GOP FOIAs Emails of Professor Critical Of Governor

This is kind of creepy.

I, being an idiot, could not understand what was said there. Can I get the abridged version?

What I got is a professor wrote smack about a senator. The senator was like ah... snap. Then he was all like " yo! let me peep your shit" and the proffs was like "nah". This was all wrong because its just creepy being all political and .

edited 25th Mar '11 1:21:07 PM by TheDeadMansLife

1. Professor of history at Wisconsin-Madison writes some blog posts critical of the recent Wisconsin law.
2. Republican Party requests copies of emails he's sent with his university account that could be related, via the Freedom of Information Act.

It's pretty simple.

edited 25th Mar '11 1:21:02 PM by Tzetze

Okay than. Thats not creepy, it is just a flagrant abuse of power.

Yeah. The people complaining about it are creepy.

That professor was less criticizing the law than making wild-ass conspiracy theories about it. I don't really understand why the Republicans in Wisconsin would feel the need to get suspicious of that.

EDIT: Nevermind misread.

edited 25th Mar '11 1:35:39 PM by thawkins

Wait, can anyone just request any sort of confidential information under this? Someone make a request for all the emails of those Republicans then!

No, FOIA works because he's a government employee, using a government email account.

edited 25th Mar '11 1:48:40 PM by Tzetze

That's even better. The Governor's email then.

I kind of doubt he uses his government-provided account for anything juicy.

Then what's the point of the Act then? Any actual corruption is just gonna be done through anonymous channels and the honest guys get screwed.

Oh wait.

And this is more insulting than labeling right-wing folks terrorists by the Obama Justice Department in Spring of 2009? Or wanting to launch investigations into the Tea Party just because they existed?

If you want to talk actual injustices of opinions when are you going to call for an actual investigation into the Black Panthers over voter intimidation in 2008? When are you going to launch an actual investigation into Acorn (or its successor group whatever they named themselves) for voter registration fraud (among other fraud charges)?

Tom: Yeah that is nice and all but it is off topic take it elsewhere.

If you ask me it is an attempt at intimidation.

What are they trying to accomplish exactly?

Regardless of how accurate the professor's article may have been, this is a really dangerous precedent. Investigating someone because they criticize you? That can't possibly end well (and no, Tom, the "right-wing terrorists" thing is not the same due to it not being remotely like the way you described it).

I am really starting to dislike my state government.

At least the Republicans are doing their part to spur a Supreme Court appeal that will inevitably render this whole FOIA thing unconstitutional, thus shrinking Government's power like they've wanted all along.

Except FOIA can be used by citizens as well.

The problem isn't with FOIA, the problem is that it's being used in a way it was never intended. FOIA is meant for citizens and journalists to be able to get info about the workings of the government. In other words, exactly the opposite of the way it's being used now.

Actually, this might not even be legit. There's never been an official ruling on whether state university professors count as state employees for FOIA purposes, and there's a possibility that a judge will rule that they don't.

It wouldn't be so hard to rule that they don't. A teachers official email is not of national importance.