Slashdot Mirror
Canadian Privacy Czar Wants To Anonymize Court Records On the Web
An anonymous reader writes "The web is evil and must be stopped — because it makes public information too public. So says Canada's Privacy Commissioner. She wants to 'anonymize' court records by substituting initials for names.
The Toronto Star quotes Jennifer Stodddart as saying 'The open court rule, which is extremely historically important, has now become distorted by the effect of massive search engines... Court decisions and other related documents, which contain all sorts of personal information, are now searchable worldwide, which was never intended when openness rules were devised.'
All Stoddart's proposal would do is erect a minor barrier for the techno unsaavy. Researchers, reporters, geeks, and most teenagers would still be able to figure out who's who.
Stoddart seems to believe only in an abstract notion of freedom and access — but only as long as not too many people use it and no one suffers. She cites the case of someone who is upset at reading the divorce case of her parents.
Is Stoddart a danger or a menace? Or just clueless?"
Oh no, too much information.
Well, here's something: don't read it!
"Wow, reading about the war between Georgia and Russia, the parliamentary fire in Eqypt, and bombings all over the world is really depressing. If only there was a law against printing all that uncomfortable stuff, my life would be a lot better!"
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Maybe I'm missing something, but this summary really sounds like a bunch of hyperbole. Who cares if the personal data is anonymized? Sure, security through obscurity doesn't work, but it does filter out a lot of noise anyways, and in the end, names aren't whats important in reviewing cases, it's the decision and the reasoning behind the decision that matters.
But the way this summary was written, you'd think the end of democracy is near.
Then you end it with "Is Stoddart a danger or a menace? Or just clueless?"?
Is this honestly how a debate will go these days? It's bad enough that canadian politicians bicker like little children, we don't need the high school like ultimatums or multi-anti-your-opinion-choice questions from the populace to throw into the mix.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
This sounds perfectly reasonable. Anybody with an interest can still easily find all needed information, while preventing a kind of panopticon of every single aspect of people's lives and pasts to be laid out like a frog on a dissecting table.
Privacy is not binary; it is a sliding scale. This seems to hit a pretty good balance.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
It seems to be common these days for someone to just mention "invasion of privacy" and people jump up and down like it's some sort of invasion into your personal life. I put it to the commissioner that if she can safely make her name available to 1,000 people then she can safely give it to 6,000,000,000.
What does she expect? For people to see her name and spontaneously decide to visit? If fronted with that question I'd bet money she'd only be able to recall her original assertion that it's invading her privacy, not bring any new info to the table. If, once a month, she gets stalked by a crazy guy that saw her name somewhere, THEN she can argue that increasing her name's exposure will bring her harm. But again, I highly doubt her current exposure has had any real effect at all.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, watch it -- I'm huge!
Well i can understand their concerns over privacy - but having an open, readily accessibly law system is important in any democracy. Also, what about historians 100 years from now trying to reconstruct these records - it would be much more useful if people's role's in society were not just a bunch of initials.
She wants to 'anonymize' court records by substituting initials for names.
My name is Xavier Zachary Quincy. How does this help me?
Sorry, responding to my own post.
Upon thinking about the issue some more, this reminds me of the case of Daryl Clark. He was arrested for masturbating in his own house, but he was visible to the neighbours. This was a case which went before the Canadian Supreme Court, but none of that is important.
What is important is the neighbours watched him for 10 to 15 minutes at times using binoculars and a telescope before deciding they don't like what they see and calling the police.
I don't know about you, but I don't have malware on my computer popping up divorce cases on screen. I don't get spams saying "Enl4rge your PEN!S, 4nd h3re's some d1v0rce pap3rs t00!" At some point this lady either decided she was going to look for the papers, or if turned up on Google, decided she was going to read the papers. She didn't like what she saw, and now is trying to change the world (for the worse) to suit her.
Ironically, the court papers in the Daryl Clark case name the complainant only as "Mrs. S."
"Live as if you'll die tomorrow." Ridiculous. You could die later today.
Neither. If I was ever falsely accused and taken to court for something really unsavoury then having my name come up against the charges would not be such a good thing.
Is it the records of the court case itself or the names of the people involved that is the important thing here? I'd say the former, in which case anonymising the names of those involved seems like quite a reasonable thing to do.
Anonymising of email addresses is done all the time on publicly archived mailing lists and I don't hear an outcry about that.
I don't see anything wrong with it-- this is no different than case histories involving people listed as 'Mr. F---' and the like.
Considering that court rooms are generally open access, I don't see how bottling the information up later on is likely to be a good idea.
Hiding court records except on a case by case basis when absolutely necessary is a menace to society.
One of the major points of a free society is the openness of courts. The reason is that it's a lot harder to engage in shenanigans if you know that the public has the ability to attend the proceedings or view the record.
Open but not "lying in the open" access to information is an important concept. In the United States, many privacy-related things are left lying in the open - who's in prison, who's been arrested, the declared value of your home with the municipality. These can all be viewed online. In Canada, these are generally considered public information as well, but you can't access them that easily. They're not in a public database on the web. You have to write a letter or fill out a form and mail it in.
Although information in court records is considered public, it has in every practical sense stayed obscure until fairly recently, because few people besides reporters would wander into a courthouse basement to read it, Stoddart said.
There is a difference between in a basement in the public archives and online. When you make it easier to access a person's private information, you're more likely to have people doing look-ups for trivial/unjustifiable reasons. An employer doing a search on Google for an employee's name now might find a court appearance of the employee from several years ago for drug possession. The employee may have been acquitted, but that's still going to tarnish the employer's reputation of the employee. That's important, especially when discriminating based on arrest or court appearance record is illegal in Canada.
The Canadian legal system generally recognizes that access to such information in certain cases is extremely important. It is also recognized that publishing such information online in an easily accessible form could cause a lot of harm to a person's right to privacy. If it's important enough you need to know, it should be important enough for you to haul your butt to the local archives or paying the fee to have a copy mailed to you.
I'm sure to many Americans it would seem a bit nutty, the idea of making it "sorta" hard to access public personal information, but it fits in well with previous thought on privacy in Canada.
People who scheme and lie often have patterns of behavior that may well predict what they may claim in future court cases and business issues. Making records extremely open is the only way to go.
For example how about a fellow accused of date rape being unable to open records showing that the female has accused nine different men of the same thing over a twelve year period?
Privacy and freedom are dead opposite notions. In a free society where anyone can accumulate information one simply must claim responsibility for one's actions. Those with stains on their past should be willing to live with those stains.
This sounds perfectly sensible. Allowing every detail of your life to be released to the public domain is the same as admitting you have nothing to hide. Have fun living in your glass house while you're blemished forever by your past indiscretions. Hello nanny state, hello 1984, hello being blackmailed.
Good for Canada.
I think she's partly clueless, and partly a danger for courtrules. Everyones who is in his right mind and has nothing to fear, wouldn't have anything to fear if his name came in plain or in anonymous in the records. Courtrules are already public. In court itself in newspapers etc. Records of court rules are historical, they happend, nevermore to be erased, so they still can reapear anytime anywhere, so they can as well been searchable through the internet en searchingines. Some court rules or the resulsts of it can even help solving others problems. There should even be more openness even in much more things beside court rules
Yet another example of sensationalism on Slashdot. Ooh, the GOVERNMENT (!) wants to partially anonymize names of people in court cases online! This obviously is an invasion of our civil rights as citizens, even though we can still go to the court ourselves and get the full, un-"censored" names.
It's nice to see people take on the challenges the 'net poses to privacy without resorting to proposing heavy-handed regulation or whatnot. But, really, this story is unfortunately is just another one of Slashdot's anti-government circle-jerks.
I know someone who works in the court clerk's office of my county, and I can rattle off hundreds of examples of this.
One of the more notable ones was a real estate agent who came into the court and was upset that her case, and arrest, for DUI was posted online on the court schedule. Demands were made that this information not be published because the person was worried about how it would affect their reputation. I honestly dont think it ever occured to them to avoid the actual driving while intoxicated to avoid that damaged reputation. Only the publishing of that information was what was the problem.
Closer to home, I had posted a listing of all the court cases of a local real estate agency. Some of them arbitration cases, and some of them small claims cases. All that was posted was an exact copy of the information from the court website. This was up for about 6 months when I received a letter from an attorney DEMANDING I take the information down because it was 'making knowingly libelous claims'.
It gets worse. In the Cease and Desist letter, the demands were for me to turn over my domain names to this company free of charge, or they were going to move forward with criminal charges against me. Needless to say, I ignored the letter. Suprisingly, I never heard from them again. But that might be because I decided to post the nice Cease and Desist letter online that was sent by Caton Commercial. I can only imagine the point at which they realized that it might have been a bad idea to bring MORE attention to what they were trying to keep hidden.
