<b>When Is a Confidentiality Waiver Not a Confidentiality Waiver?</b><br>
It is common for ethics codes to allow respondents in ethics
proceedings to waive confidentiality and make the proceeding public.
This is what South Carolina governor Mark Sanford did, according to <a href="http://www.allbusiness.com/government/government-bodies-offices-heads-s…; target="”_blank”"><b>an

Reading Garry Wills' <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Necessary-Evil-American-Distrust-Government/dp/06…; target="”_blank”">A
Necessary
Evil</a>: A History of American Distrust of Government</i> (1999)
made
me think about how anti- and pro-government feelings jive with views on
government ethics.<br>
<br>

The next round of memoranda have been filed by the parties to the Dixon
case, where the Baltimore mayor (though the case relates to her
activities as council president) is raising a defense of legislative
immunity in a criminal proceeding for perjury (relating to failure to
disclose) to keep out evidence that she knew that a developer who gave
her many gifts was involved in a development with the city.<br>
<br>
Her first defense of legislative immunity led to the indictment being

When I heard about the ACORN sting, when two people posing as
pimp and prostitute asked for help in getting a loan to open a brothel,
I thought: what would happen if a local government official and a prostitute
visited a local government attorney to ask for help in giving the prostitute a
contract, so that the local government, rather than the
official, could pay for her services?<br>
<br>
One big difference is that it is not legal to open a brothel, but it

It's official. According to <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_13445835&quot; target="”_blank”"><b>an article</b></a> in
yesterday's Salt Lake City <i>Tribune</i>, a comprehensive <a href="http://www.utahnsforethicalgovernment.org/finalversion.petition.pdf&quot; target="”_blank”"><b>ethics

A week ago I wrote a <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/preferential-treatment-fairness-and-p…; target="”_blank”"><b>blog
post</b></a> about preferential treatment, emphasizing
that the way to distinguish preferential treatment from ordinary
decisions and transactions,
where someone is commonly preferred over others, is by whether the treatment
is fair and

One of the more interesting battles in the civil war among Maricopa
County elected officials is the Battle of the Civil Division. When the
county attorney indicted County Supervisor Don Stapley in December
2008, the board of supervisors decided to take away the county
attorney's civil division and create a separate county civil law
department.<br>
<br>

A central dispute in the first group of charges brought against
Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley involved whether he was required
to disclose properties held by a company he owned, as long as he listed
the company among his assets. Stapley felt this was not required.<br>
<br>

Both times Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley has had criminal
charges brought against him, the counts included perjury charges for
omissions on disclosure forms (<a href="http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valleyfever/2008/12/sheriff_joe_arpaio…; target="”_blank”"><b>2008

Michael J. Sandel's famous introduction to ethical philosophy course at
Harvard University, <i>Justice</i>,
is becoming available on video both <a href="http://www.justiceharvard.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=categor…; target="”_blank”"><b>online</b></a>
and on many PBS stations across the country (dates and times vary; in some