Nothing less than America as we have known it is at stake in the Supreme Court’s decision on ObamaCare’s constitutionality.

(By the way, those who object to that nickname can officially shut up. No less a hardened Democratic partisan than David Axelrod said in a campaign email yesterday: “Hell yeah, I like Obamacare.” Well, David, I like calling it ObamaCare, except with a capital “C,” because it sets off the name of the authoritarian who championed it.)

The fallback position (“it’s okay, we can always repeal it”) is fraught with danger. Watch what happens if ObamaCare is upheld. Just like that, the elites will tell us that ObamaCare has been “blessed” (not merely permitted) by the Court; attempts to overturn it will suddenly be framed as going against the “expressed will” of the infinitely wise, learned Court.

Repeal could still be accomplished and the effort will be necessary, but it will run up against status quo defenders with no shortage of underhanded means to thwart it at their disposal. Success would largely depend on the steely nerve of a host of alleged conservatives who have betrayed the cause they claim to believe in so often that we’ve all long since lost count of how many times it has happened.

And of course, the willingness to continue to uphold ObamaCare will join the insistence on giving expectant mothers the “right” to end their preborn babies’ lives as the next leftist litmus test for Court nominees.

The Court’s duty to declare the entire law unconstitutional could hardly be more obvious.

Here’s part of the Wall Street Journal’s Saturday editorial in anticipation of oral arguments on ObamaCare next week (bolds are mine):

Liberty and ObamaCare
The Affordable Care Act claims federal power is unlimited. Now the High Court must decide.

… The argument against the individual mandate—the requirement that everyone buy health insurance or pay a penalty—is carefully anchored in constitutional precedent and American history. The Commerce Clause that the government invokes to defend such regulation has always applied to commercial and economic transactions, not to individuals as members of society.

This distinction is crucial. The health-care and health-insurance markets are classic interstate commerce. The federal government can regulate broadly—though not without limit—and it has. It could even mandate that people use insurance to purchase the services of doctors and hospitals, because then it would be regulating market participation. But with ObamaCare the government is asserting for the first time that it can compel people to enter those markets, and only then to regulate how they consume health care and health insurance. In a word, the government is claiming it can create commerce so it has something to regulate.

This is another way of describing plenary police powers—regulations of private behavior to advance public order and welfare. The problem is that with two explicit exceptions (military conscription and jury duty) the Constitution withholds such power from a central government and vests that authority in the states. It is a black-letter axiom: Congress and the President can make rules for actions and objects; states can make rules for citizens.

The framers feared arbitrary and centralized power, so they designed the federalist system—which predates the Bill of Rights—to diffuse and limit power and to guarantee accountability. Upholding the ObamaCare mandate requires a vision on the Commerce Clause so broad that it would erase dual sovereignty and extend the new reach of federal general police powers into every sphere of what used to be individual autonomy.

… As the Affordable Care Act suits have ascended through the courts, the Justice Department has been repeatedly asked to articulate some benchmark that distinguishes this specific individual mandate from some other purchase mandate that would be unconstitutional. Justice has tried and failed, because a limiting principle does not exist.

The best the government can do is to claim that health care is unique. It is not. Other industries also have high costs that mean buyers and sellers risk potentially catastrophic expenses—think of housing, or credit-card debt. Health costs are unpredictable—but all markets are inherently unpredictable. The uninsured can make insurance pools more expensive and transfer their costs to those with coverage—though then again, similar cost-shifting is the foundation of bankruptcy law.

The reality is that every decision not to buy some good or service has some effect on the interstate market for that good or service. The government is asserting that because there are ultimate economic consequences it has the power to control the most basic decisions about how people spend their own money in their day-to-day lives. The next stops on this outbound train could be mortgages, college tuition, credit, investment, saving for retirement, Treasurys, and who knows what else.

If the Court upholds ObamaCare, “could” in the final excerpted paragraph turns into “will.”

Part 2 will come tomorrow.