To this very day, simply typing in the company name "Caton Commercial" into Google, returns the courthouse website and schedule with all their cases listed in the #2 spot. The 'streisand effect' is a beautiful thing to watch unfold sometimes. If you doubt the story, you can always type it in and see for yourself.
Court records are often sealed in order to protect (for example) trade secrets. Whole massive swaths of information that would be public under any other circumstances, gone in the name of a profit. Children involved in proceedings are also anonymized, on various beliefs about what children should and shouldn't have to endure.
Ummm, sealed court records aren't put on the internet, only the public ones.
This proposal may be flawed, but it's nice to see someone talking about history versus technological reality. I'm hesitant to say that it's a great idea, to make information harder to get out of the government, but regardless of the weakness of the proposal, she's talking about a very interesting problem.
No, she's a moron. There is a vital public interest in seeing that justice is done. Otherwise you wouldn't know about a poor guy in Florida who was convicted for possession of a number of oxycodone pills. The fact that he had a valid prescription from a licensed doctor and it was filled by a licensed pharmacist was irrelevant under Florida law (and the court followed the law). Without journalists, bloggers and other busybodies talking about it, the law won't get changed.
If it's a public government record, then it should be public. If it needs to be confidential (and some things should be), then make it confidential. But don't pretend that making you walk down to the courthouse and pay a $10 photocopy fee makes it confidential.
Otherwise you're just creating a publishing industry of people (like Lexis) who gather all the court records and resell them (for much more than $10).
I'm just surprised they manage to have a Privacy Czar. With the U.S.A. about to grant telecom immunity for illegally granting surveillance to the gov't (who asked for it illegally), and the U.K. about to start monitoring EVERY electronic communication, I'm glad there's a country left that values privacy. Maybe I'll move there if America keeps letting me down.
who do not believe that privacy is relevant or has any value today. ...which is why I've arranged for infra-red web-cams in ALL of the rooms in your houses.
Now, would you like initials with that, or full names and addresses?
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
User-Agent: *
Disallow: /
That wasn't so hard was it. I think I'll go watch some tv now.
"Canadian Privacy Czar"
There are no "czar" positions in Canada, even in slang terms. Yes, I know that it has become a popular term in US politics - drug czar , war czar , etc. It's really, really stupid in that context, and in a Canadian context it is additionally inappropriate.
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Confucius say "Court system is like window. Peeping Tom knows that when curtains are pulled, someone is getting fucked."
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I very much agree.
I think it's important to keep in mind the ever changing world we live in and make sure that the rules and values we hold grow and change with it.
I am against anonymizing all legal records, and I'm not sure that doing that for online records will be a great benefit, but I do think it is necessary to make sure the intent of public records are upheld while ways of exploiting this information are dealt with.
What I'm saying is, I don't really care if online records are anonymized, as long as there is a still a simple and easy way for full undoctored access to the information exists.
Have you ever gone and looked at the Exhibits that are normally filed with cases? I have, and I've seen detailed medical records, checks (with full bank account numbers etc), of course full personal contact information (home address, phone number, etc) and more, all right there in the exhibits. This does nothing good for the people involved in it. Their names should be initialed out and so should things like bank account numbers, CC#s, medical records, etc.
Relevant (I hope) joke:
A little old lady called the police to her house, complaining that her neighbour stood in front of his window, completely naked, each morning. She took the police officer into her bathroom and pointed out her neighbour, who could be seen shaving through his bathroom window.
"See," she said, "he hasn't got any clothes on."
"He isn't wearing a shirt," replied the police officer, "but he's only visible from the chest up, so we can't know that he is totally naked."
"Yes you can," she said, "if you stand on the toilet and crane your neck like this..."
Atheism is a religion to the same extent that not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
That's the question here.
Has the technology being used changed the ability to 'view' the record into an effective 'broadcasting' of the record to lots of people who are uninterested in the records, but ARE interested in the identifying info within.
This is not as black and white as I'd first assumed. I'm curious to see what the more lawyerly have to say in the papers on the pro and con ...
Kevin
It's also not so good for companies. Consider International Business Machines vs Santa Cruz Operations.
Considering Phlebas, whoever the hell he is.
I think something simple like rename/relabelling names would be fine, as an attorney you know your client is J.Doe #334673 And have no real hindrance for your work. The legal decisions (the important part of the record) is still up there, and it gives bleeding hearts the illusion of privacy. Though really, in any sufficiently popular case it wouldn't take much for people to know that J.doe #367285 is actually {insert celebrity of choice here}
We just have to establish that its not a crime to match the number to the individual name, nor should it be one to share that information.
And what method does she propose instead to allow the population to monitor abuses of their court system when it targets individuals?
I'm divorced. My ex has my kids. She's sued me 5 times now. She's a rich, powerful woman who does her best to keep the kids away from me. I've payed 60% of my post tax income in child support over the last 3 years, and have spent over 100K on lawyers fees to maintain my rights to see my children. All because she is rich, she can hire lawyers, and pay enough in a small-town east-texas system that is manipulable.
The state treats divorced fathers without custody like criminals: My SSN, address, taxes, salary, employer, dates spent with my kids - they are not only public record, and searchable online, but *I* am required, under penalty of a "motion to enforce" (risking jail or losing access to my children) and more legal fees and flights to TX, I am "forced" to voluntarily provide much of this this published information even outside of an ongoing trial if I choose to remain in the lives of my children.
Stoddart is not a danger, a menace, or clueless.
For all of you commenting on court records, consider this: Have you ever been sued? prosecuted? Stood 12 hours on a witness stand grilled by lawyer after lawyer? Submitted 5 years of taxes during discovery? Had psychologist evaluate your and publish reports on your fitness? Been threatened with jail if you can't pay the money a judge says you owe?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Did you actually read what she said? She doesn't want them taken offline, she just wants to make them semi-anonymous so you can't google for people. They'll still be at the net.
(Phone rings)
-- Hello? Sherriff's office!
-- Yes, miss smedley. Yes, I went yesterday and told the boys who swam naked in the river near your house to go elsewhere.
-- Well, I passed by some time ago, and they moved downstream a quarter mile, so you can't see them anymore.
-- Well, of course, if you use binoculars, you can see them!!!
"Researchers, reporters, geeks, and most teenagers would still be able to figure out who's who" - so? They will also figure out my email-address from the blurb on top of this post - but a SPAMer will have a harder time writing a script to do it.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Why did the submitter of the story go with privacy czar? Even the fuckin article clearly calls the privacy commisioner by the correct title. Nice to see that kind of distortion from the submitter.
Guys, Canada has freedoms that Americans would love to have returned after DCMA, FISA, Patriot, and TSA. I have lived here for two years, from Texas, and the sense that you are in control of your own info is a comfort and a relief. Visa does not have the right to my Social Security number (SIN) and my pile of junk mail is very small. No corporation or governmental agency is invading my life, checking my credit, or calling me every hour. Freedom from government and corporations is just as important as freedom of speech. Freedom reigns here in Canada. Put your personal info on a web searchable public record and every tele-vendor will be calling.
Privacy is a fundamental right guaranteed in the 4th and 9th amendments to the US Constitution and everyone in the US is so used to being Pwnd by corporations and governmental agencies that they've forgotten that no one has a right to your personal info... no one.... ever.
The court record would say so.
So the court record would say that an innocent is scheduled to be on trial?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Yup. Talk about the Fishman Affidavit...
My court record doesn't say anything other than I was arrested, after that it just drops off. Gave me hell trying to join the army because no one wanted to provide them information on why they dropped the charges.
Goodness. Reasoned, thoughtful comments on slashdot? Inconceivable! I applaud you sir.
I guess if you want to be a real ass, you can post links to everything but the final verdict.
Program Intellivision!
Considering that court rooms are generally open access, I don't see how bottling the information up later on is likely to be a good idea.
Any /. reader should comprehend the difference between some information being available by traditional means, and that same information being available worldwide via web to every data miner.
Tell me, you're not even slightly worried about criminal organizations and foreign intelligence agencies (domestic "homeland security" types probably have full access anyway) and even tabloid newspapers doing data mining court records to find "interesting" potential victims, targets and recruits?
Full online access does create a problem. Many here seem to argue that openness of information is so valuable that abuse, even criminal use should be made easy. I disagree strongly. I feel a person should have full control over what personally identifiable information about him is internationally available in the internet. For example any court text available online should not have any names in it (names replaced by numbers, for example). The full text should only be available in person, or via snail mail for a cost of "shipping and handling".
