Misc. Ramblings

Most reasonable people would agree that very few "rights" are absolute. That is, each right is usually balanced by another because if you take one right to an extreme you end up violating another.

Such is the case with transparency in government. While citizens should be able to know what their government is doing in their name, that doesn't mean all documents should be available without redaction to protect the privacy rights of those involved.

For example, many court records are considered to be open to the public. So, anyone can walk into the appropriate office, fill out the appropriate request form, and view any of these records. The thing is, many of these records include private information such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, mother's maiden names, addresses, phone numbers, and even the names of pets.

And for the most part, this has not caused problems (although there have been incidents with stalkers). But with the age of computers, where millions of records can be searched or compiled in seconds, problems arise.

In the rush to make public records available in electronic form, millions of records have been released without redaction. It is now possible for anyone with an Internet connection to find and compile information that wouldn't/couldn't be done before.

Some jurisdictions have even seen this as a money making opportunity. That is, they are selling the unedited records to anyone who is willing to pay. Unfortunately, some of those willing to pay are up to no good. For instance, they want to steal your identity or bury you under an avalanche of spam.

The point is, government needs to be doing a better job of balancing the right to privacy versus the right of the public to know what's going on.

One way this is going to happen is when citizens hold government accountable. Like this woman who is making it her cause to embarrass or harass politicians into doing what should have been done in the beginning - redacting private information before releasing government records.

What frightens me the most is that it may be too late to do anything effective. Once this information hits the Internet, it's almost impossible to erase it. The only hope, if there is any, is to keep new unedited information from being published.

Aloha!