This morning, P.J. Gladnick at NewsBusters pointed to how the Des Moines Register avoided identifying the employer of a “prominent member of a well known Democrat campaign consulting firm” who was also a “former Obama campaign staffer” until the firm, LINK Strategies, had a chance to fire him. Once Zachary Edwards was shown the door, it it became a “safe” story to cover, whereupon the Register ran the story as “Political consultants quickly fire arrested man.” But of course.

Though the story of Edwards’s arrest in connection with an attempt to steal Iowa Secretary of State Matt Schultz’s identity is nationally newsworthy, it appears that the Associated Press has not yet covered it that way, while avoiding the damning details in its local/regional story.

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From Net Right Daily:

It is telling that on the same day the Wall Street Journal published a lead editorial in favor of legislation that would censor the Internet in the name of protecting copyright that the bill lost no less than 14 previous backers, who dropped their support of the legislation.

Eight were in the Senate alone, including Senators Marco Rubio, Jim Inhofe, John Cornyn, Orrin Hatch, John Boozman, David Vitter, Kelly Ayotte, and Roy Blunt. On the House side, former cosponsors Representatives Ben Quayle, Lee Terry, Dennis Ross, Steve Scalise, Tim Griffin and Tim Holden also bolted from a bill that can only be said to be imploding.

What was behind the defections? A flood of thousands of emails and phone calls from concerned Americans, prodded on by super-popular websites like Wikipedia.org that went dark on Jan. 18 in protest of the legislation. Instead of being able to look up information, the thousands of sites that went black urged regular users to contact their Senators and Congressmen in opposition to the bills.

It appears to be working, and more defections are expected. A number of previously undeclared legislators have also come out against the bill, striking a significant blow to the legislation’s momentum.

Still waiting on Steve Chabot to withdraw his House cosponsorship. Cleanup in OH-01, Steve …

The good news is that the Stop Online Piracy Act has been “killed”:

The controversial Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) has effectively been stopped in its tracks. Virginia Republican Representative Eric Cantor killed the bill.

However, an equally controversial Protect IP Act (PIPA) which is being proposed in the US Senate may still get through.

Massive online protests against SOPA certainly played a role in killing the bill.

It could still come back to life, but its near-term prospects are grim.

The bad news for OH-01 Congressional District residents is that Republican Congressman Steve Chabot appears to have never renounced his cosponsorship of SOPA. Absent a voluntary “I was wrong, I am sorry,” it’s difficult at best and perhaps impossible to make a case that he should continue in Congress, even though it is in all likelihood too late for a primary challenge.

Waiting, Steve …

Say it ain’t so, Steve.

The news on the progress of Software Online Piracy Act proceedings in the House Judiciary Committee is not good, with a tiny silver lining:

We weren’t supposed to be able to stop SOPA, but we could at least raise awareness, put up a fight, and prepare for the floor votes. And sure enough, the vote to keep the Internet censorship provisions went in favor of censorship 22-11.

Well, it turns out, we managed to slow the process down. After we made our threats to start working on primary challenges over that 22-11 vote, Lamar Smith put off SOPA, halting the current process until next week at the earliest. Stay sharp, but feel good about this delay. The longer we delay, the more we can gain support for the OPEN Act instead of SOPA.

SOPA opponents Darrell Issa, Zoe Lofgren, Jared Polis, and Jason Chaffetz also deserve credit. Why yes, that list does include a Democrat. Just shows how wrong Lamar Smith is to side with disgraced former Senator Chris Dodd and the MPAA on this. Two men who between them have no clue how the Internet works.

Here’s more from Adweek.com:

SOPA Markup Halted; Opponents Get a Little More Time; Adjournment only delays inevitable

With 31 co-sponsors on both sides of the aisle, the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is likely unstoppable in the Judiciary Committee, despite a well-orchestrated and highly visible campaign to kill it by SOPA opponents both in and out of the hearing room.

But the inevitable will have to wait for another day. With votes looming on the House floor, Judiciary Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, the lead sponsor of SOPA, was forced to adjourn the markup in its second day. The Committee has scheduled to pick up the market next Wednesday.