Jennifer Stodddart is not clueless, she has been a very good privacy commissioner and her point here is intelligent. There is a big difference between having your information available to the public and having it all be easily searchable. Submitter needs to get a clue.
Your words would have much more value if you would post your full name for us to Google any court documents about you - but you are too coward to even log in here.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Actually I think it is a good step forward. The process is what should be transparent, not necessarily the ID's of the people involved. The fact remains is that the presumption of innocence should technically take precedence because some of these cases that get reported in the media end up being false accusations and what not. Therefore, keeping the names of the people involved anonymized UNTIL there is a conviction. After all if you want proof a false accusation can ruin someone's life in this modern era just imagine what would happen if you got accused of child molesting or child porn... Even if you are found innocent (which is not very likely since its an emotionally charged issue and people are more likely to apply guilty until proven innocent in their mental process), your name is out there, attached to such a case so you'll probably never get a job again, you'd likely be the target of vigilantes and since you're arrest in the police database you can expect there to be a lot of law enforcement harassment not to mention their records may still list you as a sex offender regardless of the court findings. People have been falsely accused and gone on to commit suicide as a result.
All right, I have to go into the "Captain Obvious zone". . .
How about not putting the information on the internet?? *GASP*
I can see many problems with using pseudo-anonymous methods, like initials--the info is easily deduced in many cases, data may be lost as to who the initials are, and on and on.
Near me, we have a case going on, where they've issued a gag-order on the persons involved and court ordered them, where possible, to go back and remove blog entries, etc. Here's a link to the latest developments: http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/aug/19/federal_judge_orders_release_yellow_house_owners_c/
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt. (When catapults are outlawed, only outlaws will
Police reports are published in (almost?)every US paper. Often these are just arrest records, and if you are found not guilty you'll always have your name attached to a news snippet saying you were arrested for X offense. It's a price we pay for having an open court system.
Hey, how are those Human Rights Commissions working out for you?
Enjoy that privacy because you don't have free speech.
They clearly want the information public otherwise why have the open court rule at all? So if the problem is the effects of google (and others) are unwanted then ask them nicely not to traverse your site.
...or you can kick up a fuss and get yourself on slashdot while announcing the evils of google.
Or maybe she is the damn PRIVACY CZAR and she is just trying to do the job that her government is paying for.
And I'm sure the court record would say "innocent" on lots of potential employees.
Course I wouldnt employ them. If someones had some drug charges thrown out, then they are less desirable than another potential employee that isn't the sort of bloke whos accused of being a dealer.
I'm sure it will be illegal to discriminate too. Just like the same laws that never seem to force me to have an ugly PA ;)
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
Would you hire a person found not guilty of child molestation to work in your daycare center? After all, he or she has been found legally innocent of the crime.
If you were in court, would you admit that you cheated on your wife a few times, knowing that everyone who considers dating you will google your name? What if admitting the nature of your transgressions found you innocent of a different crime?
What would you do if you found arrest photographs of your child's teacher for being rip-roaringly drunk in college and peeing on a beach? What do you think the rest of the parents in your district would do to that teacher?
The ______ Agenda
Maybe you should just go by Sylar?
So, what is your point? Surely, the images of me doing various things at home are theoretically available to my neighbor with good binoculars, who happens to be watching at the right time. Does that mean that it should be also made available to two billion of my neighbors on Internet? If so, is it too much for me to ask that at least I am identified by initials rather than full name?
> My name is Xavier Zachary Quincy. How does this help me?
Prof. X, what do you need privacy for? You can *read and control peoples' minds* for crying out loud!
Aren't *all* people scheduled to be on trial 'innocent'...as in 'innocent until proven guilty'? ...or should that be 'assumed to be innocent until proven guilty'?
I think the point is that the phrase 'innocent until proven guilty' has little meaning to the general public. They tend to assume that "there's no smoke without fire", if they don't just plain assume the person is guilty.
Max.
I say instead of initials, we substitute a SHA-256 hash of your legal name. For visual distinctiveness, we then interpret the result as UTF-16.
Sure will make news reports about the cases more entertaining to listen to.
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
A Pardon can be granted to people (ordinary people, not just Richard Nixon) who have been judged not deserving the stigma of a criminal record. A pardon expunges all records of one's criminal conviction.
If it is easy to create mirrors of court databases that name names, pardons would become meaningless. Presumably the maintainers of such databases wouldn't take the trouble to purge the records of those granted pardons, nor could they since pardons are necessarily not publicly announced. That would defeat the purpose.
So if you ever had a girlfriend cheat on you with your friend and your brother, went to a bar to drown your troubles and got blotto, ended up relieving yourself on the sidewalk and got into a stupid tussle with the cop who showed up, you would have to carry the burden of having officially assaulted a police officer. Until you die.
The possibility of redemption from that kind of human failing should be taken away for, what exactly? Theoretical constructs of purity? So teenagers can have a laugh fucking up someone else's life?
Stoddart is a smart person. You should maybe think about what she's saying. Either that, or make sure you never do anything interesting.
"history versus technological reality"
I would like it better if this way of thinking was applied to business and government databases. Business and government have always kept databases, But, the speed with which they can gather information from them has increased massively. That is a real threat to privacy. Currently, it is being ignored by the courts under the impression that speed doesn't matter. As an analogy, imagine being in combat where you were given orders by post, and the enemy could use radio.....
I reserve the write to mangle english.
You are right. A reasonable and informed person (the privacy commissioner) has raised some important issues. She should have the respect she deserves and don't assume that she is a danger, menace or clueless. The summary is way too inflammatory and emotive. The OP wrongly and somewhat offensively implies that this is something to do with freedom of speech or suppression of information. The OP should learn to assume that people in her position are as smart and as altruistic as him or herself.
In fact, she clearly understands and values free speech and open justice or she would have proposed a major barrier that can't easily be worked around. The idea behind the solution she has proposed (make stuff hard to find unless people go looking) is not dangerous, not menacing, and certainly not clueless.
It probably isn't the best solution, because she is not a technical person, and maybe she has a professional bias towards information containment. So if people feel strongly about it, they should demonstrate respect for her and her principles, even if they don't agree that there's a problem, or like the solution.
Despite my UID and this post, I am not new here! (Because of my UID I am not New Here.)
No no no!
Agnostic would be collecting little squares of paper with one side having pictures and numbers on it and the other being all sticky if you lick them.
They might be stamps, but you are not really sure.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
IF they want to keep the names and disable massive search engines (the popular ones, which obey the "rules") they could just setup a robots.txt, use initials and the initials should link to a web page with the real names which is protected by the robots.txt. Major search engines obey the robots file and the names are public. Of course, I wouldn't want my name made public by anyone under any circumstances, especially if it involves suing. Could you please close the door? We'd like some privacy here!
As I posted in another comment, the concern about 'pricing people who really do need the information out' is not one I've ever found to be valid.
All of the Courts I've dealt with have had wavier programs in place to allow those who need access but cannot pay for it access to the materials they require, so long as they are willing to make the appropriate application.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
Which is why when I was misidentified as the Assailant in a case I insisted on the whole thing being expunged from the records. I have a clearance and a felony assault would rather ruin that..
Slightly complicated, but the officer mixed up the report and identified me as the attacker/
The DA balked, because it would have meant he could not read the police reports, look at the evidence, and see that the officer screwed up the names.
Anyway, a threat of suing for malicious prosecution and a few stern looks from the judge (ok, mostly the judge) meant I got my case removed from the records.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
So, what is your point? Surely, the images of me doing various things at home are theoretically available to my neighbor with good binoculars, who happens to be watching at the right time. Does that mean that it should be also made available to two billion of my neighbors on Internet? If so, is it too much for me to ask that at least I am identified by initials rather than full name?
Don't forget that the court papers will likely contain your address, so people will know where the show is performed.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Consider also the policies of most web forums, Wikipedia, etc. that posting someone's phone number constitutes harassment, even though the phone number is in the phone book. The people who institute those policies are not idiots, they simply understand there is a difference between theoretical equivalence and being the same thing in practice.
Would you hire a person found not guilty of child molestation to work in your daycare center? After all, he or she has been found legally innocent of the crime.
By that reasoning, you should hire people found guilty, since you seem to assume courts are by default wrong.
If you were in court, would you admit that you cheated on your wife a few times, knowing that everyone who considers dating you will google your name? What if admitting the nature of your transgressions found you innocent of a different crime?
Actually, I wouldn't cheat in the first place if I didn't want to deal with the fallout. And, let's be serious, your wife could post that info just as easily. Or anyone else in that courtroom.
