Every 10 years, the federal government is required to carry out a Constitutionally-required enumeration of the people for purposes of apportioning representation. As part of the census form, many additional questions are asked as well including your phone number, race, occupant names, birthdays, and a host of other personal information. This information can prove to be very useful for data geeks, but I and anyone else who values privacy should be greatly concerned about the amount of information collected by the federal government.

Very plainly on the census form, it states that federal law prohibits sharing this data in any personally identifiable fashion. I have founded doubts as to whether or not this actually happens. In World War II, census data was used to round up Japanese families to put them into internment camps. More recently, information on individuals of Middle Eastern decent was requested by and provided to the Department of Homeland Security for unspecified purposes; it was never established if that personally identifiable information was held in confidence or not. Combined with actions like the PATRIOT Act, warrantless wiretapping, and Carnivore, I have little confidence that the data collected about me will actually remain in confidence, especially if a “national emergency”, real or fabricated, dictates its disclosure to law enforcement agencies.

Even if the federal government were using this data for purely innocuous purposes, I also have doubts about their ability to properly secure the information. For decades, federal agencies have received D+ or lower grades on information systems security, frequently experiencing breaches and compromises. Combine this paper-thin security with a treasure trove of personal data and you are just asking for a major theft of data that could impact every family in America. It makes the infamous TJ Maxx data theft seem like child’s play.

It’s also concerning that despite that the feds already have all of the information requested, they are asking for it again. Again, we see the ineptitude of federal IT staff as a whole at work. We have disparate data systems scattered over hundreds of agencies with no way of collecting that data together. Instead of fixing those fundamental flaws, the census bureau is instead sending out reminder letters a week before sending the actual census and dispatching tens of thousands of workers across the country to do what a couple of DBAs, with the right tools, could get done in a week with a case of Mountain Dew and a freezer full of pizza rolls. It would probably even be more efficient to pay one of those background check companies to collect the data at $40 a head; at a population of around 300M, the census would end up taking less time and 1/10 of the money with arguably better results.

I, for one, will only be filling out those fields I would feel comfortable with the feds having in a central database that I knew could be used to less-than-altruistic purposes or exposed to the criminal data theft underworld. I would encourage all of you to do the same.

Local governments all around are facing some tough times and Salt Lake County is no different. The county had to make some deep cuts, over 17%, to make ends meet. Certainly lean times lead to creative solutions, but I’m not so sure about the way that the Unified Police Department has chosen to go about it.

As you may have read, the UPD has decided to implement a fee for police service to be collected once a quarter. This fee is about $174 per year. That in and of itself isn’t that big of a deal to me. What is a big deal is the manner in which this fee is being collected and the manner in which the county is trying to spin it. Call it a fee, a surcharge, or whatever you want, it’s still a tax.

What’s particularly laughable is that this fee is being billed as somehow much more transparent than an annual property tax statement. On the contrary, it’s even less so. My property tax statement contains line items for each service that I am receiving. I can, at a glance, figure out how much I pay for fire, library, and even garbage service. If the increase cost of policing were, instead, listed as a line item on my property tax bill, I would still know exactly what I’m paying for police service. By keeping it on a separate statement, however, I now have to start adding up various bills to figure out just how much my local government costs. Making a taxpayer do more work to figure out what they are paying and what it is for is less transparency, not more.

It’s also a non-argument that using fees instead of taxes gives the county more flexibility. If the county can’t implement flexible taxation based on residence type or the number of employees at a business, then it’s time to ask the legislature to make changes to the law. I agree in principle that businesses that create higher police costs should bear a higher portion of the burden. (You may also notice that apartments are charged more than homeowners, a tacit admission that single-dwelling units cause less crime.) It’s also a good thing to have non-profits contributing at least something to the costs of running the county. Just don’t use fees as a end-run around legislative roadblocks. That kind of behavior doesn’t solve the problem and, more often than not, incurs the wrath of the legislature with retaliatory new laws.

