Abuse

Abuse of power may seem acute. It is often chronic, though, creeping up slowly and reoccurring often.

With both accountability and frankness required to stop the abuse, the difficulty in addressing abuse of power is two-fold.

Abuse of power in any government department is tolerated when Congressional leadership allows it. And, abuse of power in any government department is tolerated when the internal affairs departments of law and justice allow it. 

Abuse of power should not be tolerated by the public and, when our government demands that we take it, all non-violent means to cease the abuse should be considered.

Preventing the escalation of a public versus government conflict requires professional public servants, and sincerity to the public service. 

• Assign unbiased ethics divisions across multiple divisions of government. This provides a peer approach, and this provides inspection from outside departments. 

• Assign abuse of power review and oversight to appropriate individuals. Those in love with political power, or those self-absorbed with a career leadership position, may be incapable of managing an inspector general division. Assign leadership and oversight to the right individuals, under the right administrations, with the public chairing the way.

• Review complaints and concerns on government abuse of power with evaluation of response time. Require rationale for delay in response time, and require it from the federal inspector general of the department.

 

• Place identifiers on the abuse of power incidents and use technology to flag when more than one incident occurs to any one citizen. Require escalation of review at that time. 

• Account for the excuses and rationales that come with federal government abuse of power. Evaluate rationale for abuse of power, such as surveillance for national security, with a metric that examines dates. What is the average time frame from the start date of the alleged initial government abuse to the date of another department assigned, or to the date of a new rationale for the government interjection? 

• Assign risk to ongoing cases. What is the risk of an agent abusing a citizen out of resentment, investigation overreach, embarrassment or wanting to know more just because (unjustified federal surveillance)? What is the risk of potential abuse of power to the citizen?  Abuse of power creeps up, often slowly, when tolerated over long periods. 

• Require public reporting of judicial allowance of federal government intrusion, with de-identifiers to protect criminal investigations. It matters how many federal judges allow government intrusion, and it matters how many have been involved with cases of abuse of power complaints. Judges are our equals, and it matters that they are reminded of this fact.

• Require public reporting of the consequences of federal abuse of power, including demotion or job replacement. 

• Require public reporting of the partnerships in federal abuse of power, including with technology company involvement. If campaign donors do not like this idea, remind campaign donors that they live in the United States. Remind wealthy donors that their equals require a non-abusive government, and then proceed.

• Require public documentation of failure policies. When a federal law agency makes a mistake, or when a federal agency overreaches into a citizen’s life, what are the actions required of the agency? How are the excuses eliminated so that resolution can occur and the next abuse of power be prevented? 

• Require interagency reporting of ongoing grey areas in abuse of power. How long have these cases been extending? What have the consequences and repercussions been, thus far? And, what are anticipated consequences and repercussions from ongoing allowance?

• Measure the consequences of abuse of power. How much physical, emotional and behavioral harm does federal agency abuse of power cause? What is the financial cost already realized, and what would the financial cost be with disclosure? What has been lost, and how much failure is gained, when agent or Congressional abuse of power destroys solid relationships? And, how does increased lack of self-respect impact as the federal agent evolves into a doormat of abuse of power?

• Require an improvement plan for federal agencies. How can Quality Assurance and Performance Improvement transform our inspector generals, interagency case reviews and overall abuse of power accountabilities? 

• Require a communication plan for federal agencies. What is expected of federal agencies when failure to communicate fractures relationships with citizens? How is the improvement of this communication overseen?

• Establish clear boundaries for Congressional members. Abuse of power they participate in, allow, or coordinate should be accounted for. Congressional members that provide free passes to ongoing federal agency abuse of power, including at the Department of Defense, serve neither the public nor the federal agents. In fact, they create, allow and encourage a toxic national agenda. 

• Follow through on consequences. A United States Congress that is not held to boundaries of abuse of power against citizens must be held accountable. Remove any idea that a member of the United States Congress is exempt from civilian lawsuit. 

• Educate the law. There appears to be a serious lack of law education around abuse of power, and this lack of education may only be superseded by that of justice philosophy. A public abused and neglected by the law is a public that will not respect it. While this may seem obvious to many of us, law that does not hold federal agencies nor Congress accountable speaks to an oblivious federal justice. Educate them, early and often.

Abuse of power has the ability to harm, kill, damage social structure and diminish our national trust in one another. The destruction it causes wastes the good that healthy interpersonal relationships produce. And, abuse of power has the ability to break a heart.

Even when federal agencies and members of Congress desire to see just how powerful individuals in the public are, they are assigning a random definition to that observation. And they are abusing their fellow citizens through cowardice. It's best to respond only with fielded black and white boundaries.

Abuse of power should not be tolerated by the public and, when our government demands that we take it, all non-violent means to cease the abuse should be routed.