Information access overload
From the how much is too much category, the “conservative” Manhattan Institute for Policy Research (see their Wikipedia entry) under the guise of the “Empire Center For New York State Policy
You can go there and faithfully study every public employee’s pay. You can search by name or by agency. This is a trend among people posing as open government/good government types. Ohio went so far as to publish every public employee’s pay and home address until they were stopped.
You probably should avoid the site for awhile since their servers are getting bombarded. When I checked their site earlier today I found that their web programmers left a few of the pages, including the one for searching public payrolls, completely unsecured. Anyone could have deleted large chunks of the site through a simple to use interface at the top of the page. It is one of those really stupid things people do when they are in a hurry.
Of course most of the State’s citizenry could care less. They’re worried about larger more personal matters. This stuff generally appeals to government workers (especially those with a grudge against the boss), political hacks, folks with a ax to grind, and those wanting to track down people who have seized their assets because of tax evasion, who have arrested them, who have audited them, or who have evaded them only by obtaining a restraining order (the ex-spouses and stalkers).
Now, all this information is public and a state’s citizens have a right to that information. Prior to publishing this site any citizen could get the very same data by making a FOIL request. For those with bad intent that at least left a paper trail and was self policing. Now those folks can do it from the comfort of their home computer.
By the way, the Manhattan Institute (see the People for the American Way report on these folks) publishes the salaries of their highest paid employees and directors via their IRS filings. Here’s a copy of their 2006 Form 990. You will note that their Chairman, Lawrence J. Mone pulled down a little over $400,000 in salary and deferred compensation in 2006. Since 1998 he’s received approximately $200,000 per year! Of course they don’t publish their entire payroll. I wonder what their lowest paid secretary, receptionist, or bathroom cleaner makes?
What do you mean under the “guise” of the Empire Center? You make it sound as if MI is being duplicitous. It says right at the top of the Empire Center website that they are a “project of the Manhattan Institute.” Also, Lawrence Mone is president, not chairman, of the Manhattan Institute.
Billz,
Thank you for visiting and for the correction on Mr. Mone’s title.
I see from your various blog comments that you are quite the defender of the Manhattan Institute. This supports my point that only folks who have a vested interest in this sort of thing (those directly involved in it or who are in some way directly affected) care.
Being duplicitous is beyond the point. Political organizations simply are. A non-profit supporting a non-profit to create an arms length transaction and employ more friends and error prone web builders? More to the point, political organizations use fronts like MI to defend political causes like military intervention, support of Israel, Korea, Kosovo, Somalia, etc. etc. with grand statements about freedom. Truth be told these are simply rallying cries for the inappropriate use of power and the sacrifice of our national treasure in an effort to defend others from their own mistakes.
Unfortunately we, the citizenry, fail to recognize that the United States is not a parent and that other countries are not our children. Each country needs to live and die on its own merits and failures. Bottom line we should simply defend our borders, ourselves, and our freedoms and militarily disengage from the rest of the world.
I am all for trade with anyone (I’ll even buy the hokey “Dead Sea” products they sell in the Mall at Christmas). I am all for discussions, encouragement, and charity (especially in times of disaster). But, I am not in favor of destroying our economy, our military, and the lives of our young people for a political problem that really doesn’t affect us (except for our involvement in it).
If you want to learn about true conservatism look at Lew Rockwell and similar sites. Our national future does not lie in neo-con-games. No amount of duplicity and “being helpful” will change that.