Committee members, especially opponents, were no doubt breathing a sigh a relief after soldiering through a 12-hour day on Thursday and an hour Friday morning, until Smith adjourned about 1:30 p.m. following a two-hour recess.

The markup was, if anything, great theater until its abrupt adjournment.

Hoping to defy the odds and delay the markup, SOPA opponents Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., joined by other members such as Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah., used every tactic and argument at their disposal, including offering some 60 amendments. They are part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers from both chambers pushing the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act, an alternative bill to SOPA in the House and Protect IP in the Senate.

All three bills are aimed at shutting down foreign websites that infringe on copyright holders and sell counterfeit goods, but OPEN takes a different approach than SOPA and Protect IP. To combat rogue sites, OPEN would set up the International Trade Commission to go after foreign sites by cutting off advertising and payment to those venues. SOPA would use the U.S. legal system to force domain name servers and Internet service providers to block websites and links to infringing material, an approach the Internet community believes goes way too far.

… At the beginning of markup Day 2, Issa knew he couldn’t win the markup fight. “It’s very clear we’re going to lose here today, and lose in the worst possible way, without all the facts,” Issa said.

But now at least, he and SOPA opponents have got a little more breathing room.

Almost, Adweek. We KNOW it goes too far.

I can’t seem to get any committee roll call detail, but there’s very little doubt that “my” congressman, erstwhile Tea Party supporter turned co-sponsoring Internet censor Steve Chabot, has been voting with the committee’s misguided majority.

Not that yours truly’s travails are of surpassing importance, but I should inform readers that I called Chabot’s office four times during the previous three days asking for some form of documented justification as to why he is co-sponsoring this travesty. It wasn’t until yesterday on call #4 that I was informed that they could/would not send me information because I don’t live in his district.

Until this week, the BizzyBlog bunker was located in Jean Schmidt’s OH-02. But effective on December 14, when the redrawn congressional map out of Columbus became official (still subject to challenge, I think, but it’s official until a challenge succeeds), it is now in Chabot’s OH-01. The person I spoke with on call #4 (I should emphasize that Chabot’s peeps have been uniformly polite despite the tension) told me that she thought that eligibility for communications might be based on Chabot’s old district lines until Election Day 2012. At that point, I invoked the fact that I have editorialized on the topic, that perhaps Mr. Chabot might recognize me from past commentaries on his performance — usually good (e.g. here and here) and occasionally bad (here and here), and that surely he has said something somewhere about SOPA’s alleged desirability.

So far, I’ve received nothing. For now, we must assume that Mr. Chabot is on board with what has accurately been described as “China-Style Internet Censorship.”

If Mr. Chabot continues to lead the charge for this, he’s lost my vote. I only wish that it were realistic in the short time between now and next year’s primary for a credible challenger to emerge. Sadly, that’s a pipedream.

_________________________________________

UPDATE: Paul Tassi at Forbes — “How SOPA Could Ruin My Life.” Read the whole thing. Folks, this is not idle chit-chat or nerdy paranoia.

Law prof Instapundit’s reax: “Tar. Feathers.”

UPDATE 2: At TechDirt –

Despite the fact that Congress was supposed to be out of session until the end of January, the Judiciary Committee has just announced plans to come back to continue the markup this coming Wednesday (Dec. 21). This is rather unusual and totally unnecessary. But it shows just how desperate Hollywood is to pass this bill as quickly as possible, before the momentum of opposition builds up even further.

Another Instapundit reax: “SOPA Hearing Not Delayed Until Next Year — Rescheduled For the 21st In The Hope You Won’t Notice.”

On Tuesday (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted an email I received from Obama For America — I forgot to mention the subject line, which was “In honor of the GOP” — that encouraged readers to give $3 or more to Barack Obama’s reelection campaign and become entered to win dinner with the president and his wife. The email also promised donors that OFA would taunt (my word) a Republican acquaintance on their behalf with the fact that they just gave if they provided an email address to which to send the taunt. As will be shown later, establishment press coverage of this uniquely odious twist in campaign financing and conduct has been virtually non-existent.

