Opinion: Disclosing Foreign Affiliations can be Problematic
Written by Dax
(June 6, 2019) - On May 20, Senator Rand made a post in the Senate regarding officials to share their foreign affiliations for both Senate confirmed positions and elected positions. The idea was initially met with discussion about how relevant this would be both to most positions, and how useful overall.
Disclosing a citizen’s foreign affiliations is nothing new in Europeia since its one of the very first questions fresh members address when applying for citizenship, but after some experience in NationStates, that answer is bound to change. However, should this small piece of information be the deciding factor for whether or not the candidate gets the job? For higher foreign affairs positions such as the Chief of State it makes more sense to take this into consideration, but it seems absurd to consider foreign affiliations for offices such as senate positions due to the senate being a legislative position rather than being geared toward foreign affairs in much of any way other than electing a Chief of State.
Senator Prim brought up the potential danger of this proposal stating that “We have seen a few individuals in here being stalked or harassed by other individuals in NS. If they were forced to disclose all of their active memberships, they could easily be followed and stalked in these other regions as well.” This is a point commonly argued over throughout the discussion of the proposal both inside and outside of the senate. However, in NationStates, when a player is being harassed in multiple regions it can prove to be a more difficult task to deal with for the administration involved to deal with this problem.
Overall, this amendment doesn’t seem necessary when it comes down to it. Not only does it open doors to harassment, but imagine how easily anyone could lie about this information. We truly have no way to check their answers other than if they accidentally reveal the truth themselves.