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oday on 26th June, the SimDemocracy Independent Oversight Agency (in short: “SDIOA”) released a report of the investigations into the actions of the Notcom Private Investigative Agency (in short: “NCIA”), a private company.
This report, among other things, accused Notcom (the owner of NCIA) of doxxing someone who she was tasked to investigate by the Department of Justice (DoJ), which led to them “having a panic attack” (as described by the person who was allegedly doxxed).
Furthermore, it suggested that the evidence collected by the NCIA of Nf19 being a TIDE member, which was also later used by the DoJ, was “not properly vetted and may not be correct information”. Considering that Nf19 was preliminarily banned due to this evidence, this should be considered a very grave accusation.
In response to this, Notcom issued a civil complaint against the Chief Ombudsman and the SDIOA as a whole, alleging Administrative Misuse of Power and Defamation. A total redress of 50.000 tau was requested.
For the accusation of Administrative Misuse of Power, Notcom argues that the SDIOA does not possess jurisdiction over private companies (like the NCIA). Herefore she quotes the Government Oversight Act (GOA) which details the powers and functions of the SDIOA.
Governmental Oversight Act, Article 3 §1:
§1. The SDIOA shall have jurisdiction over:
§1.1. Members of the executive branch, including agencies under its control.
§1.2. Members of the legislative branch, including the Senate and its committees.
§1.3. Other Committees and Officers of the State as established by Law or the Constitution.
While the quoted text doesn’t list private companies contracted by the government as things that can be investigated by the SDIOA, the Chief Ombudsman argues otherwise: The NCIA was founded with the purpose of becoming a government contractor in mind. Its only client is the state, it performs a government function in gathering information on groups aimed at potentially threatening the security of the state and its members. Thus, it could be seen as an extension of the executive branch, which would give the SDIOA a mandate to investigate it.
For the accusation of Defamation, Notcom argues that the the statements within the report are of slanderous and misleading nature and meant to ruin the NCIA brand.
While Chief Ombudsman Pigeon has not pre-prepared a response to this in the report itself, he said the following upon being asked to give a statement on the alleged defamation:
“The SDIOA is committed to upholding high standards and ethics. Our report is based on a an[sic] anonymous report which contained many concerning messages. We then spent almost a full week trying to piece everything together. We are not however infallible and if we did make a mistake we will apply make[sic] a public statement saying as such.”
Whether or not the Chief Ombudsman has committed Administrative Misuse of Power and Defamation, and whether or not the SDIOA has a mandate to investigate private companies contracted by the government are both still unanswered questions that will hopefully be cleared up by the courts soon enough.