

For a Washington Job, Be Prepared to Tell All - frisco
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/us/politics/13apply.html

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tptacek
Hugely misleading title: the questionairre is for cabinet posts and senior
staff. The positions they're talking about are Senate-confirmable: the Obama
administration is _asking_ for these details, but the Senate can _subpoena_
for them.

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jaycee
I think it might be worth pointing out that this is only applicable to "those
seeking cabinet and other high-ranking posts." It's not like every possible
White House employee is being asked to hand over the keys to their online
lives.

And the submission headline here is a little misleading: the questionnaire
appears to focus on affiliations and past financial associations, not facebook
pages and IRC logs.

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josefresco
The original NYTimes headline is much better: For a Washington Job, Be
Prepared to Tell All

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swilliams
That's pretty in depth. On one hand, the controversial stuff will be dug up by
the media or someone else anyway, but on the other, it's asking quite a lot to
hand over _every_ bit of privacy you might have had.

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ovi256
It is intrusive. However, I think they are doing it to prevent any embarassing
scandals. Be assured, journalists will (as they should BTW) do the same thing
to you if you become a WH employee.

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rgrieselhuber
Curse you NYTimes and your annoying, intrusive password requirements and your
bugmenot disabling.

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spydez
Try the BugMeNot plugin for Firefox. Then all you gotta do to get around
NYTimes annoyance is right-click on the username field and say "log me in with
BugMeNot"...

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rgrieselhuber
I use BugMetNot but NYT is getting more vigilant about disabling those
passwords.

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Alex3917
So apparently the change candidate wants to start by weeding out anyone who
has ever spoken up against the status quo.

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jsdalton
Neither the article nor the policy mention anything about speaking up against
the status quo. They appear instead to be looking for "conflicts of interest"
and "possible sources of embarrassment."

There's a difference.

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Alex3917
What do you take "possible sources of embarrassment" to mean in the context of
one's personal diary or blog?

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modoc
Racist comments, photos of you doing lines off a hooker's ass, getting "McCain
2008" tattooed on your forehead, etc...

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Alex3917
Yes but I think he's already severed his connections with Reverend Wright.

