Comment on In a hearing on data centers, a resident of Tyrone Township, Michigan, asked a simple question: Have you signed a non-disclosure agreement? Officials refused to answer

wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

• sunsofold@lemmy.zip ⁨23⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

  It should not be legal for elected officials to sign NDAs with corporations.

  Part of the price for being given the power of office should be the loss of privacy. If you are an official, you are no longer a private citizen. You are a representative and should not be doing anything you want to keep secret from your constituency.

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  • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I generally agree with that, but sometimes government officials have to perform official duties that require confidentiality.

    If they’re intervening on behalf of a constituent and it involves medical or otherwise personal information, then they should be required to maintain confidentiality. Whether that requires an NDA or something else is a different question.

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    • sunsofold@lemmy.zip ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      No NDA necessary. That’d be under other laws/systems. Some would be under things like HIPAA in the US if they learned the information in the course of their work. At minimum, it would fall under civil liability if they publicised private information of private individuals and those people claimed that it caused them harm in some way.

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      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        At this point I think you may not even understand what a NDA is.

        Are you under the impression if someone doesn’t want to talk about a topic, they just “sign a NDA” and don’t have to talk about it?

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    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      but sometimes government officials have to perform official duties that require confidentiality.

      If by “sometimes” you mean “they’ll make you sign a NDA to tell you 8 hours before everyone else it’s Taco Tuesday”…

      Yeah, that’s pretty close

      NDAs aren’t rare at all, and I wish it was surprising no one on Lemmy seems to have actual governmental experience.

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      • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        NDAs aren’t rare at all, and I wish it was surprising no one on Lemmy seems to have actual governmental experience.

        Hey jackass, I had to sign an NDA when I left my government job because I held a security clearance. I know more about it than you do.

        Trite quips about taco tuesday aside, government jobs require confidentiality about some things, and transparency about others. There’s no contradiction there, but ideally it should be unambiguous where the boundary is. Those things should be clearly defined.

        A good start, albeit still overly simplistic, would be to say confidentiality concerning information belonging to their constituents, and transparency concerning information belonging to corporations and their donors. Unfortunately that still leaves a lot of vaguery and wiggle-room.

        But I’m no policy-maker, so even if I were to write a twenty-page document defining everything in minute detail, it still wouldn’t matter.

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  • Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Except for personal stuff. But any action that will impact anyone outside of their family should be public.

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    • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works ⁨8⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

      I’d argue that medical records and maybe travel info should also be open. Though travel info should be on a delay of say 2 months.

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      • captainlezbian@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

        I’d argue relevant medical records. I don’t need to know if an elected official has diabetes or is on PrEP, but I do need to know if they’re off their mental health medication, if they’re experiencing dementia, or if they’re dead/dying.

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