Jeb Bush, Transparency with Violated Privacy

In the name of transparency, Jeb Bush violated the privacy of hundreds (if not thousands) of citizens. The former Florida governor and probable candidate for the 2016 presidential election posted, online on his website, 250,000 emails sent while he was governor from 1999 to 2007. It’s too bad that he “forgot” to ask permission from those with whom he was communicating. And so, on the binder published online on his website, there wound up the names, last names, and phone numbers, fiscal and sensitive data of private citizens. In the email, there were also private stories about suffering and desperation that even involved minors. He kicked up the dust.

My first thought, obviously, was to ask myself how it was possible that a man who can run for U.S. president, the son of George H. Bush and brother of George W. Bush, could have acted with such levity, a very serious levity, which also touched the members of his staff. I have always been a supporter of the need for transparency for those in public roles; whoever represents citizens must account for all his actions, his choices, and think of his private sphere as no longer private. What is private, in fact, could interest the collective, which could also make electoral choices on the basis of behaviors or actions that the politician shows in “private” life. But all of this obviously has a meaning for the politician himself; when the citizens are involved, their privacy needs to be protected.

The second thought, which quickly took over the first, came at the moment I read how much Jeb Bush risks by his negligence. Well, the candidate in the role of the president of the United States, according to what “the messenger” revealed, risks a fee of $500. It’s a joke, I said to myself. No, it’s no joke. A man, and not just any man, who puts at the mercy of the world the data of hundreds of citizens, across the ocean, he goes unpunished. In Italy, on the other hand, honest contractors who make a mistake with one address – one – get fined 120,000 euros. Now, it is not the wrong thing to do to put in place checks; actually, I am decidedly in favor of there being more, and aimed at all the operatives in the sector. But I cannot fail to reveal an embarrassing discrepancy between the European system, full of often exaggerated restrictions, and the American one, where the opposite law is in effect. Maybe, more than kicking up the dust where the dust is evident, we could prevent it from forming by thinking of balanced rules for granting the right weight to every type of privacy violation.