Woman sues cop who asked for date after giving ticket

[Pandaemoni]

What is the language within the statute that leads you to that assertion?

As adoucette mentioned, there is a general statement in section (a) that applies the law to records held by the DMV. So the question, not even hinted at in the statute, is assuming that a recipient has a lawful reason to obtain the information, whether any subsequent or additional reason or use is still covered by the statute. If he were a DMV employee the answer is clearly in the affirmative (as the statute does cover that clearly), if the agent is in a separate branch of government though, it is not clear that the provisions bind him as they would the DMV and its agents.

If he obtained the info solely for unlawful purposes, the statute applies as well, but if he obtains it for lawful purposes, then later misuses it, the statute is not express.

Again, the Connecticut case dealt with basically the same issue regarding when the information ceases to be the target of the DPPA when the DMV has turned t over to another agency, and it\'s still good law.

I can argue against myself on this point, as I said, but as I am not sure those arguments will prevail, it seems tedious to debate myself with arguments I find, on balance, unconvincing.

(Just as a side note, you do realize, do you not, that the officer had the woman\'s address through force of law?)

I do...but so did the tax assessor in Connecticut it had info on every driver in the State, and the drivers weren\'t even aware of it. The disclosure of the information to the tax assessor was compelled by law. It still was held to not violate the DPPA for the tax assessors office to release it to the woman who was requesting it (for uses that were assumed arguendo to not be permitted under the DPPA).

I disagree that there is any distinction between using information for an unlawful purpose *during* a traffic stop (saying Happy Birthday during the conversation) and using it for an unlawful purpose later (sending a Birthday Card). The only distinction that makes any sense to me there is that wishing someone a Happy Birthday is less harmful (arguably) than leaving a note requesting a date. If the latter is a misuse of information, though, then the only thing that shields the former is the degree of harm likely to result, not the timing. (Both are messages delivered to the driver from the cop, that one is written and one oral makes no difference. Similarly, if a written note is a violation, then so would an oral message delivered in a way that required the use of the similarly restricted information.)

There is no such distinction made in the statute, and the statute is the only thing that seems likely to convert this into a breach of law, as opposed to a breach of propriety and good manners.

 

[adoucette]

Asking someone out on a date, and indicating that you find them to be attractive, are both overt sexual references, whether expressed in a note or otherwise. They are straightforward, unequivocable expressions of sexual interest. This could not be more clear-cut, nor your insistence to the contrary more embarassing.

LOL, you clearly have no clue what the term OVERT means.

Telling someone you find them attractive and asking them to go out on a dinner date are not OVERT sexual references by any rational definition of the terms.

Buying dinner is not putting a down payment on a woman's vagina.

 

[Pandaemoni]

Yes but you are looking at cases where those who have access to the DPPA were asked to then provide that information to a third party, ie not the DMV or the Government agency accessing that information.

That is a distinction not made in the statute. The problem in Davis is that the court assumed that the ultimate recipient (a woman named Barabara Brennan) would use the information for impermissible purposes (as permissible uses were defined in the DPPA, at least). (Edit: Perhaps to be more clear, if Barbara Brennan worked for the tax assessors office, and requested the same information for the same purposes, to be used by her privately and not in her official capacity, I don\'t see that that would have changed the court\'s decision to compel the tax assessors office to hand it over.)

You could argue that the restriction on disclosure no longer applies, but the restriction on Barbara Brennan still does (though the court forgot to mention that despite the assumption that she will use it in a manner contrary to the DPPA restictrions). If that were the case, the Collins would be restricted from using lawfully obtained information for not-expressly-permitted purposes just as Brennan would (hypothetically) have been.

If you do read it that way, then what about other users who get the information from Brennan? Brennan could have sold the information to a third party who could have used it unaware that she got it from a source that got it from the DMV, Since that knowledge is not an element of the civil action, under that reading (unless the courts are prepared to judicially insert a knowledge requirement in this statute, even though legislators know very well the need to define the mens rea needed for liability in a criminal statute), anyone using that information is liable for any non-protected use, even though they were unaware of the restrictions on the information. That is clearly a sort of crazy result and I doubt any court would do that, but the alternatives are to either imply a knowledge requirement (which would be highly unusual and contrary to well established rules of statutory construction) or to limit the scope of the DPPA in the way the Connecticut court did.