Apparently the tea party movement in Nevada has gotten to a point where they want to register as a third party and run a candidate of their own for US Senate. Given the anger at establishment Republicans, I can’t say that I’m too surprised. That is, until you consider that a third party, the Independent American Party, already exists in Nevada with ballot access, over 4% of total active registered voters, and a platform not too terribly far from where the tea party crowd stands.

It seems like rather bad strategy to forge ahead down the path of a new party when you could simply build on the momentum of a party that already has the same goal no baggage, and a large number of registered voters. (The IAP also has a lot of street cred since they lead initiative petitions to overturn a record tax increase and stop public employee double-dipping.) Anger has trumped reason in Nevada tea party activists.

Sen. Howard Stephenson, president of the Utah “Taxpayers” Association, finds himself in the middle of picking market winners and losers in Paul Rolly’s latest column. Apparently our lobbyist senator pressured a purchasing committee to pick a favored vendor even going so far as to have the RFP re-written to be tailor made for the company. Now the company is bankrupt and the state is out $3.5M with nothing to show for it. And yet, this same Senator and the organization he heads spend an awful lot of time talking about how UTOPIA is unfair market competition and how the free market should rule.

Howard Stephenson, you’re a hypocrite.

Bob Bennett is in the fight of his political career. Several strong candidates are pushing a fierce intra-party challenge that has forced “Bailout Bob” to fight strong and hard to hold onto that Senate seat. Bennett, however, doesn’t seem to really understand why people are so upset with him.

What America is tired of is Beltway politics. Bob Bennett, however, actively plays the game. Not only does he play it, he excels at it and even enjoys it. That just isn’t playing very well with the voting public anymore. We’re all tired of the same old Washington games, we’re tired of establishment politics, and we’re tired of powerful interests getting special favors. What’s too bad for Bennett is that his record shows that he’s been all over that action.

That’s what makes his reaction all the more ineffective. He (or his campaign team) has misidentified the problem as being perceived either as too liberal or not conservative enough. As a result, Bennett has taken to jumping onto the tea party bandwagon everywhere he can. I don’t think that’s going to work so well. Signing the Club for Growth pledge and talking endlessly about the Constitution rings hollow so long as he’s racking up endorsements from establishment politicos like Newt Gringrich at fancy fundraisers.

And that’s the proof positive that Bob Bennett doesn’t get it.

I was perusing through the list of bills filed so far up at the hill and came across SB38, Restrictions on High Occupancy Vehicle Lane. This adopts a practice used in many other states that turns HOV lanes into normal lanes outside of peak traffic hours defined in the bill as 6AM to 9AM and 4PM to 7PM. This would certainly be a welcome change to help lessen congestion outside of the morning and evening commutes.

Even so, I see a few tweaks worth considering before it hits the final version. The lane restrictions would remain in effect all days of the week, not just on weekdays. Given the low traffic on Saturdays and Sundays, it would make sense to amend the bill so that HOV restrictions are only in effect Monday through Friday. I also question the wisdom of removing the double white lines and restricted lane access. I could see suspending the rules of lane entry and exit during non-peak hours, but during peak hours you have crazy drivers darting in and out to make a quick pass, even if they are ineligible to use the lane at that time. That’s why they were put there in the first place.

I’ve already e-mailed Sen. Karen Morgan to provide this feedback. Even without modification, I think this is a good common-sense bill that should be passed.

Just so I’m clear: In the wake of electoral defeat, Republicans decide to do more to appease their base and Democrats start the meme that they’re “doubling down on crazy”. Now when Democrats are in the wake of electoral defeat, they decide the solution is to… do more to appear their base, yet this isn’t also “doubling down on crazy”? Help me understand the disconnect on this double standard. I really don’t get it.

There’s a lot of buzz now that Republican Scott Brown defeated Democrat Martha Coakley for the US Senate seat in Massachusetts left vacant after Sen. Ted Kennedy’s death. Both sides are trying to find the hidden meaning behind such an upset. Was it a referendum on President Obama’s job performance? Maybe a signal that voters are unhappy with the direction that health care reform has taken? General anger at Congress or specific anger at Democrats? While I’m sure these were mitigating factors, they completely ignore the real lesson to be learned, a lesson straight out of Political Science 101. And what lesson might that be?

