Slashdot Mirror
How Public Should Public Records Be?
Hobobo writes: "This article on the New York Times talks about whether public records that are available in local government offices should or shouldn't be available online. It also talks about the "practical obscurity" of people checking files in police offices and whatnot, and public records on the internet are "too public," and the privacy and freedom of information issues involved." If you'd like to try it, you can use "Giuliani" and "5/28/44".
Most public records laws already have measures in place to safeguard personal privacy. Others, as in the article (I read it!) do need some work to account for personal privacy. A good example is, before records were finally given to APB news on judges' finances, personal information such as address, phone, etc., was redacted.
Records being available in the Internet is very important. Check out www.freedomforum.org to see how hard it is often to get public records in person, with demands to know why, see ID and attempted arrests (especially for public police records such as who's currently in jail). Internet access would allow people to get this information without fear of intimidation.
Hell, people around here now are suprised to find that I can show them detailed information about their houses, purchase price, appraised values, floor layout, etc. This isn't some secret page, it's the county auditor's web site. Is it right to publish such previously obscure information? Who knows.. but everyone I talk to is definitely not comfortable with that being online so easily available. Before I believe you'd at least have to show your face to a public records office and pay a fee to request the information. That'd deter almost 99% of the people who are otherwise going around browsing this stuff.