In short, with both Collins and Brennan you have a potential misuse of the information (one being definite and the other being merely assumed), so the cases are not as different as you may be thinking based on my summary.

I can certainly imagine the law being changed so that any recipient agency has to maintain the same level of confidentiality as the DMV (including an obligation to inform anyone lawfully receiving it that the DPPA covers it, I would hope), but the court in Davis found that that is not how the statute works and declined to, in effect, amend the law by judicial fiat to include that. Clearly, if Congress amended it, though, they could and such an amendment would be valid. It is possible that Congress meant that, and just was not clear enough, but judges are rightly circumspect in using Congressional intent to replace the text of the law, and most statutes (especially federal statutes) are narrowly construed except in special cases (that would be too much of a digression to go into, but do not clearly apply here).

I have no dog in this fight really, I am clearly less outraged by the conduct at issue than you are, though I still think it is somewhat creepy. Is it ruin-a-guys-life creepy? Surely not that (imo). It is possible that the Illinois district court judge will side with you, I just hope that, if that happens, the interpretive principles used are only applied to the DPPA and not any other statute, as I think they cause problems.

 

[adoucette]

So what you are essentially saying is that if you were a policeman you would lie and assert that she told you her name when you pulled her over to give her a speeding ticket, whereupon in the course of your law enforcement duty, you would demand her name and papers, with her knowing she could very well be arrested if she refused to provide any such information, and then found her address later using Google? Really? Good grief you're more dim than this policeman was!

You would also show a gross level of incompetence since as a police officer, in the course of your duty during a traffic stop, you have to go into her DMV record to check that everything was as it should be. But no, you seem to believe that it is better for police officers to lie after they gather information during the course of their law enforcement duties, for personal and private reasons... I mean hell, you'd probably think it is appropriate if a police officer pulls over a drug dealer and then later goes to the dealer's house for a hit after getting the person's name of their driver's licence during that traffic stop.

No Bells I'm saying if I was hauled into court on a Civil Charge based on the law you posted I'd point out that I first got her name without accessing a DMV record, since the law you pointed to, only has to do with data obtained from a DMV record.

 

[quadraphonics]

LOL, you clearly have no clue what the term OVERT means.

From dictionary.com:

"adjective
1. open to view or knowledge; not concealed or secret"

Telling someone you find them attractive and asking them to go out on a dinner date are not OVERT sexual references by any rational definition of the terms.

Dating is a process people go through when one or both is interested in having sex with the other. This is the well-understood, primary purpose of asking someone out on a date. Asking someone out on a date is an overt expression of sexual interest (as were the various comments on her (sexual) attractiveness contained in the letter). I'm unclear on what you think is "concealed" or "secret" about the sexual aspects of his letter.

It sounds like you are confusing "overt" with "explicit" or something. He did not explicitly say he wanted to have sex with her. But he overtly expressed such interest by indicating that he finds her (sexually) attractive, and requesting she participate with him in our society's common ritual for initiating a sexaul relationship.

Buying dinner is not putting a down payment on a woman's vagina.

Telling a woman that you find her attractive and asking her out on a date is an open, unconcealed expression of sexual interest. It is, by definition, overt. Complementing a woman and asking her out on a date is not something one normally does unless one is sexually interested in said woman. There is no reasonable reading of his actions towards her, other than as clear, open, unconcealed expressions of sexual interest.

This is all very clear-cut, and you are making yourself look like (more of) a jackass by pursuing these inane semantic dodges and cheap insults.

 

[Pandaemoni]

Telling a woman that you find her attractive and asking her out on a date is an open, unconcealed expression of sexual interest.

That is bad news for any father who ever told a daughter that she looked pretty. It also suggests that I am homosexual (news to me) as I am sure I have described certain other men as attractive from time to time. I never realized that I wanted to have sex with them. I missed my chance! I need to track those guys down! Also, certain animals, and even cars!

