If you're going to have more than 30 million people using an adultery web site, I suppose it's not that big a surprise that some percentage of them would work in the highest levels of government. As G. Harrold Carswell might have said, cheaters deserve to be represented in government too!
Then again, it's been awhile since that was a problem. And those of us in Michigan can tell you it's hardly something that's limited to one political party. But if using government resources to aid in your extramarital affairs is a scandal in Lansing (as it should be), then what do you call this?
The AP traced many of the accounts exposed by hackers back to federal workers. They included at least two assistant U.S. attorneys; an information technology administrator in the Executive Office of the President; a division chief, an investigator and a trial attorney in the Justice Department; a government hacker at the Homeland Security Department and another DHS employee who indicated he worked on a U.S. counterterrorism response team.
Few actually paid for their services with their government email accounts. But AP traced their government Internet connections -- logged by the website over five years -- and reviewed their credit-card transactions to identify them. They included workers at more than two dozen Obama administration agencies, including the departments of State, Defense, Justice, Energy, Treasury, Transportation and Homeland Security. Others came from House or Senate computer networks.
The AP is not naming the government subscribers it found because they are not elected officials or accused of a crime.
Hackers this week released detailed records on millions of people registered with the website one month after the break-in at Ashley Madison's parent company, Toronto-based Avid Life Media Inc. The website -- whose slogan is, "Life is short. Have an affair" -- is marketed to facilitate extramarital affairs.
Many federal customers appeared to use non-government email addresses with handles such as "sexlessmarriage," "soontobesingle" or "latinlovers." Some Justice Department employees appeared to use pre-paid credit cards to help preserve their anonymity but connected to the service from their office computers.
"I was doing some things I shouldn't have been doing," a Justice Department investigator told the AP. Asked about the threat of blackmail, the investigator said if prompted he would reveal his actions to his family and employer to prevent it. "I've worked too hard all my life to be a victim of blackmail. That wouldn't happen," he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was deeply embarrassed and not authorized by the government to speak to reporters using his name.
America decided 23 years ago that character didn't matter
The AP made a curious news judgment in deciding that the names of the cheaters are not worth publishing because they are not elected officials nor are they accused of a crime. They're still using taxpayer-funded resources to assist in their immorality. I realize we find ourselves in an age when the culture is more accepting of immorality than it is of the condemnation of same, and there's no "hypocrisy" angle at play because we have a Democrat administration that can't be said to be holier-than-thou. You can't be a hypocrite, after all, if you neither preach nor practice good behavior. Today's culture will applaud your consistency.
On the one hand I'm as astonished as anyone that a web site like this would actually have more than 30 million people signed up. It's not enough for you people to bop your secretaries? You actually have to go online to look for someone to cheat with? But the world will only provide the resources for the evil people want, and are willing to put up with.
The whole attitude of Ashley Madison is that martial faithfulness is a big buzzkill, and it's time to put aside such relics in favor of any and every carnal indulgence that presents itself. That obviously appeals not only to the expressly immoral among us, but also to people like Josh Duggar and Todd Courser, who know how to speak the language of faith but haven't quite got the same commitment to it in their hearts. (Just to be clear, there is no evidence that Courser used Ashley Madison. He met his mistress at work - the Michigan Legislature.)
I couldn't be happier that these people are getting exposed, but I'm heartbroken over the state of the culture that got us here in the first place. And of course we're being governed by cheaters. America decided 23 years ago that character didn't matter. What did you think was going to happen?
If you're going to have more than 30 million people using an adultery web site, I suppose it's not that big a surprise that some percentage of them would work in the highest levels of government. As G. Harrold Carswell might have said, cheaters deserve to be represented in government too!
Then again, it's been awhile since that was a problem. And those of us in Michigan can tell you it's hardly something that's limited to one political party. But if using government resources to aid in your extramarital affairs is a scandal in Lansing (as it should be), then what do you call this?