In his commentary on the Obama campaign’s childishness, the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto revealed that he had been forwarded a related OFA email targeting Facebook and Twitter users with another intensely annoying nuance. It reads as follows (bolds are mine throughout this post):

(more…)

Here are some examples of Executive Orders issued by President Obama that have received New York Times or Associated Press coverage:

• NYT, October 29 — “Obama Order Strengthens Spy Oversight” (the browser window title is “Obama Moves to Roll Back Bush Changes to Intelligence Oversight Board”).
• NYT, October 2 – ”Obama Prohibits Federal Employees From Texting While Driving for Work.”
• NYT, March 10 – ”Obama Lifts Bush’s Strict Limits on Stem Cell Research.”
• AP, October 5 – ”Obama Puts Gov’t on Greenhouse Gas Diet.”
• AP, November 10 – ”US starts effort to boost hiring of veterans” (the window title at the Boston Globe is “Obama encourages federal hiring of veterans”).

Here is an Executive Order (Number 13524) issued last week that, based on searches at the Times (on “Interpol” and “executive order” in quotes) and the AP (“interpol“; “executive order” in quotes), respectively, has not been covered:

AMENDING EXECUTIVE ORDER 12425 DESIGNATING INTERPOL
AS A PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION ENTITLED TO
ENJOY CERTAIN PRIVILEGES, EXEMPTIONS, AND IMMUNITIES

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288), and in order to extend the appropriate privileges, exemptions, and immunities to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12425 of June 16, 1983, as amended, is further amended by deleting from the first sentence the words “except those provided by Section 2(c), Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act” and the semicolon that immediately precedes them.

Uh, this seems a little more significant than a ban on texting.

Given the obsession news organizations and Congress had with certain provisions of the Patriot Act and supposed invasions of privacy during Bush 43′s presidency, it’s more than a bit outrageous that an Executive Order such as this would go unaddressed by both groups, especially when you see exactly what it does to Ronald Reagan’s original EO 12425 of 1983 as it has stood since it was amended in 1995 (the italicized text represents what Obama’s EO removes):

International Criminal Police Organizations

By virtue of the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and statutes of the United States, including Section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (59 Stat. 669, 22 U.S.C. 288), it is hereby ordered that the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), in which the United States participates pursuant to 22 U.S.C. 263a, is hereby designated as a public international organization entitled to enjoy the privileges, exemptions and immunities conferred by the International Organizations Immunities Act; except those provided by Section 2(c), Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act. This designation is not intended to abridge in any respect the privileges, exemptions or immunities which such organization may have acquired or may acquire by international agreement or by Congressional action.

President Clinton’s EO 12971 in 1995 had already removed the following bracketed text from Reagan’s original — ["the portions of Section 2(d) and Section 3 relating to customs duties and federal internal-revenue importation taxes,"].

The point of this post is that if the establishment media were interested in performing their public watchdog function, someone in the press somewhere would have reported on the issuance of this EO. Instead, it was first noted by blogs and real watchdog groups. Andy McCarthy’s cite at the Corner is how I learned of it.

I’ll leave discussing the possible merits, demerits, and implications of the EO to commenters.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

Yost, at his web site (excerpted; read the whole thing; bold after title is mine):

Lowering the Price of Perfidy

The taxpayer-funded defense of three rogue state workers who invaded Joe the Plumber’s privacy sends the wrong message to other state workers: don’t worry, we’ll take care of you if you get caught. It’s more than just an individual wrong: it degrades our government and encourages bad behavior.

…. The attorney general has a duty to defend state workers who are sued.

…. But the law lets the attorney general off the hook when state workers go rogue. When the worker is doing stuff that’s not part of the job – say, searching for politically embarrassing material in confidential government databases – the attorney general “shall not” represent them. The same rule applies for workers who act with malice, or recklessly. No free legal defense.

“Shall not” is not my phrase – it’s what the law says.

When a state worker makes a mistake, the government should defend them. Mistakes happen — but what happened to Joe the Plumber wasn’t a mistake. It was a deliberate act, with an attempted cover-up.

