The public has spoken - and they appear to like what we are doing.
For several weeks we have been a bit beaten up. Congressional aides spoke of our site in sometimes vitriolic and, frankly, paranoid terms about how we invaded their privacy by publishing financial disclosures.
One staffer accused us of aiding the break-in of a home; others talked darkly about potential kidnappings and Russian gangsters. Many suggested lawsuits against us, at times for disclosing information that was already disclosed in the white pages delivered to homes and in Internet-searchable phone books. To be sure, there were some legitimate privacy issues raised but we have always believed the public right to know has trumped any privacy concerns that we have not already addressed.
When the story was a "local" one, confined to the congressional campus, we sensed the outrage about our publication of personal financial disclosures building to a level of hysteria - where the most absurd claims would be adopted as fact by an angry group of staffers. But the mood began to change dramatically yesterday when the Washington Post published a piece about how staffers were livid. NPR's All Things Considered ran an interview with LegiStorm founder Jock Friedly and American Public Media's Marketplace (also heard on many public radio stations nationwide) ran their own story. Salon and other publications joined in.
An encouraging thing happened: The broader public began to flood us with their private emails of encouragement. Dozens of others wrote complementary comments on our new blog. The Washington Times editorialized in favor of us.
We appreciate the support and we can assure you that we will continue to fight for all reasonable public disclosure measures while taking measures to protect staffer privacy where that does not damage the public's right to konw.