It is also strange that my daughter has felt free to tell me of her sexual desire for certain boys, sometimes at the dinner table (in the form of discussing how she finds certain boys attractive). I did not realize how much smut there was in my home.

More seriously, if your mind actually goes to sex every time someone describes another person as attractive, your mind works differently than mine. There are a few logical steps in between that need not always be made, imo.

 

[quadraphonics]

If he obtained the info solely for unlawful purposes, the statute applies as well, but if he obtains it for lawful purposes, then later misuses it, the statute is not express.

I guess this is a question of legalese, but the parts that read:

Section 2722. Additional unlawful acts

(a) Procurement for Unlawful Purpose -- It shall be unlawful for any person knowingly to obtain or disclose personal information, from a motor vehicle record, for any use not permittedunder section 2721(b) of this title.​

and

Section 2724. Civil action

(a) Cause of Action -- A person who knowingly obtains, discloses or uses personal information, from a motor vehicle record, for a purpose not permitted under this chapter shall beliable to the individual to whom the information pertains, who may bring a civil action in a UnitedStates district court.​

...seem pretty clear-cut to me.

 

[adoucette]

Yes Quad I know the definition of OVERT and so No Quad, by that definition, asking a women out on a date is clearly NOT an overtly sexual act.

 

[quadraphonics]

I can certainly imagine the law being changed so that any recipient agency has to maintain the same level of confidentiality as the DMV

? It already does:

(c) Resale or Redisclosure -- An authorized recipient of personal information [...] may resell or redisclose the information only for a use permitted under subsection (b)[.] [...] Any authorized recipient [...] that resells or rediscloses personal information covered by this title must keep for a period of 5 years records identifying each person or entity that receives information and the permitted purpose for which the information will be used and must make such records availableto the motor vehicle department upon request.​

 

[quadraphonics]

That is bad news for any father who ever told a daughter that she looked pretty.

Why? He's intending to convey to her that she's sexually attractive, no? So why would it be bad news that... the statement he used indicates that he considers her sexually attractive?

You may also recall that the quoted material was a compound sentence, which also included the phrase "and asking her out on a date," in order to reach the conclusion of "expression of sexual interest." In which case, yes, I'd say that any father who ever asked his daughter out on a date does indeed have some bad news coming.

It also suggests that I am homosexual (news to me) as I am sure I have described certain other men as attractive from time to time.

That only suggests that you (correctly, presumably) perceive those men to be sexually attractive. Since you never asked any of them out on a date (I presume), the quoted sentence does not imply that you were personally interested in having sex with them.

I never realized that I wanted to have sex with them. I missed my chance! I need to track those guys down! Also, certain animals, and even cars!

For somebody who was in the middle of citing a bunch of careful legalistic readings, you sure are playing it sloppy with this whole line of trolling.

It is also strange that my daughter has felt free to tell me of her sexual desire for certain boys, sometimes at the dinner table (in the form of discussing how she finds certain boys attractive).

Why is that strange? And what, exactly, is it that you think your daughter is expressing when she describes members of the opposite sex as attractive, if not sexual attraction? Intellectual admiration? Respect for their athletic achievements?

I did not realize how much smut there was in my home.

What exactly is "smutty" about the fact that your heterosexual daughter is sexually attracted to certain members of the opposite sex?

More seriously, if your mind actually goes to sex every time someone describes another person as attractive, your mind works differently than mine.

I don't believe you, in the first place.

And I'll point out your trollish elision between aknowledging that someone is sexually attractive, in the abstract, and desiring to actually have sexual intercourse with them. And while I'm at it, I'll remind you again of the whole "and asking them out on a date" qualifier that you promptly dropped in your haste to troll me.

Do you actually agree with adoucette that the letter in question did not constitute a clear, unequivocable expression of sexual interest in the recipient? Or are you just trolling me for some other reason?

 

[quadraphonics]

Yes Quad I know the definition of OVERT and so No Quad, by that definition, asking a women out on a date is clearly NOT an overtly sexual act.

