Arizona Politician Accused Of Using Voter Database To Stalk Young Woman
from the database-abuse dept
We've talked in the past about how pretty much any government database eventually gets abused by someone looking for info about someone beyond the scope of what the database is for, and now Michael Scott points us to news of how the executive director of the Arizona Republican Party, Bruce Mecum, has been accused of using the party's voter database to stalk a female grad student. This isn't a "government" database, as it's just the political party's database. But, the database is used like a marketing database to better target messages. Or stalking opportunities, which apparently seriously creeped out some people. The response from the party's treasurer wasn't exactly reassuring:"He used Voter Vault. The The Republican National Committee owns Voter Vault....It's a private list. We own the list. We can do what we want with the list, quite frankly."Including stalking? This isn't a "Republican" thing either. I'm sure some Democrats misuse their databases as well, so hopefully the comments can avoid blindly supporting or hating on this or that political party. The key point here is that it's yet another example of a database that's supposed to be used for one purpose, being used for stalking instead.
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Yikes
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Re: Yikes
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Yeah, I was going to do a "good luck with that" comment as soon as I saw Mike's line, but I figured I'd give everyone a shot.
Oh well, seems more people need to be educated on how both parties are equally evil because they all end up reporting to the same bosses....
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Unfortunately those bosses aren't the citizens but the corporations.
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FTFY. You were on the right track, just one step short. After all, you both finances and sits on the boards of the large corporations?
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Re: Yikes
Right. You'd never catch a Democrat, like, say, Bill Clinton misusing his position to say, get a blow job in the Oval Office. Wait...
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LA Times
blogcritics.org
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Buuuut...
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Re: Buuuut...
(I know you were being sarcastic, but I had to say it;)
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But I do feel a certain smug confirmation of what mindless neanderthals these creatures happen to be. Apparently Mr. Mecum doesn't understand how very quick and easy it is to track someone down via the Internet.
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well
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I would think both Mecum and the Treasurer would be kicked out of the party, one for mis-use, and the other for being a douchebag...
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The shame is that the current political system requires a party at all.
People can have their groups, I guess. I just think it's better to have individual ideas....
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Outstanding. We'll spend our time talking about nothingness, watching shows about nothing like Seinfeld, and voting independently, without having our preferences prescribed to us....
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Another way to look at it...
What's the solution to this kind of thing? How is the line here different than when other people blame some technology for a societal ill (i.e. video games are practice grounds for violent behavior)?
Did the fact that such a database exists cause someone to misuse the data, or did the person choose to misuse the database? The bottom line is that if you create a database then there is some likelihood that it will be misused by those that have the means to access it.
Do not fall into the trap that we often accuse others of falling into, blaming the technology for enabling a person's bad behavior.
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Re: Another way to look at it...
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Google Mecum. He's quite a character. I think he should walk for this one to get his arrogance puffed up enough to do something truly stupid. His explanation for the troubles he's had is that his Democratic enemies are setting him up.
So maybe his next caper will require a Republican to administer the smackdown.
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Felony, FYI
Wait a minute ... isn't AZ the home of that bat$#!+ crazy sheriff?
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So If The Shoe Is On The Other Foot?
While I wouldn't do that, who is to say that the next "stalker" misappropriating their database won't?
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