…. The threat of big trouble and legal bills is a deterrent to such bad behavior, and it should be. A free, taxpayer-funded defense lowers the price of perfidy for others who would loyally do the dirty work of their political masters. That price doesn’t need to be lowered — it’s low enough already.

DeWine, at his web site:

….. ….. ….. …..

The story’s three days old. Where’s Mike?

Yeah, he commented on Cordray’s move in the DDN article:

“These people violated the privacy of an Ohio citizen and they did it, it would appear, to advance a partisan political campaign, and I think taxpayers will be shocked to find that their tax dollars are going to defend them,” said Mike DeWine of Cedarville, the former U.S. senator and Greene County prosecutor.

But so did Yost:

“It’s an outrageous use of taxpayer money to defend the invasion of a citizen’s privacy.”

Yost even does the sound-bite thing better than DeWine, who supposedly has had years of practice.

DeWine has begun the process of receiving what from all appearances will be serial spankings at county endorsement meetings; the first of what I expect will be many was administered by Butler County last week (BizzyBlog coverage and commentary is here). Yost got the county’s endorsement by a 68%-32% margin.

DeWine’s virtual non-presence on the web (a home page, a bio, and a PDF of his candidacy announcement) contrasts sharply with Yost’s frequently-updated, well-presented effort.

Yost has been following the state employee-orchestrated Joe the Plumber perfidy almost since it began and campaigning aggressively while carrying out his prosecutorial duties in Delaware County. DeWine has been virtually silent and schmoozing big-bucks people (not very successfully, as I understand it) while teaching a college course or two. I think that’s a precursive indicator of who will work harder as a sensible, principled conservative representing the interests of the Buckeye State’s citizens.

As to Cordray, an opposition party with spine would be pursuing impeachment, or at least censure, or at least a legislative resolution, or …. at least issue a press release …. or even put up a blog post. But in this state, there’s only ORPINO, the Ohio Republican Party In Name Only. Thus, there has been no response.

Note: This post originally went up before 9 a.m. this morning, but has been carried to the top. It will stay at or near the top for the rest of the day because of its relevance.

Thanks to Instapundit for the link, and to Michelle Malkin and Doug Powers for the tweets.

_________________________________

Organizing For America’s nationally-orchestrated, last-ditch, get-out-the-vote campaign in NY-23 is a privacy-invading and potentially dangerous effort.

NY-23 residents should be aware that because of a pervasive lack of controls in OFA’s get-out-the-vote operations and a poorly designed campaign:

• The person calling them could be a potential spammer, thief, or even a violent criminal.
• That person will be asking for personal information that no one should be willing to give out, including but perhaps not limited to personal e-mail addresses, cell phone numbers, and the time of day voters plan to vote.
• OFA may be unable to track down persons who call on its behalf if unauthorized, illegal, or criminal acts occur as a result of information learned during this campaign.

If you’re on the home page, click “More” to read the detailed post.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

(more…)

It’s here.

It will go up here at BizzyBlog on Sunday morning (link won’t work until then) after the blackout expires.

_________________________________________________________

Snarky Comment: Perhaps ceding control over the Internet to “the rest of the world” is the real reason why Obama has been handed (I would say “won,” but even his most fevered fans can’t seriously argue that this man has yet done anything to advance the cause of peace) the Nobel Peace Prize.

It will be interesting to see what Saturday Night Live does with the Nobel news.

It’s here.

It will go up here at BizzyBlog on Sunday (link won’t work until then) when the blackout expires.

Subheadline: “What do Iran, China, and the U.S. have in common? More than you might think.”

____________________________________________

Related: China’s police state, with whom the members of the BizzyBlog Internet Wall of Shame have been cooperating for almost four years, wants to require that a government-developed program called “Green Dam” be installed on all new computers sold in that country.

This is “1984″ arriving with full force 25 years later. It goes far, far beyond “web filtering” (which is bad enough), an understated characterization that all too many media reports are using.