I guess I'm supposed to imagine you beating your chest as you shout that, Mr. Eballs?

 

[Asguard]

I find the responses in this thread FASCINATING, ESPECIALLY the ones which say "well if he wanted to ask her out he should have given her a warning instead of a ticket"

Lets deal with that first, at what point do you think that becomes coruption?
"Osifer, im drunk really not, Ill sleep with you if you let me go"
"Officer I'm REALLY sorry I stole this, if you let me go I will give you a blow job"
"officer I really didn't mean to kill my husband, sure you can understand, want to see my new Victoria Secret collection?"

We have laws for a reason, even traffic laws are there to protect other people on the road.

Secondly, well i was going to make a whole speach but bells put it well

You are acting as if he has done absolutely nothing wrong.

He used his position as a police officer to obtain her address and then drive to where she lived and put a note on her car.

It is a breach of privacy and he has also breached his position of trust.

He is given a badge and a gun because the community and the State trusts him to not abuse his power. He used that power to obtain someone's address to ask them out to dinner. The breach of privacy is insane and the inappropriateness of his actions even more so.

I'll put it into some perspective for you as to what it is like here in Australia. If a Government employee even looks at someone's file in the course of their employ, they need to leave a note in it and state why they were in said file. If I, for example, in the course of my work look up someone's private details such as their address and then go there, I would be fired and prosecuted. It is illegal here to behave in such a fashion. And it is immoral.

As a police officer, he has access to her address, her personal records, etc. He used that for his own benefit and gain.

It astounds me that people don't recognise just how wrong his actions actually happen to be.

He is in a position of power, and he abused that power. What if the women had been a psych patient that he had been called to detain for her own safety (which is where I most closely work with the cops) would looking up her information for a date be acceptable THEN?

We got a lecture on this by the head of the ambulance service and he was quite specific. Coincidently bumping into a patient that you have picked up for a minor broken bone and chatting to them in a pub and then realising they were your patient is ok because the power dynamic is fairly even, if it was a psych case though even this is unethical because of the power difference and I would put MOST police interactions in the second category because they are always in a position of power over someone they are interacting with. However that's irrelevant because he went about casually meeting her, he used police resources to find her and this is COMPLETLY unethical

There is one point I do wish to make, the note is not rape as quadraphonics implied. Dude your comment made it sound like ANY guy asking a women out was wrong which its not. The issue in this case is abuse of power, miss-appropriation of resources etc.

 

[KilljoyKlown]

I think you guys are missing the point. A lawyer took the case and they usually won't do that unless they actually think they have a good chance to win it. The police department or city will have lawyers and bean counters decide the cheapest option to stop the suit and out of court settlements usually are the order of the day.

Next I don't think the trained and experienced policeman should be fired for this incident. I can only imagine what he's going through now. Hoping for a date and getting sued very publicly. ( If it was me, I would want to go hide under a rock). At the same time hopefully it will serve as a wake up call to other government employees when they are handling the public's private information.

 

[Pandaemoni]

I dont believe you, in the first place.

Okay.

Your and-ask-them-out-on-a-date qualifier is not one I noticed in the prior post where you made the same point, so I did not assume it was material. It seems to me that while many romantic relationships include a sexual component, that is not the end all and be all of dating (or any relationship that is likely to result from dating). So, there is a mental leap from imagining going on a date to imagining sex, just as there is a mental leap from finding a thing beautiful to wanting to copulate with it. As such your assertion established neither necessary nor sufficient conditions to sexual desire. I am not sure why you think I would bother to lie to you about that, unless you are just trying to be a troll yourself, and goad me into something.

In fact, I realize that you, troll, have partially succeeded, since whether he had implicit hopes of having sex with the woman is not the issue. Many people harbor sexual desire in their hearts, that is not a crime, nor does the DPPA make it one.

If the court holds that the DPPA applies here, his intent is 100% irrelevant. He could have been hoping to rob her, and while that could independently be a crime (it is not, but one could imagine a law that criminalized asking a person out with the intent to rob them), that has nothing to do with the DPPA.

