ACORN Disbanding

[Y2HH]

I think it is sad when a couple employees' actions cause an entire organization to fold. That is bad news for a lot of people. Imagine if today you lost your job because someone in a remote office ripped off a customer. No fault of your own, but you are as much out of work as the guilty person(s).

 

Well, that's the way it works in most industries.

 

In my industry, under HIPAA rules, disclosures of confidential data leads to massive fines. For example, a careless employee in a branch office in the middle of a southern small town cost my company over 75million in fines. One person at one TINY location caused this out of carelessness or whatever other reason.

 

We fixed the situation and turned ourselves in knowing the multi-multi million dollar fine that was going to come with doing so.

 

Why? Because we do business the RIGHT WAY.

 

Now imagine if we had 500 such employees. Or 1,000. Or, instead of doing business the right way, we just swept things like this under the rug hoping nobody would ever find out. The point is, the fines could add up fast. This is where company/employee responsibility comes in. Other employees are supposed to make sure this doesn't happen, so one person can't sink a ship, or two, or twenty. Oversight. Properly handling business. Even at remote locations which must be checked and audited for such breeches.

 

We take it pretty seriously in my line of work.

 

If Acorn had done the same, they wouldn't be where they are.

 

Ignorance is not an excuse for poor business practices or ignoring laws, rules and regulations. And believe me, we are under far stricter laws and regulations than Acorn, as is everyone in the health insurance industry, yet we seem to avoid frequent occurrences of these SPI breeches.

Edited March 23, 2010 by Y2HH

[Cknolls]

Just give me some examples of illegal activities.

 

 

I guess I need convictions and illegal activities to show that an organization was illegal. The most illegal thing was the homeless people taking a check and not doing their jobs. No, mickey mouse was in fact, not voting.

 

So all these "ACORN WAS DELIVERING THE ELECTION FOR OBAMA" was not based in any sort of fact. They are just a target in the same way the census is, the more minority voters that are whipped together to vote, the more democratic votes there tends to be.

 

 

Your "I'm smarter than everyone else" attitude is getting a little tired.

 

 

IIRC, Some ACORN employees were just convicted of fraud in voter registration cases, not sure if it was St Louis or Milwaukee. FWIW.

[ChiSox_Sonix]

Your "I'm smarter than everyone else" attitude is getting a little tired.

 

 

aka the Democratic thread...

 

 

[Texsox]

Well, that's the way it works in most industries.

 

In my industry, under HIPAA rules, disclosures of confidential data leads to massive fines. For example, a careless employee in a branch office in the middle of a southern small town cost my company over 75million in fines. One person at one TINY location caused this out of carelessness or whatever other reason.

 

We fixed the situation and turned ourselves in knowing the multi-multi million dollar fine that was going to come with doing so.

 

Why? Because we do business the RIGHT WAY.

 

Now imagine if we had 500 such employees. Or 1,000. Or, instead of doing business the right way, we just swept things like this under the rug hoping nobody would ever find out. The point is, the fines could add up fast. This is where company/employee responsibility comes in. Other employees are supposed to make sure this doesn't happen, so one person can't sink a ship, or two, or twenty. Oversight. Properly handling business. Even at remote locations which must be checked and audited for such breeches.

 

We take it pretty seriously in my line of work.

 

If Acorn had done the same, they wouldn't be where they are.

 

Ignorance is not an excuse for poor business practices or ignoring laws, rules and regulations. And believe me, we are under far stricter laws and regulations than Acorn, as is everyone in the health insurance industry, yet we seem to avoid frequent occurrences of these SPI breeches.

 

Actually I think it is very rare to have the actions of one or two employees take down an organization of that size.

 

I tried to find a news story about the fine. How long ago was it?

 

How would you have felt if instead of a careless employee, a competing company planted someone and enticed the employee into reveiling the information? And instead of a $75 million dollar fine, it was large enough to close down the company?

[JorgeFabregas]

Actually, ACORN did do some self-reporting. They flagged what they thought were bogus registration cards and turned them in in separate stacks (and they were, in fact, obligated by law to turn them in once they had been signed).

 

ACORN quality control workers found the discrepancies in the cards turned in by the suspects and contacted authorities in June 2008, authorities said. The group turned in 1,400 cards, of which 888 were found to be fraudulent.

 

An analyst with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement later reviewed a random group of cards, searching databases to find a record of the voter.

 

The majority of those sampled for one worker ``contained registrant information that was not able to be matched to a living person,'' one warrant said.

 

 

 

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2009/09/09/1225...l#ixzz0j2D3Tn4l

That sort of thing.

[whitesoxfan101]

ACORN obviously had some iffy stuff going on in it, but the only reason it reached the point of disbanding is the right wing wanted it to get to that point and went after it. To their credit I guess though, that operation worked out.

[BigSqwert]

And yet we still pay Blackwater millions.

[Texsox]

And yet we still pay Blackwater Xe millions.

 

fixed

[southsideirish71]

ACORN obviously had some iffy stuff going on in it, but the only reason it reached the point of disbanding is the right wing wanted it to get to that point and went after it. To their credit I guess though, that operation worked out.

 

The right wing cannot do any such thing. The democrats have the majority in congress and have the leadership in the committees. The reason ACORN is going away is because the democrats allowed it to.

 

 

 

[Texsox]

The right wing cannot do any such thing. The democrats have the majority in congress and have the leadership in the committees. The reason ACORN is going away is because the democrats allowed it to.

