if you are some law student. I guess they think only lawyers can know the law?
  - ficklepickle 7y ago
    I believe that YouTube's algorithm can exacerbate mental health issues. Watching too much dark or otherwise unsettling material can absolutely lead to a downward mental health spiral for some people. After many years of dealing with mental health issues, I am constantly monitoring the effect that my behaviors and activities are having on my mental state. I have personally experienced watching YouTube contribute to a decline in my mental health. I've developed a few strategies for mitigating this: First off, I monitor my urges and behavior for warning signs. If I find myself drawn to dark or unsettling things, I try to determine the contributing factors. Often, I come up with things going on in my life or unmet needs that are likely contributing factors which I can then work on addressing, or at the very least acknowledging. Second, I only watch YouTube videos via the web interface while not logged in to a google account, with cookies being discarded at the end of the browsing session via incognito mode or a temporary browser profile. This helps ensure that any darkness I stumble into doesn't follow me around and drag me down. It does result in YouTube's recommendations being useless, but useless > harmful IMO. Take care of yourself. This pandemic is not only going to be hard on physical health. My email is in my profile if you ever wanna chat about anything at all.