Do you actually agree with adoucette that the letter in question did not constitute a clear, unequivocable expression of sexual interest in the recipient? Or are you just trolling me for some other reason?

I think it is likely (but irrelevant) that he did, though put aside your image of his drooling over the prospect of sex. I think it likely that he thought that a sexual relationship with her will be nice if she likes him enough to agree to it after several dates.

I do not think it is true that his principal intent was to have sex, no.

I do not know if you have a daughter, but imagine a boy comes to your door to pick her up for a date. The situation is very different if he greet you by saying he has come to pick up your daughter for their date versus him saying that he wants to have sex with your daughter. You seem to be suggesting (although I myself like to think you do not really believe it) that those two situations are entirely equivalent. In fact, maybe the boy who admits that he wants sex is simply more honest, which in a funny way would be admirable (even though, obviously, as a father you tell that boy to leave, alone).

Men desiring to have sex with women is not a legally actionable threat in and of itself, nor is it when coupled with a date request, nor is it when coupled with an arguable violation of the DPPA. There could be a violation of the DPPA, but the sexual desire in logically unrelated to that.

In effect, painting his in the way you are seems like an ad hominem against Collins, designed to plant the (I would say unwarranted) notion that he is some sort of predator. I certainly do agree that it is possible that the plaintiff thinks in the way you suggest, though, and so really did feel sexually threatened by Collins, but assuming her distress was such that it rises to the severe levels needed to maintain a tort claim for infliction of emotional distress, I am not sure a jury will find that his conduct reached the [/u]outrageous[/u] levels needed, though I am sure you disagree. (That the note was polite also limits the risk that a jury would find he intended to cause her the distress or was being reckless, though you never know where juries will go on issues like that, much like forum threads.)

Whether she felt threatened or not is, of course, entirely irrelevant under the DPPA, but it is relevant to her intentional infliction of emotional distress claim.

In any event, I am not sure why this thread has kept peoples interest to this extent, as I feel exhausted. Plus, it seems likely everyone repeats themselves over and over again page after page, even though the dispute is not THAT interesting (to me at least).

So, to wrap this up, on the rest and for other questions, I will just say that anyone who is strongly interested should look up Davis v. Freedom of Information Commission in the Connecticut Supreme and Superior Courts (the CT Supreme Court largely just adopted the lower court decision as being correct).

We can let the judge decide this case, and then come back here and celebrate (or curse the judge), and otherwise shake hands and part company thinking one another to be lying morons (or whatever, I do not really think you are either of those, whatever you may think of me).

I think you guys are missing the point. A lawyer took the case and they usually wont do that unless they actually think they have a good chance to win it.

Sadly, that is not always true (would that it were).

Some lawyers take cases because they get paid per hour, win or lose.

Some lawyers take cases on contingency based on the lottery effect, there is a small chance you can get millions in cases where punitive damages and emotional distress are involved. If this case nets the lawyer, on an expected value basis, more than he would have gotten as an hourly rate, it is a winner, even if there is a 99% chance of losing (tho if there is a 99% chance of losing, then there has to be a chance a big final award). This is the way most personal injury attorneys and employment discrimination lawyers view the world, among others.

The flipside of that is some lawyers take cases on contingency because they think they can settle them with a minimum amount of work. If you only put in 20 hours, the case settles for $50K (which is very likely less than what it will cost the City to successfully defend itself anyway), and you get 33%, you just made $833 per hour (and the client pays your out of pocket expenses, so it is all profit). If you ever had a workers comp claim, and used a lawyer, he very likely was working on this model, hoping for a quick resolution and minimum work done.

Some lawyers take cases because it gets them media attention (which in turn can generate more business, or get them cozy jobs as network legal analysts, etc.)

Some lawyers also take cases because they believe in the case, and want justice. Regular lawyers laugh and laugh at those guys.

The only constraint is that lawyers are only supposed to take a case if there is a plausible case to be made in the law for winning (even if it is unlikely to prevail). The rest is all economics and what niche you are in.

