Rory Reid wants stricter lobbying, ethics rules

Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid said state government needs to be more transparent and loopholes in state ethics laws closed "so that Nevadans have faith in their government."





During stops in both Northern and Southern Nevada on Thursday, Reid, a Democrat who is running for governor, outlined his policy plan to tighten state ethics laws and impose tougher penalties on those who violate them.


"There's obvious deficiencies in existing Nevada law," Reid said. "(For example), a legislator could pass an agency's budget while at the same time lobby that agency for a private party. That doesn't engender confidence."


He said he would work to extend the period for legislators who leave office to two years before they could lobby their former colleagues.


Another example Reid cited is that even if an elected official is found to have violated state ethics laws, there is virtually no penalty unless the violation is determined to be "willful." He said he would mandate ethics education for elected officials, state employees and lobbyists and said any violation of state ethics laws should come with a penalty.


"If they violate it, there should be strict liability," he said. "There are all kinds of loopholes that need to be closed."


That includes members of the governor's staff, he said.


"I want my administration to be open and transparent so people understand why I'm doing what I'm doing," Reid said.


To that end, he said, his schedule would be posted on the Internet daily, he would hold weekly press conferences and periodic town hall meetings across the state.


He said any individuals he appoints to boards would be required to sign "a code of responsibility" and disclose any instances where they have a potential conflict of interest.


Reid said he also wants to tighten rules for lobbying.


"To get Nevada back on track, we need to create a foundation of trust," he said.

Source:rgj.com/

Microsoft Caught Copying Software Code In China

Lots of folks have been submitting the story of Microsoft's China operations being caught with its fingers in the cookie jar in directly copying the code from a small company called Plurk. This isn't just the look and feel that was copied, but it appears that some of the code itself was directly copied. Of course, this seems doubly amusing, since Microsoft has, in the past, been at the forefront of complaining about "piracy" in China -- even as the details have long suggested Microsoft benefited greatly from unauthorized copying of its software in China, by building tremendous lock-in and making Microsoft the defacto standard. Of course, when a Microsoft exec recently announced that "piracy" was no longer a threat who knew he meant because Microsoft had decided to go in the other direction and use it to its own advantage?

Of course, I'm joking there. Microsoft continues to insist that piracy is a huge problem, and over in India, Dan alerts us that Microsoft has actually been fined for harassing "pirates" by trying to take them to court in the national capitol, instead of where the "piracy" actually happened:

According to the Court, Microsoft is needlessly abusing its unlimited cash flow as a power tool to financially hurt the defendants, who will have to travel all across the country in order to defend themselves. This abuse of "money power" to "harass" defendants is unacceptable according to the Court.

"When the constitution of India provides equality before law, this equality has to be all pervasive and cannot be allowed to be diluted because of money power or lobbying power," Judge Dhingra commented on the case.
So, it's fine to try to bankrupt "pirates" as you're pirating software yourself? Of course, Microsoft will squirm out of this one just fine. It'll claim it was a mistake, probably throw some money at Plurk (who just got a ton of free PR) and move on, still claiming that "piracy" is bad, bad, bad and must be stopped (especially in China).

Source:techdirt.com/