This excerpt from an Epoch Times article describes Green Dam’s functions and purposes (bolds are mine):

“Green Dam-Youth Escort” was developed by Jinhui Computer Systems Inc. and Dazheng Language Process Inc., with the former in charge of image filtration and the later keyword filtration. In 2005, Dazheng was involved in the development of a “secret files intercept system” for the Chinese army. According to its Web site, Jinhui has worked with both the Chinese army and the public security ministry.

The regime says Green Dam can block pornography, filter illicit content, control web surfing time, and check browsing records. In fact, the software is capable of blocking politically sensitive websites, filtering out content based on a list of keywords, recording keystrokes and passwords, taking screenshots every 3 minutes, and recording all of the websites visited along with all of the user’s other internet activity.

….. Computer hackers in China have cracked open Green Dam’s keyword library and administrative codes.

According to the information produced by these hackers, Green Dam has 2,700 keywords relating to pornography, and 6,500 politically sensitive keywords. While these keywords include references to the Tiananmen Square massacre and Tibet, the great majority of the keywords refer to Falun Gong, the spiritual practice the Chinese regime banned and began persecuting in 1999.

….. Analysts believe that Green Dam gives the regime the ability to tighten its control by collecting personal information and secretly sending it to a central database, while strengthening the regime’s ability to censor the internet. The collected information could then be used to persecute dissidents.

In 2003 the Chinese regime launched the Golden Shield, also known as the Great Firewall of China, an internet filtering system that cost tens of billions of yuan. The Internet Freedom Consortium believes Golden Shield is the world’s most stringent web filtering system.

….. However, Golden Shield can be circumvented by such popular anti-filtering software programs as FreeGate, UltraSurf, and Garden. Green Dam can block these programs.

Chinese users of Green Dam have found that the Green-Dam injects a dll file into Internet Explorer that prohibits the usage of FreeGate. Analysts predict that Green Dam will in its future updates add code that will prohibit the usage of proxy servers, another anti-blockage technology.

The makers of Green Dam claim that, while the software will be pre-installed, users can remove it.

A mainland Chinese computer expert discovered the truth after he installed and uninstalled the screening software. He said, “When we used its [Green Dam] uninstallation program to uninstall the software, about half of Green Dam’s 110 system files continued to reside in the computer. After restarting the computer, Green Dam’s screening program is running actively in the background. The only part of the software uninstalled is its user interface.”

The expert added, “Pre-loading the screening software and providing an uninstallation program that does not actually uninstall the software is an act of coercion. Green Dam project is a coercive software.”

Green Dam was supposed to be mandatory on all new PCs shipped in China beginning on July 1, but the government “delayed” the order. Nevertheless, many new PCs are shipping with the software either installed or on an accompanying CD (note the mischaracterization of Green Dam’s range of functions):

PC makers voluntarily supply Web filter in China

Several PC makers were including controversial Internet-filtering software with computers shipped in China on Thursday despite a government decision to postpone its plan to make such a step mandatory.

Beijing’s decision this week to delay the requirement that the filtering software — known as Green Dam — by pre-installed or supplied on disk with all computers sold in China averted a possible trade clash with the United States and Europe. But the move by some makers to include the software anyway could reignite complaints by Chinese Web users.

Also Thursday, a government newspaper said regulators will revive the plan to make Green Dam mandatory at some point, a move that would disappoint opponents who hoped the government would drop the effort.

Taiwan’s Acer Inc. — the world’s third-largest PC maker — Sony Corp. and China’s Haier Group said they were shipping Green Dam on disks with computers for sale in China. Taiwan’s Asus Inc. said it was preparing to do so. Taiwanese laptop maker BenQ Inc., said the system was on the hard drives of its computers.

Acer was supplying Green Dam because disks already were packed with PCs before the government postponed the plan, that had been due to take effect Wednesday, said a company spokeswoman, Meng Lei. Other companies did not give reasons for supplying the system.

Hewlett-Packard Inc., the world’s top PC manufacturer, said it was working with the U.S. government to get more information and declined to comment further. Dell Inc., the No. 2 producer, did not immediately respond to questions about its plans.

China’s Lenovo Group, the No. 4 producer, did not immediately respond to questions, but the official China Daily newspaper said Green Dam was included with its PCs.