 

[Kittamaru]

I don't see anything wrong here... especially as, as one of the comments stated - a quick google search of her name turned up her address and phone number on her goddamned Facebook page. The note left wasn't creepy OR stalker'ish, but was straight forward and, if anything, a little awkward, a good sign that the guy realized he was likely to be rejected and figured he'd ask anyway...

Seriously, what the HELL? Even IF he used his "access as a cop" to find her... so what? He left a note... dear GOD since when is that ILLEGAL!?

 

[Tiassa]

Delving into the details

As adoucette mentioned, there is a general statement in section (a) that applies the law to records held by the DMV. So the question, not even hinted at in the statute, is assuming that a recipient has a lawful reason to obtain the information, whether any subsequent or additional reason or use is still covered by the statute. If he were a DMV employee the answer is clearly in the affirmative (as the statute does cover that clearly), if the agent is in a separate branch of government though, it is not clear that the provisions bind him as they would the DMV and its agents.

If he obtained the info solely for unlawful purposes, the statute applies as well, but if he obtains it for lawful purposes, then later misuses it, the statute is not express.

Thank you for that concise expression. I doubt, however, either of us are surprised that I disagree with your assessment.

In the first place, we can look back to 2722(a):

It shall be unlawful for any person knowingly to obtain or disclose personal information, from a motor vehicle record, for any use not permitted under Section 2721(b) of this Title.

(Boldface accent added)​

If we apply your reading, we neuter the law entirely. The defense becomes, "I obtained the information lawfully, and subsequently used it for personal reasons." In other words, the defense is a behavior the law is designed to stop.

Furthermore, we might also note that while 2721(a) is directed specifically at state DMV personnel, 2722(a)—"Additional unlawful acts"—is applied to any person.

Furthermore, if we look to 2724(a)—

A person who knowingly obtains, discloses or uses personal information, from a motor vehicle record, for a purpose not permitted under this chapter shall be liable to the individual to whom the information pertains, who may bring a civil action in a United States district court.

(Boldface accent added)​

—we again see that this is not limited to DMV employees. 2722(a) and 2724(a) apply to people at large. They apply to motor vehicle records, which include driver license information. And in the case of 2724(a)—"Civil action"—the statute applies specifically to the use of that information.

In the civil case, specifically, the argument that one obtained the information properly and subsequently used it for personal reasons is not an adequate defense.

The only question is if a criminal case arises; in such a circumstance, what do you think? Will a jury accept or reject a defense of proper acquisition and subsequent personal use? Or will they shrug, say, "Well, what's the point of the damn law, then?" and convict anyway?

Given the nature of American juries, well, flip a coin.

As to the Davis issue, there must be something I'm missing about the DPPA, since 2721(b)(6) specifically authorizes the release of data, "For use by any insurer or insurance support organization, or by a self-insuredentity, or its agents, employees, or contractors, in connection with claims investigation activities, anti-fraud activities, rating or underwriting."

Perhaps what I'm missing is that the question resolved by the Connecticut court seems to be a matter of state law and its relationship with the federal. As for federal law, the insurance investigator appears to have a statutory right to access that data.

In the end, though, what I'm looking at is a simple question: Without Paredes' statuory obligation to surrender identity data to the police, how would Collins have matched the person to the name? (To that point, I would add that this is the reason I would reject "phone book" arguments raised by others earlier in this thread.)

It would seem to me that, for the purposes of the criminal consideration, §2722(a) is more applicable than §2721(a); §2722 does not appear in the Memorandum of Decision for Davis v. FOIC.

The question of §2722 brings us back to the proposition of neutering the law. Is the technical defense that one obtained the information appropriately (e.g., during a traffic enforcement stop presumed lawful) and subsequently used the data for inappropriate ends sufficient to escape conviction?

... I am clearly less outraged by the conduct at issue than you are, though I still think it is somewhat creepy. Is it ruin-a-guys-life creepy? Surely not that (imo).

The matter of how creepy is, as we recognize, entirely subjective. Objectively, however, if Collins is found to have violated DPPA, it will certainly damage his career as a law enforcement officer, and probably quite severely.