What would you do if you found arrest photographs of your child's teacher for being rip-roaringly drunk in college and peeing on a beach? What do you think the rest of the parents in your district would do to that teacher?
Same thing that happens to child sex offenders, only not as bad. But since you seem to hate them (or anyone who ever was accused of it), you seem to think they had it coming. But, hey, poor teacher.
"Privacy Czar"??? What a pile of crap! She's practically powerless...can only make suggestions, as a matter of fact. And she can't so much as get the time of day from a government interested in prying into every aspect of its citizens' personal lives.
The fact of the matter is that she's right. She's just not very tech-savvy. The whole point of the open court idea is that the government can't just grab somebody, try them in a secret kangaroo court, and throw them in some hole for the rest of their lives. It was never intended to provide voyeuristic thrills for no-life drones, or a happy hunting ground for every grifter, con artist, kidnapper and thief who can operate a keyboard.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Speaking as a Canadian, I think this is a great idea! We must realize that in the age of Google, even supposedly public information can bring about serious privacy concerns when published to the internet. The point is NOT to make it impossible for people to match court cases to actual people, but rather to help prevent Google (or any other search engine) from making that match. Because if Google can make that match, then that court case will continuously rise to the top of search results for your name. And at that point, it doesn't really matter if you're innocent or not -- the impression is damaging alone. I'd like to see them do the same for political donations as well.
She wants to 'anonymize' court records by substituting initials for names.
My name is Xavier Zachary Quincy. How does this help me?
Try googling for xzq, and you'll have your answer.
My name is Xue Zhang Qian. How does this help me?
The alphabet is better distributed than you might think.
Well, sure, that's not bad. ...but I still question your analogy for 'atheist'. Perhaps it's just not a good analogy. It seems to ignore the active disbelieve or the belief in the non-existence of deity. I mean, a rose doesn't collect stamps either.
I mean, someone who hasn't heard of God (and so could be considered as not believing in God) isn't an atheist. It's only people who know of God and have decided that they don't believe he exists that are atheist. Perhaps we disagree on the definition of atheist (or I have it wrong, perhaps). IMO, it's definitely not simply *absence of belief*.
Nope, I can't think of an analogy involving stamps that better fits what I understand of atheism.
Max.
This is done in many countries, where all "Family Law" cases initials are used instead of names, and in ALL cases involving minors (just the minors names obviously).
I guess if you took the trouble to actually go to the justice dept (or wherever they keep the physical files) and ask for xxx case the names would show up complete in the scanned docs (please tell me they ARE scanned and not microfilmed still, or even worse kept as hardcopy)....
I see a lot of comments in this thread around the lines of "Well if you didn't want your name on a judgment, you shouldn't have done anything illegal". While this is a quesionable argument, it seems the slashdot crowd has not spent a significant amount of time looking at the crap some judges put in judgments.
I've been personally involved with that kind of work (putting legal decisions online) and some of the stuff, especially in child abuse or sexual assault cases is just heart churning.
Now think about how you'd feel as a teenager if whenever someone googles your name, they find out about what your uncle did to you when you were 6.
Yes, court decisions should be public. Yes, in principle names should remain in there. But in some cases, it is really not appropriate. Note that if you really want to find out the info, you can always request it from the clerk of that tribunal.
We have gone a long way from the days where the decisions were locked behind expensive proprietary databases, or dusty books. This have changed the effects of the principle of public availability of the law. Let's not go backward and realize that while the law needs to be public, associating some of the sordid details with an individual is not conducive to either the victim healing or the criminal being eventually rehabilitated. Its hard enough getting your life together with a criminal file when you have doe your time, making it even harder makes the whole concept of the sentencing futile.
BTW, there has been a big effort in educating judges in thinking about they decisions being available to a larger clerk than the legal scholars.
Have you ever obfustigated your emailadress in something like user@example.com.invalid or REMOVETHISuserATexampleDOTcom? This is the same thing.
I think it is a very good thing. That way somebody who 20 years ago did something wrong, did his time and betterd his life won't be punnished for his crime a second time, just because you googled his name.
The information is still available, so if you have interest, go to the court and read it there.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
So now the question remains. Is the anonymous OP a danger or a menace? Or just clueless?
Remember the point (IMO) of such a move isn't to make it impossible for someone to find the true names of those mentioned in court records, but merely to prevent such information from being available to casual searchers. Of course a robots.txt file could so something similar.
Just another crappy blog
This attempt to 'anonymize' will hide the details for only some people. If your name is Jim Jones you end up with JJ yet if your Quincy Zigler using QZ isn't hiding much.
Privacy is important, some things only me, my accountant, and unfortunatly the Tax Office Know, well the tax office will always know, you can't hide from them, but certian personal details open to scrutiny, or manipulation can damage your financial health.
And the full text would presumably still be available in hardcopy. It would just take a significant amount more effort to intrude on a specific person's privacy.
I think the word you're looking for is "presumed".
I'm typing this sentence very slowly to make sure this comment takes long enough to write...
The analogy I liked better was 'Atheism is a religion just like bald is a hair colour.'
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
In most common law courts, family law opinions are not public - moreover they are almost never public where minors are involved. If a decision is public, it probably rests on on a trust or contractual issue where equity is apportioned - eg: you don't know the relationship details of Paul McCartney's recent divorce, but you do know how his property was divided.
I welcome this presumption of value in anonymity. It seems people are finally getting the fact that computer networks don't forget as they should. If people started implementing error rates - forgetfulness for example - into computer systems, we would eventually use information with a little difference and not blindly believe everything we see. Information should not be 100% reliable because human collation is inherently error prone and not 100% accurate - without enforcing this we cant change the perception of information.
Perhaps when we see information as infallible as it really is we can then strive to build safeguards. Starting with a guarentee of privacy in communication privity.
> > About the same as your argument for not believing in Shiva or Thor and Odin, I'd guess?
>
> As for the throwing away above, try replacing "stamps" with "infectious agents" in your sentence above:
I'm not sure I get your point. We're examining the stamp analogy, so what use it is in replacing 'stamps' with anything else?
Max.
There is a qualitative difference between, on the one hand, courts being open (ie anyone can walk in and watch the incredibly boring goings-on) and the proceedings being available in the library for anyone to read; and on the other the transcripts being online so that google indexes them and they're then accidentally found. Courts being open and transcripts being published is indeed essential for a free society. But I'm not so sure that them being online is essential, as, while it bolsters one right (that of people to know what the courts are doing) it does it at the cost of pretty much destroying privacy for those named in court hearings. Their personal information (that of witnesses, those found not guilty, etc) would now be out there for everyone to read and maybe laugh at, instead of merely for those who know they were involved and are motivated to go to the library.
For example, if I was named in a divorce case, I certainly wouldn't want every slashdot troll that I'd pissed off and everyone at work to know that "Mr. Cantrell regularly met my wife at hotels where Mr. Cantrell would piss in my wife's mouth and she would smear shit in his hair. I only found out when the bills for cleaning shit-smeared hotel rooms came in on our joint credit card."
...but that's just as faulty in that it doesn't describe atheism...it describes absence of belief, which could be atheism, agnosticism, or plain ignorance.
Of course, you're free to like it better :)
I would point out that I also agree that atheism isn't a religion, but my reason is that religion is a belief in a higher power (a "God" so to speak), and atheism is a belief that there is no higher power. Atheism is not an absence of belief at all since a decision has been made based on some sort of information.
Agnosticism is someone who hasn't been convinced either way, and ignorance is not even knowing there's a decision to be made.
Max.
Nothing.
The current president had a long record of youthful excess, alcohol and possbly hard drugs. Didn't seem to handicap his later career or social life (maybe "Finding God" helped).
Atheist means "without god(s)", ie "without belief in god(s)" - or "absence of belief in god(s)". Hie ye to a proper English dictionary as opposed to doing an online search. I recommend the big Oxford dictionary. It will tell you the etymology.
See also moral, immoral, and amoral.
"She cites the case of someone who is upset at reading the divorce case of her parents"
She actually used the excuse "Think of the children". And I thought everybody knew that was a cliche...
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I know nothing about God. I also don't know anyone who knows anything about God. When no one knows anything about some entity, and no one can propose a way to get any verifiable knowledge about it, a reasonable conclusion is that the entity does not exist in reality.
I know some people's beliefs about God, and I find those beliefs to be unwarranted, stupid and harmful, for the above mentioned reason. Therefore my signature can be taken both figuratively and literally.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Hiding court records except on a case by case basis when absolutely necessary is a menace to society.
