Another day, another indictable offense.
That’s Governor Beverly Perdue for ya. Of course, she’ll claim she knows nothing about this. She’s just the victim of staff members and friends with a penchant for breaking the law.
Perdue’s staff has apparently been receiving “confidential employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics hours if not days before its scheduled release,” since at least January of 2011, according to a news report by the Carolina Journal.
A conviction for breaching the Confidential Information Protection and Statistical Efficiency Act of 2002 carries a fine of up to $250,000, up to five years in prison, or both, the Journal reports. Congress takes this so seriously because it is tantamount to insider trading:
There’s obviously good reason for this: someone with advanced word could place bets in financial and community markets and make lots of money. That’s why Congress provided for penalties of up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for early release of this data.
So this is all highly illegal. And sort of bizarre, a word used a lot lately to describe Perdue and her staff. Why take that kind of risk?
All she’d gain that anyone can figure is a jump start writing her press releases, most of which spun bad economic news. But that’s not all that much of an advantage.