In terms of §2724(a), pertaining to civil action, ignorance is bliss; Collins' best defense is to drag his whole department down with him: "A person who knowingly obtains ...."

All he has to say is that he didn't know, that in his experience as a police officer he never learned that personal use of such data was prohibited. If that argument flies, then the whole issue becomes a negligence suit against the Village of Stickney, its police department, and Chief Kretch.

Collins is not without a defense. To the other, his best defense will still damage his reputation severely.
____________________

Notes:

18 U.S.C. § 2721 et. seq (Public Law 103-322). 1994. AccessReports.com. January 5, 2012. http://www.accessreports.com/statutes/DPPA1.htm

Tanzer, Lois. "Memorandum of Decision". Davis v. Freedom of Information Commission, et al. April 30, 2001. State.CT.us. January 5, 2012. http://www.state.ct.us/foi/Court_Cases/2001CD/Pamela Davis vs. FOIC.htm

 

[steampunk]

Your summary overlooks a vital point: Collins obtained Paredes' contact information through official state business.

Had he not conducted the traffic stop, he would not have been able to match her name and address to her person. Your chronology argument, perhaps not surprisingly, leaves that out.

Are you implying he stopped her with some other reason in mind? Because you are saying had he not stopped her, he couldn't id her. I've seen no indication that he did such a thing, so of course I would leave that out.

It doesn't matter that you call it 'official state business', he could be the shop boy in Stardust who got fired for going gaga over a local village girl for all I care. He's a human being. I'm a fan of letting people conduct a little personal business on the job, but not to the point where it gets out of hand. Call your sick child at home. Tell your girlfriend or wife you love them in a quick text message. Take a brief moment to ask a person out on a date. All on company time is fine, when brief. Clinton's closet behaviour was brief, so what? It's his business. He has a right to take a little time for himself. Weiner's text message just took moment. I don't care. As long as the work gets done.

I used the term 'nazi' based upon the fact that we know that many of them 'only followed orders'. He may have theoretically crossed a line, but there is an area of grace in all things, and for good reason. We should pay attention to context and the magnitude of things instead of being so rash every time a line is crossed a smidgen.

Ironically, I think it's funny this cop has to face this b.s., because I'm sure he's nailed a bunch of people with the same kind of harsh attitude, just because a small line was crossed. But, I believe in the higher ground, he doesn't deserve a reprimand or punishment for such a slight.

 

[steampunk]

I see this as a president setting case, which at the very least will establish new training for police officers across the country, and that can't be a bad thing.

I really think the training should be in things like de-escalating situations and taking the power away from using unnecessary force. I'm willing to overlook asking for a date. People get killed in the other situations because of lack of training, whereas the worse that can happen in the later is a person is turned down for a date. Our priorities are definitely off track here.

 

[Asguard]

I cant understand how you people don't see a difference between screwing a co-worker (ie what Clinton did) and what the cop did

Its ok to ask a co-worker out, even if they say no that's not sexual harrasment or wrong or anything else. If you start doing it every day after they say no THEN its sexual harrasment.

This is different, this is an abuse of POWER, an abuse of the infomation he had access to as part of his job.

Lets look at it this way, lets say the guy has a brother whos single, and he says to the brother "god, I booked this hotty today." "Yea, wish I was there" "hey here is her address , why don't you go see her"

Would you think THAT was an abuse of the information he has AS PART OF HIS JOB?

Oh and steampunk, We aren't talking about making personal calls on work phones during work time

 

[steampunk]

Lets look at it this way, lets say the guy has a brother whos single, and he says to the brother "god, I booked this hotty today." "Yea, wish I was there" "hey here is her address , why don't you go see her"

Would you think THAT was an abuse of the information he has AS PART OF HIS JOB?

Oh and steampunk, We aren't talking about making personal calls on work phones during work time

Oh Asguard, we're not talking a third party match making either. But I understand the point you are driving at. You just think it wrong to use the address.

The point I'm making is that phone calls to loved ones and asking for a date is in the category of personal. The property they share is Personal Activity, and a bit of allowance of personal activity leaves room for humans to be humans.