(Though this is already close to being the case in some states that only have part-time legislators who are paid next to nothing.)

i dare say politicians are far from even the smallest bit educated on any issue as it is not what gets them votes, and even an amateur in any field or profession is likely more aware and educated then them. how many times do we hear about laws the pass about technology that clearly have no idea how said technology works?

perhapses having expects, scientists, and data be how we make choices would result in better outcomes then simply who is best at winning a popularity contest.

i recall a study done with high school class leaders where instead of voting they did something else and it resulted in better, more capable leadership, but i can't find it at the moment

The wife may have knowledge about $bigco buying or selling $bigthing, and the husband may gain that same knowledge from her, even if she's honest and never intentionally disclosed it. (people aren't perfect and clues can slip, or he simply has access to her laptop or that scratch pad where she wrote down the essentials of a phone call etc.

At the most basic level, I worked for a company that wouldn't let you sell company stock, even as a non-executive, during a window around earnings being reported.

For us, it was easier to avoid making stock transactions that triggered reporting and avoid accepting gifts that would trigger reporting, than to fill out the reports. I had equity based compensation that had to be reported, but then everything else went into diversified mutual funds, which is a good idea anyway.

[1] See CA form 700. But note, this doesn't apply to federal elected officials from CA, only to state and local officials.

Sarcasm aside: interesting how far they go for a simple copper on the street now. Here in Germany, that level of background checks (Sicherheitsüberprüfung Ü2/Ü3) is only done for higher level (i.e. leadership) cops and IT staff.

[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicherheits%C3%BCberpr%C3%BCfu...

> What, the cops are actually doing at least something to weed out the bad apples now?

How is forcing a friend or family member to surrender their own PII have anything to do about "weed[ing] out the bad apples"?

My intuition is that those kinds of background checks have been going on for a long time, and have been focused on stuff like preventing infiltration by organized crime rather than specifically rooting out police brutality.

Sounds like they're trying to weed out some of the bad apples then, aren't they? Would you rather they not be doing this? It doesn't address all the ways in which a cop might be bad, but you shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good.

I see how it was confusing, but what I was thinking was the nature of what is considered a "bad apple" has changed over time. I think police forces have been trying to prevent things like organized crime infiltration and corruption for a long time, while things like excessive use of force and racial bias have only started to be considered serious problem by them much more recently. Acting surprised about background checks seems like it's exclusively referring to the latter, while the process itself (e.g. getting friends' SSNs) seems mostly target at the former.

I believe this is correct.

> by organized crime

I believe this depends on the precinct.

Well, interviewing family and friends can definitely help weed out people with problematic far-right attitudes, a history of domestic violence or other issues.

And then, when they interviewed me, they asked me for further references for him.

It's not really a legal obligation as such ("only" putting the job at risk), but it does cover rather a lot of jobs.

The process of doing away with this entirely started last year: https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-spy-agencies-could-hire-for...

I feel like there’s a comedy sketch in here…

When I worked in finance, myself and my wife also had a lot of restrictions in regards to our investments.

Anyways, these are just a few examples, but there are a lot of domains of activity where restrictions extend not only to the direct employee but also to their spouse or direct family.

It's relatively minor, but it's still legal repercussions.

I'm skeptical of "just some random employee", or a ban on immediate family trading AMZN. Because it's the first I've heard of this for an SDE that doesn't work in finance for Amazon, and I know plenty of folks that work at Amazon and trading AMZN has come up.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'd sure double-check on that because it doesn't match my experience with other large companies (for instance, there was a time when my spouse worked in Microsoft finance, and I had to have my MSFT trades approved or something, but not banned from trading).

It is possible that this is org wide.

Just one off the top of my head - my friend works for the lottery so he nor his immediate family can buy lottery tickets.

Anything I am not authorized to trade it on behalf of the Bank, I have to seek approval and agree to minimum holding periods (for me and my family). Anything close to what I am authorized to trade it on behalf of the Bank would be instantly rejected for personal trading.

I am not sure how this proposed ban would handle cases where someone is a founder of a company that goes public? I agree the current setup is not good.

Look at how many members in Congress have made millions trading stock.

All that aside, I don't like the double standard on insider trading. I think the law should be applied equally to everyone.

This is the requirement the GOP had for Jimmy Carter.