Rep. Phelps Wants Criminal Penalties for Data Manipulation
At this point, you would have to be living in a shack in the woods somewhere, to have gone without at least hearing about the water crisis in Flint. It’s a poisonous topic, no pun intended, that’s been given a great deal of airtime in recent months. Not least of all because the health of Flint children is being negatively affected. And some wonder if data manipulation may have played a part.
According to the Office of State Auditor General, there should have been corrosion control during the period when the city of Flint switched from Detroit’s water supply to the Flint River. But there wasn’t. And as a result, toxic lead levels in the water supply have risen alarmingly, and people are getting sick. Really sick.
But talk to Michigan Representative Phil Phelps about it, and his point of focus is a little different from most people’s. According to Phelps, part of the issue here is the fact that data was incorrectly interpreted. The result was a lot of miscommunication and important facts that slipped through the cracks. But was data intentionally manipulated to disguise these facts?
Phelps says that he has no idea if data was manipulated, and from the findings so far, it doesn’t seem to be the case. But Phelps makes a good point when he says that, although it may not have happened, there is currently no law against it in Michigan. And according to Phelps, there should be.
When the state legislature reconvenes this month, Phelps intends to introduce a bill that would address this particular issue. Under the bill, the act of intentionally manipulating or falsifying information in a state report would be a felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and fines of up to $5,000.
Phelps’ hope is that the bill will ultimately apply to every employee, both state and federal, on every level of government. It certainly wouldn’t help with the current issue that Flint is facing, he says, but it would put another tool in the state’s prosecutorial tool box in future, were this to happen again.