If the PC makers roll over on this, membership in the BizzyBlog Wall of Shame will grow substantially. I would suggest that, absent a back-down, anyone who buys a computer from a PC maker that continues to ship units with Green Dam already installed is assisting in the oppression of over a billion fellow human beings.

Contrary to naively accepted conventional wisdom, technology in and of itself is an not an automatic freedom-enhancer. In the wrong hands, especially in the absence of a robust defense of our God-given rights to free expression, speech, and personal privacy, it’s clearly a serious threat.

_________________________________________________

UPDATE, 5:20 p.m. — A related post is at NewsBusters.

The Columbus Dispatch has done some impressive work exposing the unauthorized and arguably illegal database diving done by State of Ohio employees into the records of Joe the Plumber in October. The rest of Ohio’s and the nation’s media have been virtually asleep.

In a previous post (at NewsBusters; at BizzyBlog), I noted that Vanessa Niekamp, the state employee who blew the lid off the underhanded undertaking, was virtually unknown, while many other past government whistleblowers have been treated as media heroes.

A story in the Dispatch this morning that should be read in full (HT Michelle Malkin) about Ms. Niekamp’s testimony before the Ohio House’s Government and Elections Committee reveals just how imperiled she was. While carrying out a personal order from a superior who was trying to cover his tracks, she was reminded that she was an “unclassified” employee. In plain English, she was threatened with her job if she didn’t do what she was told (bolds are mine):

The state worker who unwittingly ran an improper child-support check on the man known as Joe the Plumber told lawmakers yesterday that a deputy director later “dictated” how she was supposed to cover it up.

Here’s the “unwitting” part:

….. the day after Republican presidential nominee John McCain talked about Wurzelbacher in his final presidential debate Oct. 15 with Democrat Barack Obama ….. Assistant Deputy Director Carri Brown asked her (Niekamp) to check the state child-support computer system for Wurzelbacher.

Brown “claimed that he had contacted our agency with a dispute about how much child support he owed,” Niekamp said.

Niekamp, who did not recognize the name, said Brown took some notes, thanked her and left.

Here’s the cover-up attempt:

A week later, (Department of Job and Family Services Deputy Director Doug) Thompson came to her office with a different explanation — that he, Jones-Kelley and assistant director Fred Williams had requested the check.

“Doug told me that the person Carri had asked me to look up was Joe the Plumber — the one who was talked about in the national news. He said he needed my help explaining something,” Niekamp said.

“Doug then told me I must write an e-mail to our agency’s information-security officer to explain why the file had been accessed. He turned my computer screen so he could see it and dictated word for word what he wanted me to write. …

“He then told me that we needed to make sure that we answer questions about what happened the same way, so that our versions were not different from each other. Before he said that, he reminded me that I was an unclassified employee — which, as you may know, is someone who can be fired without cause.”

Fortunately for people who believe in government accountability, Niekamp immediately went to the Ohio Office of the Inspector General.

Finally, here’s the smoking gun that obliterates any justification for the ludicrously lenient “punishments” state employees involved received (mostly one-month suspensions without pay):

Niekamp said she knew the checks were improper because the staff undergoes training and must read and sign a form explaining when they can access confidential and personal information maintained by the department.

In other words, agency officials involved knew that what they were doing was strictly against policy, if not illegal.

The one-month suspensions handed down by Ted Strickland are in-your-face insults to the citizens of Ohio. These people have no business being State of Ohio employees ever again, in any capacity. If they return, we will know beyond doubt that Ohio’s government — from the very top down — only cares about our privacy as long as we don’t get in their way.

Given that this news involves a person who became a national figure in a presidential race in key swing state, you would think that all of this will be reported prominently in the rest of the country. You might think that the media would be asking the President-elect what he thinks of the subterfuge that was done on his behalf. Wanna bet?

As for Ms. Niekamp, what I wrote two weeks ago still holds: “I hope (her) legal representation is strong, as it’s reasonable to anticipate that her whistleblowing will not go unpunished.”

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.