Congress voting to show their cards would be like them taking a pay cut.
It could be used against me in my field of work.
No thank you.
The “unpopular” and “in what world” act like a double-negative.
https://apnews.com/article/congress-data-breach-hack-identit...
A highly politically polarized one.
My understanding is this guy disclosed Trump's tax returns to some liberal news organizations. Many people hate Trump so much that I think they'd oppose this prosecution and characterize this guys actions as a public service.
With a year or two preparation, you can make your tax return say whatever you want. Its only purposes is to determine taxes owed for a given year. That’s it. Not provide a summary of your financial interests.
I’ve personally seen political candidates structure their lives in a way so that their tax return says nothing.
One candidate and her husband sold massive business interests two years before running, with no expectation of payment until after the election.
Those tax forms honestly said they had no income and no business interests.
Which is legit, because the IRS is about getting the money it’s owed, not providing transparency into an individuals financial incentives.
Which is why they usually disclose more.
Assets and accounts aren’t taxable, so don’t appear on income tax forms.
Tax forms really aren’t about transparency at all.
Positions like President should have to disclose most of this information publicly -- lightly redacted, so no need to publish their bank account numbers, but the figures and institutions should be public knowledge, or at least metadata about institutions.
Suppose some random person decided that all software engineer (or whatever your job is) information should be public so they release your tax returns. How do you protect yourself? Do you just have to shrug and say, "well $RANDOM_PERSON thinks this is right, so I guess it is"
We don’t know that until we actually pass a law. In fact, if the law states that something is unlawful, illegal or criminal, that is the prior agreement we are already under per the law.
> then it's ok to support vigilantism that acts towards that end
It costs you nothing to “support” it, unless you’re the criminal.
Public official A promised to do so, publicly and repeatedly. Public official A ostensibly earned some level of goodwill for declaring that. I kind of feel like the leaker held up A's end of the contract for him.
Put it another way: If I published an ad on a website you visited promising "$500 just for clicking on this link", then you tracked me down and took the $500, would anyone feel bad for me? It would have been an illegal act, but it would hardly feel like a perversion of justice.