All it takes is one word to define the campaign: arrogance, as in Coakley had plenty of it. She made an assumption that after winning the Democratic primary for the special election, she could coast to an easy victory on the wide margin of registered Democrats and endorsements from the late Sen. Kennedy’s relatives. As a result, she didn’t actively campaign for the office until polls showed that the race was very close. By then, it was far too late. Brown had positioned himself as a moderate and had taken control of the narrative. It also didn’t help that Coakley was about as personable as a stereotypical movie high school nurse. This wasn’t helped by her now infamous “Yankee fan”, “World Trade Center”, and “emergency room” flubs, none of which helped to make her appear more personable or in-touch with the state.

This was basically a perfect storm: a personable hard campaigner went head-to-head with an arrogant and lazy foot-in-mouth candidate and won the day. The lesson to be learned here is that running a strong campaign can make any seat unsafe, especially when the opponent is more-or-less asleep at the wheel. An advantage in registered voters means nothing if you do not retain that advantage at the polls. Reading any further than that into this special election may be fun or personally satisfying, but it distracts from the real lesson to be learned.

On a more local note, Utahns should be taking note. Republicans used to coasting to an easy victory can still lose races. Just look at what happened to Greg Curtis.

As of late last week, the field for governor shaped up as a battle between sorta incumbent Gov. Gary Herbert and Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon. Herbert hasn’t been at the helm for very long, but I already have a pretty good feel for where he’s heading, and I’m not entirely sure I like it. Like many other Utahns, I’m pretty ticked off about rolling over to the Southern Nevada Water Authority and totally hosing rural ranchers and farmers in Snake Valley. I’m also not very impressed that he’s decided to more-or-less give EnergySolutions the green light to truck in whatever the heck it is they want to from whatever state they want to. It remains to be seen if he can truly pull a rabbit out of hat to balance this year’s budget (I have a feeling he’ll pull it off), but he seems to be a bit too wary of tax increases, even if they end up being necessary.

Mayor Corroon, on the other hand, has proven himself a very capable executive in the largest county in the state. He stood fast on opposing tax increases when they weren’t necessary and proposing raising taxes when it was. I don’t feel like Salt Lake County is rolling in excess and I’m glad we have a mayor who’s willing and able to call those shots, even when it may be politically unpopular. I like taxes as low as possible just like the next guy, but I also realistically understand when things are more expensive and that you will always reach a point at which you can’t cut any more. (This in no way insinuates that there can’t be more belt-tightening at the county level, but the effort required to find more cuts may not be worth the final amount.) I’m also confident that if Corroon was governor, we wouldn’t be hand-wringing about Las Vegas water grabs or depleted uranium.

That’s what I want from a governor, someone who defines quality of life as something greater than tax revenues. I don’t feel like Gov. Herbert has done a good job in that regard, but Mayor Corroon has already proven himself by fighting the soccer stadium handout to millionaire crybaby Dave Checketts (who somehow found the money to later buy the Rams), opposing taxes when they weren’t necessary, supporting them when they are, and generally being a good manager, just what we need in the executive branch. I hope you’ll join me in supporting Mayor Corroon’s bid for higher office.

One inevitable side effect of any wave of populism is that you’re going to have opportunists looking to latch onto that wave as quickly as they can. With the recent wave of anti-federal sentiment courtesy of the tea party movement, the hollow rings of opportunism have reached a similar crescendo. They range from the somewhat plausible to the laughably transparent (I’m looking at you, Orrin Hatch). To those of us with a track record of opposing the never-ending reach of federal power, it’s galling to find a bunch of wannabes and hypocrites attaching themselves to these ideals while simultaneously stoking the bonfire of crazy that seems to accompany it. It doesn’t just insult our intelligence, it makes us look bad.

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