But an even bigger menace is overturning the "innocent and proven guilty" principle. By that principle, anyone acquitted of a crime should not be penalized in any way or treated differently to any other innocent person. These searchable court records were causing exactly that to happen - uncovering unfounded allegations has suddenly become practical.
One of the major points of a free society is the openness of courts. The reason is that it's a lot harder to engage in shenanigans if you know that the public has the ability to attend the proceedings or view the record.
But, the courts need to be open primarily so that people can scrutinize the courts and judge it's actions (that's our job), but not necessarily to allow people to scrutinize and judge each other. That's the job of the court.
How about you also compare what is printed in mass media to what is actually in the court records. When the content of court records is filtered to suit those with vested interests, than mass media has far greater opportunity to create it's own version of the truth.
From hiding the behaviour of the rich and greedy to crucifying those opposed corporatism. They are all public courts and all actions with in those courts should be and have to be a matter of public record, to ensure that justice is 'seen' to be administered.
The best alternative is simply to ban the republishing on court records on other sites and to prevent anonymous access to court records. This should limit abuse of the system and keep track of people who might not react appropriately to information presented in those court records. Education the public is of far greater value than creating a society with even more secrets in public administration.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
...and let IE 7.0 choke on the resulting massive string and die allowing hackers to control my PC through XP's gaping security holes?
Stupid lady doesn't know shit about privacy or court opinions.
If she so worries about it, why doesn't she prevent the RIAA-equivalent in canada from enforcing monitoring ISPs traffic?
Dumb wh*re
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
By that reasoning, you should hire people found guilty, since you seem to assume courts are by default wrong.
No he just knows that a "not guilty" verdict from a court means "not proven guilty" not "proven not guilty".
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
This is a perfect example of the two-edged sword of "open information." I think it's pretty universal that we are all in favor of "open information" until it is your information that is at stake.
There is also another hypocrisy at work. Many (even some on this board who cry "information wants to be free!"), if finding themselves in the position of being an employer doing a background check on someone would probably still think twice if something marginally "suspect" came up. It's all well and good to pontificate in theory about "innocent until proved guilty" and "youthful indiscretions" and "the law and the courts do make mistakes" and such, but try to tell me that if you are hiring a school bus driver, and the applicant was once accused of molesting a child, but found not guilty, that you wouldn't nevertheless pass right over that person and onto the next. Or if you're hiring a bookkeeper and find that they were once accused of embezzlement, but the charges were dropped. Don't tell me you wouldn't. But if the shoe were on the other foot, you would be hoping like hell that your own past "glitches" don't turn up when you need a job.
There is also the problem of interpretation and context. 32 years ago, as a reckless and confused youth of 18, I was arrested for some "indiscretions," even spending a few days in the pokey. Misdemeanors all; however, because of the nature and circumstances of the incident and the wording of the law at that time, one of the charges has a rather uncomfortable ring, if you look at just the term used. The reality, though still a bit hinky, is not nearly as bad as one would assume looking at the charge, and the laws have changed to where the specific act that happened to fall under that statute is no longer even unlawful. Still, it would be very uncomfortable to have to "explain" the situation. Fortunately, it has only come up once, very early on, and I have held several jobs since then with no problems, either because an extensive background check was not done (as it was not for most non-sensitive jobs until the paranoia of recent years), or eventually the check simply did not go back far enough to turn it up (most commercially provided background checks only go back so many years). Yet every time this subject comes up, I get antsy thinking "what if that small police department one day decides to dig through their basement, dust off all those moldy old records, digitize them, and put them on the Web for the world to see?"
"Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket." -- Eric Hoffer
Know what, the guy is right. Not the anonymous submitter (who complains about anonymity - the irony), but the canadian privacy guy.
Why? Because he's hit the nail right on the head. If I'm wrongfully accused of X, or even just appear as a witness in such a case, you will get a hit and a court document when you put "Tom + X" into Google. Sure, if you read the document, you'll find out what really happened - if! We here on /. should know very, very well that "RTFA" isn't an empty phrase.
Especially employers usually wish to know a lot more than they really need to know. My sexual perversions and my hobbies shouldn't interest my employer. But if they show up on a Google search, he probably can't help but be influenced by them, since in the end those people are humans, too. So if my hobby is eating raw insects and that's something (s)he finds incredibly disgusting, (s)he can't help project that disgust, that's just human nature.
Same with court cases, especially historic. Yeah, maybe Joe was jailed for drug dealing. Maybe that was 1982 and it was a first and minor offense. And he's learnt his lesson and came out in 1984 the perfect citizen. And maybe, just maybe, the HR chief's daughter died of cocaine two years ago. Joe won't get the job, despite there being no rational reason.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
My name is Xavier Zachary Quincy. How does this help me?
What happens if there IS another Xavier Quincy out there in the country who was arrested for rape? Are employers, friends and dates who google you going to go the extra step to see that this is a different person than you before letting their imaginations run wild?
Now one solution to this would be to go the other way of ensuring no privacy - that a person's complete records (with the final outcomes highlighted rather than just accusations) can be accurately found rather than randomly matching search terms (there's obviously some value in being able to be criminal background checks on a potential date and filter out those accused or associated with crimes - I'd certainly use it if it was easily available). Of course this will mean that there will be a lot more effort spent on challenges to expunge records, more victims who are afraid to come forward and a public brand hanging on every person who falls between saint and psychopath who has ever made a mistake.
( I haven't decided which side of this issue I'm on - I actually lean a little towards public records being public, but there are pretty heavy implications that I feel need to be carefully thought through - but that's privacy czar's role: to draw attention to debates that need to happen )
If you were trying to get a job and someone did a preliminary background check on you with Google, turned up some old court documents stating you got arrested for being in a bar fight or something of that nature, would you now be OK if you can no longer even get an interview because no one wants to talk to you?
Many large companies do background checks already but by this point you are usually about to be hired and you can actually tell them ahead of time why you got arrested.
I think its called a newspaper....
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
Does that mean that it should be also made available to two billion of my neighbors on Internet?
No. But there should be no law stopping it.
If so, is it too much for me to ask that at least I am identified by initials rather than full name?
No. But there should be no law requiring it.
Issue 1) The privacy commissioner is talking about what the state does not what private individuals do. While this is a canadian story, I think it is completely reasonable for a court system to prevent google indexing(spider.txt??) of local court records to protect some measure of privacy of individuals. There are already publicly available properly indexed databases for criminal searches such as the NCIC in the US.
If a party to a trial(other than the state) wants to publicize his or her case that is also reasonable.
2) The right to privacy does not mean the same as a gag order. In a civil suit either party can publicize the case, Even in a Juvenile case criminal case a defendant can tell anyone they want.
3) The right to privacy is a right just like freedom of speech is a right.
An anonymous LIBERAL reader writes ...
The privacy czar cares about people's privacy! Shocking footage at 11!
The commentary at the end of this summary is entirely not necessary. Frankly, having somebody who is a bit crazy in how much privacy they fight for is probably a good thing in that position. I know I'd rather have them as the privacy czar then pretty well anybody in the US Government these days.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
The point is that to see someone's divorce case you must be actively searching for it and willing to read it. The fact that "it's accessible to everyone" is not equal to "everyone knows what's in it".
The example TFA gives as justification amounts to "there was a Jewish girl whose faith was shattered when she read the New Testament so we should make it more obscure by removing it from the Internet". At the same time it doesn't discuss any potential data mining and identity theft risks associated with those documents being available.
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.
Two situations come to mind. Here in the UK (don't know about anywhere else) when a woman accuses a man of rape, her name is withheld from reporting, but the (often innocent) mans name is open to the world. Now that is wrong, and is used in malicious accusations again and again, especially when the accused is famous/rich. This needs to change - either both the names are published or neither. When the court has decided then the guilty party has their name published whoever that is. At present the womans name is withheld, even after a failed prosecution.
Also, there was a story the other day about a wealthy executive who was murdered in her home. The story mentioned that she was married and her husband (47) was a car dealer. The story later mentioned that the police were holding a 47 year old man for questioning !!!
What is the point of withholding the names if you give so many blatant clues that a child could figure it out ?
In criminal matters, it's the government versus the accused, and liberty demands that such trials take place in public. But in a purely civil matter, the government is just an adjudicator -- the conflict is between two private people or institutions. Why SHOULD the public have access to divorce proceedings? The government has only a neutral role.
I piss off bigots.
And I'd like to add that ALL the posts I've seen assumes the information is accurate. I've seen many times folks who have a very common name get into trouble because of a jerk with the same name.
