From the Miami Herald:
TALLAHASSEE — For weeks, bloggers and others who contribute to the Florida Progessive Coalition website wanted to know who ”vandalized” a entry about Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp and removed information about the age-discrimination lawsuit filed against him.
The culprit in the Internet whodunit emerged this week: It was the lieutenant governor himself.
Kottkamp insists he wasn’t trying to do anything ‘’sinister” but just update the biographical information.
”To be honest, I’ve never done editing like that before,” Kottkamp said Wednesday. “I clearly don’t know what I’m doing.”
That answer is ”ridiculous,” said Dave Harper, the manager of the website who lives in Orange County.
He believes the editing job was an attempt to censor information that made Kottkamp look bad.
Harper said that back in early May, someone went onto the group’s website and edited a ”wiki” entry on Kottkamp. Removed was text and links to negative stories about the former legislator, including one from The Miami Herald that reported the state had paid $50,000 in 2004 to settle an age-discrimination lawsuit filed against Kottkamp by his former aide.
Harper traced it back to a state computer. He called and wrote state officials and said he got nowhere until he threatened to report the incident to other officials.
In June, he got a short letter from state officials acknowledging the computer used was registered to Larry Ringers, the chief of staff for Kottkamp. Harper posted all this information on the group’s website.
When asked about the incident this week, Kottkamp acknowledged that he used his state-owned computer to look at the site, which he learned about through a Google search.
He said he spent five minutes one day trying to update his address and phone number on his own biographical entry. Harper is miffed that state resources were used to make changes to the entry.
”I feel very much it was censorship,” he said. “That kind of government sponsored censorship is very Orwellian.”
The problem, and I wish the Herald had gotten into this part of the story in more detail, is that when changes are made to the Wiki, the details of EXACTLY what was changed is recorded. Here’s a screenshot of the page in question:
If you look closely, you see that Kottkamp’s story doesn’t hold up. The History section of the page clearly shows that the changes were made to the “Blogs” (lines 61-62) and the “Issues” (lines 70-71) sections of the website, not the “Contact Information” section. And it’s clear that the person who made these changes (who was traceable by the IP address 164.51.120.130) was not trying to add or edit any contact information. If that’s what they were doing, that’s what would’ve been recorded. Instead, what was recorded was someone deleting two links to a story that brought up ethical concerns about Kottkamp’s behavior.
Did Kottkamp lie to the Miami Herald? You be the judge. It appears, though, that there are new questions about Kottkamp and ethics. And this kind of usage of government resources (your taxpayer funds) to censor information intended for the voting public smells to me a lot like a violation of the law as well.
Specifically, Chapter 112.313 Subsection 6 of the Florida Statutes:
(6)MISUSE OF PUBLIC POSITION.—No public officer, employee of an agency, or local government attorney shall corruptly use or attempt to use his or her official position or any property or resource which may be within his or her trust, or perform his or her official duties, to secure a special privilege, benefit, or exemption for himself, herself, or others. This section shall not be construed to conflict with s. 104.31.
A public officer (Kottkamp) admittedly used property within his trust (government-owned computer) to secure a special benefit for himself (deleted factual information that reflected poorly on his political reputation). I’m also pretty sure it’s at least unethical for an elected official to knowingly lie to the press.
The Republican culture of corruption isn’t just a national thing, is it?
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Well well well! The poop has REALLY hit the fan now, hasn’t it! I’m rather disgusted – doesn’t the Lieutenant Governor of the 4th largest state in the country have something BETTER to do that Google search blogs and vandalize them? This guy is a real low-life, even for a Republican – and THAT says something.
How childish of our Lt. Governor. I hope he doesn’t have any aspirations of a promotion. Hopefully, the coverage of this incident will further boost traffic here at FPC: a delightful unintended consequence of Kottkamp’s actions.
Has it occured to anyone the possibility that Jeff himself only altered the personal information, and someone else edited the controversial part?
Also, in defense of our Leiutenant Governor, even if he had altered the website, this is quite the minor offense. The internet, in my opinion, is considered a 120% free speech zone. If it is a wiki, then ANY person could alter it to his/her viewpoint… regardless of what it is. In fact, I would daresay there is anything such as vandalism on the internet unless a specific individual/company has ownership over a particular domain (much less a wiki.)
There are far worse controversies than altering a wiki in regards to firing an aide who has done unacceptable work.
>Has it occured to anyone the possibility that Jeff himself only altered the personal information, and someone else edited the controversial part?
No, no one considered that. The computer record said otherwise and the Lt. Governor confirmed it.
>If it is a wiki, then ANY person could alter it to his/her viewpoint… regardless of what it is.
There is a difference between should and could. Anybody can walk out of a candy store with stolen candy in their pocket and get away with it. That doesn’t mean they should do it. Anybody can key the paintjob of any stranger’s car and get away with it, that doesn’t mean they should.
>In fact, I would daresay there is anything such as vandalism on the internet unless a specific individual/company has ownership over a particular domain (much less a wiki.)
I own the domain that was vandalized.
>There are far worse controversies than altering a wiki in regards to firing an aide who has done unacceptable work.
No one said there weren’t worse controversies. And if the aide simply had done “unacceptable work,” a settlement wouldn’t have been paid out. People don’t pay out large lump sum settlements when they are innocent.