A system is only as good as the people who run it

Every now and again we hear about IRS employees looking at taxpayer's individual tax records out or curiosity. Recently, we hear about State Department employees looking at Senator Barack Obama's passport records. The New York Times carried a story about potentially thousands of immigration agents demanding sex or money in exchange for favorable consideration for a green card. We constantly forget, when we put in a system, that people have to run it. People are fallible and corruptible. Therefore, the more complex the system, and the more dependent it is on people who run it, the more likely it is to become corrupt.