Or, folks who've had charges dismissed, but the clerks did not put that into the database. So now, the poor bastard gets nailed in another state for whatever. And that's just law enforcement. Then we get into the corporate arena. It's unbelievable how folks with similar names to deadbeats are harassed by debt collectors. And those sleazebags (the debt collectors) will just sell that debt to another collector who will then go after the wrong guy again! How's this pertinent? Debt collectors use government records, among other sources, for "tracking" folks.
As we all know here, when there's an error in someone's database, it's gets propagated. It's never anyone's fault or problem when that happens - except the poor bastard who's name is sullied.
Oh, to head off the "Why don't they use the SSN?" responses. You would think! But no, with all that damned information they collect on you, they still screw it up. The credit bureaus, as a matter of fact, are the first ones to say that many times debt and what not is attributed to the wrong person - even with the proper SSN, address, DOB, etc....
Let's face it. This data is entered by barely literate clerks in Government who basically can't get fired, and there's no repercussions to them or their employer when they screw up. In the meantime us, Joe citizen, gets screwed over by the system.
You may want to turn off email notification for a while. You're about to get bombarded by the arm-chair lawyers who are going to say the there's no Right to Privacy.
I think you missed the entire point of his post.
Fact is that with a choice between the person who went to court for X and was found not guilty, and the person who didn't, the vast majority of companies would pick the person who didn't, even if they were not as suitable for the job as the person who did.
A workaround would be that any defendant found not guilty could request reasonable anonymisation of the court papers presented to the internet. The court proceedings would be available, but an innocent person's life would not be ruined because of the false accusation / poor police work / etc.
Well, yes, of course that's what an Anonymous Coward would say.
Since they were never proven guilty, they remain innocent in the law, and should be treated as such.
The seekers do no need truth, the seekers do find truth and the finding do be painful
Different atheists might have different reasons and motives for being atheists. But "active disbelief" is a very strange term that can only come from somebody who is a theist. I not longer "actively disbelieve" the existence of God, than I "actively disbelieve" the existence of the tooth fairy, or the existence of santa Claus. I simply don't believe in God because I have found no evidence to suggest that God exists, apart from people claiming so, with no evidence themselves. If no-one had told me about God, I would still be an atheist, even if I wasn't "actively disbelieving" in him.
My point is: atheism is the default position. Only people who have been told about God, believe in it. Theism is an artifact of human society. But luckily, even if you are told about God, you don't have to suspend all disbelief at once. Even in our religious and superstitious society, some people prefer to use reason and sound judgement instead of superstition and group-think. Thus atheism still remains. And the rose certainly doesn't collect stamps, nor is it a theist
I'm on the fence too. Say a Xavier was arrested. The newspapers are going to publish the name on their web sites. Most of those hide their news after so many days so they can sell access to it. But not all of them do. And if anyone cuts and pastes the article into a forum for discussion, or anyplace else.. Google is going to pick it up there as well. So even if the courts hide the info, it likely exists elsewhere. Worse, elsewhere might not have the whole story. The news may have only published the arrest, but wasn't interested in following up.
If the court hides their info, how would a person ever know if the charges were tossed? Sure, they could go to the court in person. That's not very likely though, is it? If someone is casually browsing for info on someone, they're going to stop at the net.
It's a tricky issue. I do believe that public info should be available online. But I can also see the potential for harm.
My Dad,brother, wife and several other friends attended my colleges homecoming football game about a year ago. We never miss a game and always stand and cheer for our team the entire time. Up until this game nothing had ever been said and people usually join in and enjoy it with us. That game my Dad was arrested out of the big group of us for disorderly conduct for standing and refusing to sit down because the same guy complained twice that he couldn't see. The local news ran a story on this that night and posted my Dad's name. Many of his "friends" and acquaintances accused him of being a drunk (he doesn't drink at all) and it ruined his reputation for a while. He later went to court and the judge tossed it out and laughed because the University didn't even show up (didn't want to draw attention to their overbearing rent-a-cops). Anyway, my point is the news never ran a story stating he was found innocent. And even though it was a small misdemeanor it made my Dad to ashamed to even go to the games anymore.
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
Information wants to be FREE!!
Just because these documents are technically public record, doesn't mean that they should be available in bulk to data miners. Privacy is a relative term and there are different types of privacy. Right now, with the advent of automatated, borderless, and unaccountable data collection, we need to take steps to protect some semblence of our personal lives from corporate interests.
Court and public records contain too much private data. Identity theft is a big concern that you are overlooking. Public records can contain information, such as, your name, address, checking account number, identity numbers (like SSN), and other information that should not be available for public access.
clancey
Actually, I think the best alternative is the one proposed by the Privacy Commissioner. Keep the records public, mask key pieces of information. The rules could say that the names of all corporations cannot be obfuscated, thereby allowing transparency in corporate cases.
The specifics of such a scheme would need to be worked out, but I think it's not a bad idea.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
Just make them available the old fashioned way!
This sounds analogous to the electronic voting disaster. Just because a technology 'exists' doesn't mean it should instantly and unreflectively supersede existing systems. Obviously the 'offline' method of accessing court records worked just fine and did not suffer from the serious privacy problems introduced by a world-wide communications network.
you had me at #!
This situation isn't helped by the media who will aggressively report such a story for a few days until it burns itself out and then fail to report on the innocent verdict several weeks or months later. In the eyes of the public, the accused often remains guilty.
To take that to the extreme, you don't know anything about anything...nothing is verifiable beyond dispute.
I'm sure there is some special name for the whole 'The Matrix' thing - where we can't tell if we're just a brain in a jar being prodded and stimulated....I think I knew it at one time, but I forget.
Max.
Max.
It wouldn't be that big a deal to calculate every hash of every legal name and build a reverse table (if you assume that there are 1 billion legal names that would be interesting in the U.S., they are roughly comparable to a 30 bit key space).
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
> My point is: atheism is the default position.
Well, *that* is the point. It was my opinion that atheism isn't what you say it is. Someone has said that *I* am wrong on that point, which I still need to check up on, but I can accept as quite likely (it happens more often than I would like).
It does remind me of a few other 'terms' that are 'defined' in one way by Christians and another by non-Christians, particularly the 'having sex' phrase, which, to Christians is the actual penetration, but, in my experience as a non-Christian, is anything from serious fooling around (but also includes penetration) ... which further reminded me of the whole Clinton/Monica thing where he preferred to say 'sexual relations' which would seem to be explicitly my non-Christian definition.
Anyway....
Max.
One of the major points of a free society is the openness of courts. The reason is that it's a lot harder to engage in shenanigans if you know that the public has the ability to attend the proceedings or view the record.
Yes, but the important thing is that any member of the public may observe a court in action to determine that it is being run according to a fair process. For this purpose, the way a case is dealt with and any precedents the ruling sets are very important, but the participants in the particular case are not.
In an appropriate metaphor, allow me to play devil's advocate for a moment and support the anonymity of court participants. There are several good reasons for keeping the identity of any participant in a court case secret.
Firstly, witnesses and victims may have to disclose personal, embarrassing or otherwise private information in court. If they are effectively guaranteeing by doing so that the whole world can find out this information, it will inevitably make people less willing to come forward. This is not in the interests of justice, and it clearly is a real problem, as the recent debate in the UK over allowing testimony by witnesses whose identities are concealed has demonstrated. (The specific problem there is a much more difficult one, as it relates to permitting absolute anonymity even in court; I use it only to demonstrate that people do get put off appearing because of these issues.)
Secondly, the law may acknowledge the concept of a second chance when a criminal has paid their dues, but there is little point officially saying that someone is no longer required to disclose a past conviction for a minor offence after a certain period if anyone dealing with them can just look it up on-line anyway. Again, the UK has demonstrated this problem recently with the CRB mess, where people in good standing doing everyday jobs have suddenly been fired because some new jobsworth manager made an illegal request for a CRB check, got information to which they were never entitled by law, and then for example fired someone in their 30s for a minor shoplifting conviction 20 years earlier. Again, it is unlikely that retaining such information serves the interests of justice, which is why there are second chance laws in some jurisdictions in the first place. Moreover, any argument that retaining that information in the public domain is beneficial to society is trivially debunked: the reoffending rate is dramatically reduced when criminals who have paid the court-ordered price for their actions are allowed to get on with their lives, while denying them a second chance to get a job and rebuild their lives leads to a high probability of reoffending and committing more serious crimes. I note that no "second chance" laws I'm aware of would hide someone who had committed a terrible crime like murder or rape in this way, and those with legitimate needs to know about such convictions can find out about them forever under UK law via CRB checks anyway, so this is not an argument for opening court records.
