Dear Hackers: Prepare to hack Olympia

The citizens of Washington state passed an initiative that called for open records. What a concept! We The People are “allowed” to view the correspondence of our employees in political office.

The state Legislature decided that law did not apply to them and, for years, has decided to hide our property from us. Yes, their work belongs to us as we pay them to create it.

A coalition of news organizations sued to force the Legislature to follow what is plainly written in the law. A judge ruled that the law actually means what it says. Legislators cannot hide their emails, calendar items and the like from us.

Of course, the Legislature has appealed and is spending our money to fight us in court.

As part of their use of our money to thwart our will, a bipartisan bill is making its way through Olympia to act as a work around to the judge’s order.

(Side note: it is sometimes useful to keep track of issues that get bipartisan support. In DC, spying on Americans, waivers from Obamacare, and pay raises gets it. In Olympia, refusing to let us see the work of our employees gets it).

This is a hide-the-ball game. As Olympia appeals the ruling with our money, they are writing a law with more of our money. If passed, the issue will then have to go back through the court system.

This is garbage.

If SB 6617 passes and our employees continue to hide our property from us it will be morally correct for hackers to get our property for us. I didn’t say it would be legal, but it will absolutely be moral, correct, patriotic and a welcome lesson for politicians who have very clearly forgotten their place.