2015: The Year of The Woman. (And her name is Ashley Madison.)

If you’ve ever watched any late-night TV, you’ve seen1440456598-ashmadimage the ads for the Ashley Madison web site. It facilitates adultery.  It’s kind of a Match.com or JDate for married people.  

Some hackers — upset with the nature of this site — broke in and took its client list.  The list of client emails has been leaked to the Internet.

People who have seen the list have expressed surprise over how many government email addresses have shown up.  WHO on Earth would be so stupid as to (1) sign up for adultery on a web site that COULD get hacked and (2) use their work e-mail? 

It turns out all kinds of folks employed by local, state and federal government agencies signed up for a little, um, extracurricular fun with Ashley Madison using their work email addresses. 

It turns out at least two Moore County government email addresses were on the Ashley Madison list.  We reported on it, and within 24 hours it was reported that the Moore County IT director was investigating the matter:

[…] Chris Butts, IT director for Moore County, said use of a county email address for the Ashley Madison site would be against three separate county policies — the County of Moore Computer Network and Internet Access Policy, the County Resources /Telecommunications Policy and the County Personnel Policy.

Butts said the first step in the investigation will be to verify the validity of the email addresses and then verify whether or not the person is either a current or former employee.

Research shows that both Moore County employees linked to those accounts still work in the county government.

NC Capitol Connection has not released the names of individuals linked to the accounts. Our stories have focused on the potential misuse of equipment and time funded by taxpayer money.

Butts said that the county will research the communications associated with the accounts and take appropriate disciplinary actions.

Included in the possible realm of disciplinary actions is dismissal from their positions.

The emails, both from the ncmoorecountync.gov domain, were uncovered last week among nearly 100 email addresses leading back to state, county, municipal and school email accounts in North Carolina released as part of the targeted hack on the Ashley Madison servers.[…]

A national political web site is reporting that North Carolina congressman Patrick McHenry’s chief of staff showed up on the Ashley Madison list.  That web site’s report alleges that the chief-of-staff used a personal email account, but signed up on an office computer.

Some people are asking the obvious:  What business of ours is it that these people may be unfaithful to their spouses?   

Democrat campaign consultant Thomas Mills takes it one step further.  He points out that the media outlet which uncovered the North Carolina government email addresses in the Ashley Madison hacks is an affiliate of NC Civitas:

[…] Here in North Carolina, the Civitas Institute reported that more than 30 state or local officials had an account. Civitas was quick to condemn the accounts as a waste of government resources. “This is just the tip of the iceberg of government employees using taxpayer resources for personal use. Unfortunately, people will be distracted by the salacious nature of this abuse and not the fact that North Carolinians are being taxed to support government at all levels using state and local resources to engage in this activity at work as opposed to serving the people of North Carolina,” they said in a press release.

Tip of the iceberg? Please. Nobody wasted any state resources and there’s no evidence that the accounts were set up on government time. It didn’t cost the state one red cent for those people to use their state email addresses to sign up to have an extramarital affair. It proves that we hire some people who aren’t smart enough to get a gmail account when engaging in nefarious internet activities, but that’s about it.

In reality, it was just an excuse for Civitas to beat up on public employees. By their reckoning all government workers are just shiftless layabouts sucking off the taxpayer teat who are too lazy to get real jobs in the private sector. The bullies at Civitas are once again making blanket statements demeaning the work ethic of government employees with little to back up their claims. Their goal is to humiliate and demoralize public workers who can’t fire back.[…] 

(Heh.  He sounds JUST LIKE Blinking’ Chris.  Separated at birth?) blink

In all seriousness — Mills forgets that there are IT people out there who have to manage these email accounts.  When employees sign up for silliness like this using their work address —  it turns that email account into spam-bait like a picnic attracts ants.  It’s a misuse of taxpayer resources and it actually creates MORE work for other government employees.  

The symbolism of it all is really important, too.  The average citizen gets bled dry to keep these people employed.  To see these people doing stuff like this AT WORK, while you’re busting your rump to pay your taxes and feed your family, has to be especially maddening.