New York Governor Finds Himself In An Unfamiliar Position
from the turning-the-tables dept
During his tenure as New York Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer aggressively used his office to go after a range of industries that he deemed to be operating illegally or unethically. Wall Street firms were a favorite target of his, while others included the music and spyware industries. Of course , one sector that has historically trumped all others in terms of corruption and betrayal of the public trust is Spitzer's own, the public sector. Over the past week, his office has been engulfed in a major scandal, whereby it's been revealed that his operatives used state resources to go after Spitzer's political opponents. Like so many executives that have been dragged in front of a jury in recent years, Spitzer claims to have been ignorant of his underlings' activities. But this excuse has never gone over very well in court, and in fact a law was passed (Sarbanes-Oxley), designed specifically to upend this potential defense. It sort of makes you wonder whether we need a similar law for politicians, whereby every quarter they must declare full responsibility for the actions of their aides. It's a nice idea, but since it would require politicians to pass such a law, it's never going to happen.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: spitzer
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Too many laws on the public already. Control, Control, Control.
I guess - you know a lot of people get nutty on stuff and try to be a crusader against the same skeletons they have in their own closet.
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Re:
We would need far fewer laws if we could say "X is illegal" instead of of "X is illegal in situation A" in one law and then have to add 13 more laws stating "X is illegal in situation B ( C, D, E, F, ...)"
For example - Driving while distracted is illegal. It doesn't matter if the distraction is a cell phone, your make-up or your breakfast. One law should cover it, not three.
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spitzer
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Well...
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Re: Mystified
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*sigh*
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