Finally, if court records for ongoing cases are made available, then there is the problem of stigma: anyone accused of committing a crime will naturally be suspected of having done so, and even if the court subsequently finds them not guilty, there is no guarantee that anyone who sees the court record showing the charges will also see the final result. IMHO, if someone has been found not guilty by a court, there should be no public record identifying them personally that even shows they were charged.
In none of these cases would it be necessary to restrict public, searchable court records from disclosing the evidence considered (or the nature of the evidence, where the details would disclose identity), the conclusions drawn and the resulting verdict. But those are three pretty strong arguments for not naming names or otherwise personally identifying participants.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
"An anonymous reader" wrote a clueless summary, completely unaware about privacy. So far, so bad. samzenpus, a /. editor who should know what privacy means in the digital era promoted it on the first page. That's worse.
For the record: By replacing the actual names of people with fictional names, nothing is really changed from the court records for any practical reasons (you can still use them and quote them in other hearings, etc.). The only thing that changed is that you cannot identify the people (to easily) -- who would such data need anyway (and did not have access to it already before posting court orders on-line)?
There is a vital public interest in seeing that justice is done. Otherwise you wouldn't know about a poor guy in Florida who was convicted for possession of a number of oxycodone pills. The fact that he had a valid prescription from a licensed doctor and it was filled by a licensed pharmacist was irrelevant under Florida law (and the court followed the law). Without journalists, bloggers and other busybodies talking about it, the law won't get changed.
While this is true, and certainly of benefit to the public, I think maybe this guy should have the right to decide for himself whether or not he is interested in being a martyr for this cause. I'm always suspicious of people willing to sacrifice others for the "greater good".
...sometimes, in order to hurt someone very badly, you have to tell that person terrible lies. - PA
Dude - they do not sell trolls anymore.
Telescopes are for the skyline, and technically are not optics.
You must know - that house arrests are highly illicit, and the people that were attempted to arrest in their own homes remember it word for word.
This dragon dumb fuck does not fly in this country, and it is sure not a 57.
- The Demetrius -
I've done many things in my life, though I've never been from Plymouth, MA, and hence never robbed a bank. This thread sums things up nicely: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=605721&cid=24083721.
SIG: HUP
I think it's the submitter that's clueless in this case. Basically, it's the case of "government official wants to do something to reduce the amount of online data that could be potentially abused." So there are other ways around this issue, so what? This is along the same lines of people who on an article like "new solar energy source is proven 99% efficient" would bitch "but it still doesn't work at night. Solar is useless and we're wasting time putting so much research into it blah blah blah."
Seriously, get off your f*cking high horses. It sounds like they're making an attempt to fix *some issues* in a way that, really, doesn't seem to have a negative side-effect. That information *does* need to be available in many situations, but at least by giving it semi-anonymity it means that it's not available to casual searchers such as curious co-workers or nosy neighbors.
"Is Stoddart a danger or a menace? Or just clueless?"
Yes to all of the above! There is no real or implied privacy when considering that justice must be seen to be done and not simply done. The historical record is what it is.
If an individual goes or is brought before the system, they understand that this is societies public court. There are no secrets expected nor implied. This is not a confidentiality issue and why would society ever consider any case and judgment such. It was specifically setup so that there is an open process. Just like going to a building and reading the records or google the information there is absolutely no difference, except in the twisted imagination of those that are a 'danger or a menace? Or just clueless?'.
"My name is Xavier Zachary Quincy. How does this help me?"
You were beyond help the moment your parents decided that your name should be unique - just like everybody else.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
lol.
dick.
she's talking about a very interesting problem.
What? Where children go looking at their parents divorce records? Yeah. That's a pretty interesting problem right there. Of course they could use some common sense and not read something that could upset them. But hey, their parents were probably too busy sleeping around then to raise their kid.
Really? Last time I checked in most places I could set up a protest, complain about my government (or somebody else's government), or whatever, so long as I'm not obstructing others.
I can hold political rallies, and I can share my opinions.
I can't go on in a public square stating that "Jews are evil" or "blacks are dumb" or "whites are best," but most people in these parts don't find that particular type of "free speech " valuable anyways.
So yeah, maybe there are some things that you can say in other countries such as the US that you can't say here, but at least we don't need a free speech zone to state my political opinions.
No.
Stupid lady doesn't know shit about privacy or court opinions.
If she so worries about it, why doesn't she prevent the RIAA-equivalent in canada from enforcing monitoring ISPs traffic?
Dumb wh*re
Actually, she knows a lot about privacy, maybe less so about court opinions. She's trying to stop the RIAA equivalent and their ilk in Canada, but her office doesn't really have a lot of teeth outside of certain specific pieces of legislation.
I heard an interview she gave on CBC, not long ago. She really does know what she's talking about, and she really does care. It was somewhat refreshing to hear, actually.
Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
know nothing about God. I also don't know anyone who knows anything about God. When no one knows anything about some entity, and no one can propose a way to get any verifiable knowledge about it, a reasonable conclusion is that the entity does not exist in reality.
That logic does not follow at all. You know nothing about the weather on planets around suns other than ours, and there is no way to get it. But it doesn't mean weather on other planets doesn't exist.
The same can be said about what is in my pocket. Neither you nor anyone you know can know anything about what is in my pocket, or in fact if I even have a pocket. But you cannot reasonably conclude that what may or may not be in my pocket doesn't exist.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Your description of agnosticism is somewhat narrow. One can be an agnostic and have a "belief" in God.
It has more to do with knowing the nature of that God and proving the existence of God or an afterlife.
I fall firmly in the "there is a God" but that the constructs presented to me are limited and flawed because God is unknowable. Also known as agnostic theism.
I use Christian-Judeo as my basis for understanding what I can about the nature of God but do not believe it is the sole valid construct. The values are broadly tenable: Golden Rule and Ten Commandments.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
There ARE some things in court documents that are private. Absent a fix, you'll see more and more judges sealing information like social security numbers, street addresses, employment information, and other information that would have been public 20 years ago. In the USA, some states have by law instructed courthouses to redact Social Security numbers before letting the public examine records, even though those numbers were part of the public record until the law was passed. This is to prevent identity theft.
The proposed solution won't work because 1) there will still be a way to get the information by actually visiting the courthouse, and 2) private companies will do so then sell the information if there is a demand for it. There is a demand for it.
The only workable solution is to either retroactively seal the information completely, or impose a government monopoly on releasing "semi-public" information such as full names. In the USA a government information monopoly would have constitutional difficulty.
In the USA, there is a "semi-monopoly" on some criminal records: Some states prohibit the commercial dissemination of arrest, conviction, and sex-offender records unless the company has verified the individual record very recently. This is to protect stale information such as an expunged or overturned conviction or sealed arrest record from showing up for more than a short period of time after it was removed from the public record.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
That does not provide proof.
As a matter of scientific principal, you cannot prove a negative. Poppers line of Demarcation. So you "believe" god does not exist, a reasonable position given the data, but it is not a proof.
Consider the case of sub atomic particles and quarks. They were implied by the math, but there was no proof. Did that mean scientists could not use them to explain what they saw?
So a reasonable theist like myself believes in God, but really does not care if you do unless you want to talk about it.
More milk and honey for me! ;)
Your sig is incomplete: Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no proof of God.
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
The Allegory of the Cave by Socrates is the original allegory. Apparently, it's now commonly called the Brain in a Vat thought experiment in philosophy. It used to be the Evil Daemon thought experiment but daemon's have fallen out of favor since Descartes wrote about it.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
This is where it gets interesting, you see we have a number of different groups who argue about what the weather is really like on Alpha Centauri 5, because they each say they know exactly what it's like.
Of course, as far as we know Alpha Centauri 5 doesn't even have an atmosphere. So there's a large chance there isn't even any weather. Why should we join one faction or the other in their pointless fight over who is right about something which they, by definition, can't ever know anything about.
Of course, it's possible that one day we'll have a real answer to the question of the weather on Alpha Centauri 5, but for now, we might as well just live our lives as if doesn't exist.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
It's really, really stupid in that context, and in a Canadian context it is additionally inappropriate.
As are most things when put in a Canadian context.
You know, the summary was great right up until the rhetorical barbs at the end.
I agree, the last bit was uncalled for and unprofessional. The choices given clearly show the bias in the poster.
You might as well ask 'did she beat her children, or just her dog?' or 'Mr President, are your attempts to destroy the economy intentional or unintentional. Or are you just plain stupid?'
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
If it's public record, it should be freely available to anyone without jumping through hoops. The powerful liked the old system in which, while technically public records, the records were only available to people who were either lawyers or had the luxury of being able to visit the courthouse during the hours the little people are typically working. Now if we want to have a conversation about what is public record, that's fine--but all of the past is toothpaste that isn't going back into the tube anyway.
