Government awards Tripp almost $600,000 Gives her outstanding performance evaluations WASHINGTON (CNN) --The federal government Monday announced it is paying Linda Tripp and her attorneys $595,000 to settle allegations that the Department of Defense violated her privacy rights when confidential information about her was disclosed during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. In addition, the government agreed to retroactively give Tripp three annual outstanding performance evaluations for her work at the Department of Defense, increasing the value of her retirement. Tripp sued the government when Pentagon officials leaked information from the government background investigation about her, which included the fact that she was arrested as a juvenile in a case involving drinking alcohol; she was never charged. Tripp became widely known as the woman who taped conversations with Monica Lewinsky to document the White House intern's secret relationship with then-President Bill Clinton. Her disclosure of the tapes helped pave the way for Clinton's impeachment. When government officials leaked the information on Tripp's background, she sued in federal court in Washington. Tripp Monday issued a written statement through her attorneys: "The government should never be permitted to use Privacy Act-protected information to discredit political opponents. This is a long-awaited first step toward holding the government accountable." "Today the Department of Defense has accepted liability. My ultimate goal is to ensure that any sitting president be required by law to honor the Privacy Act regardless of political motive," Tripp said. The Justice Department, which represented the government in the case, had no comment. http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/11/03/linda.tripp/index.html You can't make this stuff up. Tripp gets several hundred thousand dollars for "invasion of privacy" after she taped someone discussing their sex life. I'm still laughing.
Green -- she was a private citizen....this is the federal government doing this...certainly you can appreciate the difference. i'm much more concerned with a government using stuff from the privacy act against a citizen than i am another private citizen violating a state privacy/wiretap law, as Tripp did. interesting sidenote -- had tripp been in texas, she wouldn't be liable for anything. in texas, individuals don't have to disclose they're taping other individuals. lawyers can't do that for their clients...but any citizen can tape another.
Harassed? Maybe illegal wiretapping is harassment. She was also indicted and prosecuted by the state of Maryland for illegal wiretapping, though the charges were dropped after the judge excluded monica's testimony because it was influenced by none other than the Starr investigation. Think that had any effect on her career? Monica should've sued her.
THe government (actually, a DOJ that is populated with officials who cut their teeth in the Starr investigation) gave it to her; who knows if she would have "won" anything if she went to court. Doesn't seem like a sympathetic plaintiff to me; I wouldn't take her mug in front of a jury; but I don't know all the facts. I find it hard to believe that she can prove any damages from her underage drinking arrest but who knows.
Didn't the woman lose her job and could not get re-hired? And she lost her pension or at least part of it. Her crime is not even a crime in most states, I believe. She found herself in the middle of something very big and she wanted to protect herself from the fallout. I don't blame her.
Yeah, and smoking dope isn't a crime in Amsterdam, but that ain't going to help Eddie Griffin now is it? She found herself in the middle of something big all right. Actually, she found her "friend" in the middle of something big and went out of her way to sell her out and turn her in. Not very cool, IMO.
How did she sell her out? What did she really gain? She lost a lot. What did Monica lose? Damn, she got to host SNL and Tripp got lampooned by John Goodman. Doesn't that just about tell you everything you need to know?
Giddy, if I was your friend and somebody unloaded all over your dress, I would not tell you to put it in a safe deposit box, tape your phone conversations, and then rat you out. Yeah, it does tell me what I know. She acted like a harpy and the karmic beast bit her in the ass. Too bad, so sad.
Sam: I think you are making the mistake of leaving it at the junior high level of complexity. This was a much darker and dangerous event in her life than you are summarizing. Weren't both she and her children threatened by someone on Clinton's staff?
Not that I know of, wouldn't that have been a charge that Starr would have investigated to death if they did? Moving back on topic, what do you have to say about the fact that the information that was disclosed that supposedly wrecked her life wasn't even disclosed by the government, but she is getting a payoff from them anyway?
I'm just a concerned citizen that illegal wiretappers are walking the streets and getting government payoffs....the humanity!