Adolf Eichmann is the iconic extreme of the government bureaucrat. Not that any of us will hopefully ever be given orders like the ones he was given, but his simply following orders makes anyone question his or her own simply following orders.

I just watched the film <a href="http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0057286/&quot; target="”_blank”"><i>Hands Over the City,</i></a> and I believe it should hop up to the top of City Ethics’ list of <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/Top10+Ethics+Films&quot; target="”">Top Ten Ethics Films</a>.

When we talk about gifts to politicians, we often talk about gifts of nominal value being okay. Buy a politician a coffee, what’s wrong with that?

But what happens when it’s the other way around? What if the politician buys a coffee for a citizen? One citizen, no problem. A few more at a fundraiser, that’s okay (and it's not buying votes, but rather buying more money). But what about thousands of citizens? When does something of nominal value become something with a corrupt intention?

Last year, soon after I contracted to act as Administrator to the New Haven Democracy Fund, a new public campaign financing program, the Executive Director of Connecticut Common Cause called me (I sat on the board of CT Common Cause). He said that he had been asked to write a report about the Fund for the national office. My response was that I had to write a report to the State Elections Enforcement Commission, so why should he bother to write another? My report could serve both needs. He wanted me to resign from the board, and I thought that was silly. There was no conflict.

Recently, Google has taken what appears to be a distinctly less transparent and open approach to their news distribution search engine. Matthew Lee maintains a small blog/website called <a href="http://www.innercitypress.com/">http://www.innercitypress.com/</a&gt; and has a reputation for hounding the UN - specifically the UNDP about what he considers corruption. Recently though, google announced a partnership with the UNDP and here is what happened next:

Congressmen and -women sometimes act as if they didn't know the first thing about government ethics. Even when their actions are more in the public eye than usual, many of them unnecessarily, and selfishly, do the wrong thing.

Detroit’s mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick is the new poster boy for misuse of office, lack of transparency, and covering up unethical behavior.

<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/07/opinion/07blumenthal.html?_r=1&scp=1&…; target="”_blank”">An op-ed piece</a> by Pollster.com editor Mark Blumenthal, in yesterday’s New York <i>Times</I>, brought up an interesting point about the transparency of political polls. I would like to take his piece a step further.

An Alaskan state representative needs a new kidney. The <a href="http://www.legis.state.ak.us/PDF/25/Bills/HB0109Z.PDF&quot; target="”_blank”">new state ethics law</a> does not allow gifts over $250. It has a compassionate gift exemption, but it only allows compassionate gifts with a fair market value less than $250. This is one of many unforeseen consequences that comes from ethics codes (or any legislation, for that matter).

You hear it again and again: “I didn’t know. I wasn’t told.” It’s the ultimate defense. Rarely do you hear, “I didn’t know, but I should have. It’s my responsibility to know and make sure I’m told things like this. I will act as if I knew, because I should have known.”