 

 

ACORN's funding came from more than the government. They lost out all around.

[whitesoxfan101]

ACORN's funding came from more than the government. They lost out all around.

 

Exactly.

[Y2HH]

Actually I think it is very rare to have the actions of one or two employees take down an organization of that size.

 

I tried to find a news story about the fine. How long ago was it?

 

How would you have felt if instead of a careless employee, a competing company planted someone and enticed the employee into reveiling the information? And instead of a $75 million dollar fine, it was large enough to close down the company?

 

I'm not sure it was in the news -- we are a privately held company, so I'm not sure if the media latched onto it or not. It was about 10 years ago or so...

 

And I stand corrected, it was over 144M$ in fines.

 

This is all I could find on it, but it's not a full story, as I guess you have to be a member?

 

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-21091555.html

Edited March 23, 2010 by Y2HH

[DukeNukeEm]

Healthcare passes, ACORN gets shut down.

 

UUURGGHHHH TEA PARTY HAPPY OR SAD

 

 

Partisan joking aside, ACORN is probably just dissolving and getting ready to switch names. Too much bad press associated with their old label.

[Texsox]

I'm not sure it was in the news -- we are a privately held company, so I'm not sure if the media latched onto it or not. It was about 10 years ago or so...

 

And I stand corrected, it was over 144M$ in fines.

 

This is all I could find on it, but it's not a full story, as I guess you have to be a member?

 

http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G1-21091555.html

 

It sure is a messed up industry when doing business the right way results in $144 mil in fines. That was really just one person in one office? Amazing.

[bmags]

Acorn should change their name to the n-word so when it's shouted out we all know what they mean.

[Texsox]

Acorn should change their name to the n-word so when it's shouted out we all know what they mean.

 

 

They should change their name to Blackwater

[DukeNukeEm]

Haha, nice Tex.

[southsider2k5]

Partisan joking aside, ACORN is probably just dissolving and getting ready to switch names. Too much bad press associated with their old label.

 

No doubt about that.

[Rex Kickass]

The right wing cannot do any such thing. The democrats have the majority in congress and have the leadership in the committees. The reason ACORN is going away is because the democrats allowed it to.

 

Correct. But as we all know, Democrats, generally are pretty wishy-washy. Especially in places like the Senate. So it's pretty easy to put something in a right wing echo chamber and make so much noise about something that's faked and present it as fact that some Democrats will side with Republicans to vote against their own interests and the interests of their citizens by defunding an organization that primarily focused on such horribly liberal things as fighting predatory lending against moderate and low income families, and fighting for inner city school teachers to be certified. And then of course, they focused on providing support and remodeling of damaged abandoned Katrina homes in New Orleans.

 

There were issues with some of the chronically unemployed people given temporary work to register voters not doing their job properly. There was an issue with the brother of the founder of ACORN embezzling about a million dollars from the company. And then there were the videos, heavily edited, extremely misleading, and after internal investigations as well as investigations by district attorneys have resulted in no arrests, indictments or convictions.

 

There is blood on the hands of the Democratic leadership in ACORN's demise, but it isn't theirs alone. To say that the Brietbart/Fox News ACORN-a-thon of 2009 didn't play a part in this mess is disingenuous at best. It's just a shame that an organization that for the bulk of its existence dedicated itself to providing basic needs to the poorest among us, and was all about providing affordable housing in urban cores had to go in the way it did.

[Rex Kickass]

No doubt about that.

Some state organizations will survive, but the ACORN organization is pretty much dead. Has been for a couple months actually.

[Y2HH]

It sure is a messed up industry when doing business the right way results in $144 mil in fines. That was really just one person in one office? Amazing.

 

A careless person. They were turned on by other employees, and the company then turned itself in, and the fine was the result.

 

They could have probably easily swept it under the carpet to avoid it, but then the company would have been put at even greater risk if such a thing ever leaked out or exploded into a huge news story.

[Y2HH]

And while Tex's statement could be taken as pure sarcasm, he has a valid point, and it illustrates why a company may want to sweep such things under the carpet, or ignore them completely while hoping for the best. But again, internal ignorance of things going wrong within a company/business/organization are not valid excuses.

 

In this case, Blue Cross had about 144 million reasons why they'd think about "cheating the system" in order to avoid investigations, fines, etc. They did things properly, and look what it cost them. My point was every such company, in this system, doing business with the public, the public sector or otherwise, should have proper oversight in place to avoid such situations, and in the case they happen, do something about them to correct them in a swift proper manner.

Edited March 23, 2010 by Y2HH

[CrimsonWeltall]

Well, that's the way it works in most industries.

 

In my industry, under HIPAA rules, disclosures of confidential data leads to massive fines. For example, a careless employee in a branch office in the middle of a southern small town cost my company over 75million in fines. One person at one TINY location caused this out of carelessness or whatever other reason.

 

Can you elaborate on this incident? It must have been in the news, but I haven't found anything in quick google searches.

 

[Texsox]

http://www.corporatepredators.org/top100.html

 

Not trying to be sarcastic. I just find the scale of the fine to be outrageous for a company that cooperated and turned themselves in.

 

Here is a link to corporate criminals and their fines. $144 million would have been the 5th highest fine. Most of these are antitrust, environmental, etc. with presumably more damages than what one person in a small office could do.

[Y2HH]

Can you elaborate on this incident? It must have been in the news, but I haven't found anything in quick google searches.

 

I posted the only snippit I could find on it in a post above -- wasn't much detail.