One CPU cycle wasted on digital restrictions management is ONE TOO MANY.
Yes.
Would it make a difference to you if it were only the names of private individuals that were anonimized and not those of corporations?
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Belief is a funny thing, even when it is correct.
For instance most people will agree that exposure to sunlight creates Vitamin D in your body. But logically think about this: a ball of burning hydrogen 8 light seconds away somehow magically creates vitamins in our body.
Laughable really, and while most people take that as truth, almost no layman can say exactly how that happens. They were just told that it does and they believe it. Is religion any different?
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
I don't think the privacy issue is with people not wanting to see the information about themselves. I think it is more about things like people not being able to control the harmful effects of other individuals looking up information. To use your example, not only do the neighbors not have a case, our chronic masturbater would be the plaintiff who is upset that the neighbors were spying on him.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
I hate to take the side of Ms. Stoddart (and the goverment) here ...
Privacy Commissioners in Canada are not linked to the government, but rather are independent entities much like judges.
Due to a divorce.
There are details on court record about my divorce, things I went through, things I said that no one else knows, excepting those attending (strangers). Financial/tax, stipulations and agreements.
There are also various financial agreements, giving my (then) salary, title, future prospects at salary. What would happen if my current employer found out what I thought I would be making a few years down the road, or what type of job I would be in?
Accusations were there by my ex, none were proven, most were ignored, but they are in the court record. Family and friends would laugh it off at the things I was accused of (apparently if desperate, throw everything at the father, it'll make it hell for him), but would a prospective employer?
Now I'm told you would be able to find all this by my name? Of course I don't want it shared with the world. There are things there that my own family and my closest confidants do not know.
Any enterprising individual could go and pay to pull records, do the footwork, etc., but to my knowledge no one has. It's too difficult. But to do it via the internet, too easy, probably would be done.
But if you do, the aliens from Alpha Centauri will get upset, and burn you with their heat vision, or so some of the factions say.
Meanwhile, another faction goes around telling everyone that Alpha Centauri doesn't have any planets, and only a lunatic would believe it does. This understandably doesn't sit well with the alleged lunatics, resulting in heated pissing matches on online forums, where members of all factions come up with twisted logic and weird analogues to argue their point. It usually degenerates into actual flamewar as soon as anyone dare suggest that these a-Centaurians have any beliefs regarding Alpha Centauri's planets, at which point they for whatever reason often assert that not collecting stamps is not a hobby.
All this is pretty amusing, in a twisted way. In fact it sometimes seems like an intelligently designed farce ;).
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
The "brian in a vat" seems most closely related to what I had imagined. I read the Plato (not Socrates, according to Wikipedia(!)) "Allegory of the Cave", but found it a little bit tangential, though I suppose it's raises the same questions/issues.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_in_a_vat
Quite interesting :)
Max.
Is religion any different?
Quite, actually. One huge difference being that science is verifiable while religion is not.
It's difference between the weather here and the weather on Alpha Centauri 5.
One matters, one does not.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Maybe this is just some sort of veiled posturing actually being driven by the fact that using search engines to research law & other court/case activity is threatening business models like Westlaw, Lexis-Nexis. That would be tragic.
Maybe I misread her proposal. I thought it said that they would anonymize the data in the court records that get published online.
I did not see any indication that journalists, bloggers, busybodies, or the defendant would be barred from publishing the names involved in the case independently.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Quite right. There is a huge difference between information being publicly available (e.g. you have to physically visit an official building), and publication to anyone with a passing interest on the internet.
I work at a government archive, and we have to make similar distinctions. All our records are public records, and hence have to be available for inspection under the Public Records Act (if they are not temporarily closed under the FoI Act).
However, we have no legal duty to actively publish the records, and other laws can further restrict our ability to do so - for example, the Data Protection Act or the Copyright Designs and Patents Act.
In some cases, we will produce a redacted version (with personal/restricted details stripped out), publish that (and of course, retain the original until such a time as those details are no longer an issue). For example, census data can't be fully released until 100 years have passed (although anonymised data can be released a bit earlier).
There is a huge difference between making available and active publication. Internet search engines transform the landscape of what is possible and/or desirable. It's not only about access to the information in the first place - it's about ease of access. And no, this isn't an insurmountable barrier - but you have to do some serious legwork if you want the information (assuming it is open at all), which prevents casual invasions of privacy.
Where did you get the shell interface to google search?
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
And since there is no way to determine if it is happening, there is absolutely no point considering its possibility. Otherwise nothing excludes another equally pointless alternative, solipsism.
There is a point analyzing things when there is some evidence of them. Otherwise one would have to spend infinite amount of time inventing and imagining all imaginable crap.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
You also have no proof that I am not God. So what?
One does not need a proof of non-existence of things that never were in any form observed. In fact, God is the single entity that ever was "defended" by this kind of argument -- not even religious people dare to apply it anywhere else in their lives.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I don't know any Christians whose definition of "having sex" excludes what Clinton did with his intern. (although, the permissible kinds of 'having sex' in a number of cases exclude it)
IIRC, it was Clinton himself who tried to make the distinction, as justification for his statement that he "did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinksy." When he could have simply played that sentence straight and gone for the perfectly serviceable explanation that he was telling Ms. Lewinksy as part of his deposition, for no good reason, that he did not have sexual relations with some other woman who is not mentioned in the documents.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Plato wrote down what Socrates said.
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
12112
Yes, religion is different in one very important way: it requires faith. In contrast, believing that the sun's energy causes your body to form vitamin D (which, by the way, is a much fairer way to describe it than the phrase you used) does not require faith, because we know that we could look up the proof if we cared to expend the effort.
In other words, scientific facts are provable. Even if we do not demand that proof, it still exists. Religion, on the other hand, is not provable. (And that's by definition: if it were provable, it wouldn't be religion anymore.)
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
His point is that he, for whatever reason (I'm guessing fanaticism, but it could be anything), felt the need to put in a flamebait jab that religion is an illness.
"16MB (fuck off, MiB fascists)" - The Mighty Buzzard
Or an agnostic. After all, if atheism were not "active disbelief," then there is no useful distinction between the terms "atheist" and "agnostic."
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Post the information separately. Post the initial case document (based on case number)and the courts findings/rulings (based on case number)in one document and the details (based on court info, depositions, evidence, etc.) in aother.. The initial document has the names (zyx vs. acme corp) and the rulings are the things that should be found at the same time. The details of the case (identified by a primary key of case number) should be used with Defendant and Plaintiff type talk - thus no persons should be in it.
While I do like the idea that the issue such be debated, I'm not sure that this proposal would be workable. (It would just take one website to index cases and real names, and then it's worse because there's more likely to be errors that way.)
I'm also skeptical about whether the Privacy Commissioner is an officer likely to improve things for citizens or simply create more job security for the Privacy Commissioner, particularly under a Conservative government. In fact, Canadian privacy law is all about making money for privacy law lawyers and paper shredding companies - it does almost nothing to actually protect people's privacy.
This would be a compromise. Allow anyone found not guilty of a crime to have their records anonymized (preferably to the extent of being "John Doe'd") so that they aren't haunted by having been accused of a crime, as opposed to being found guilty of a crime. Or maybe we should see how hard it is to get wild accusations brought against large numbers of people who are important, but not so important as to be able to effectively cheat the system.
There is certainly a bad effect from making private information too public. I consider it is generally a matter of what needs to be public. Take reporting by the news media in general.
There is this notion that the public "has a right to know". This is carried forward in such a way that individuals that may not have done anything wrong at all, have their private life flushed in the media.
What is newsworthy should be tempered by what is damaging to the individual(s) vs vital to the public. In a situation where, for example, somebody's house is being robbed, the identity of who's been robbed is not important to anyone else. But can be damaging to the individual.
The presumption of innocent until found guilty is a building block of our society, and though it's often abused, needs to be applied when evaluating revealing private information.
The general public don't want to be associated with people of "bad repute." But in today's litigious society it is very easy to get drawn into some suit. Not-so-easy-to-find information becomes a practical barrier which in effect stops casual lookers who are not that interested in the first place from finding information that requires a deeper knowledge to see it in the proper light, or perspective.
Being casual about people's private information under any guise is a recepy for trouble. It creates a chain effect where we start to think less and less of our fellow citizens, which means more and more likely to be harsh when being compassionate would have yielded better results. That leads into fearing people more and more, with less and less interaction.
This is already playing out in cities across the US, where interestingly the media is hellbent on scaring citizens. Presenting news more from an entertainment value than developments or activities in society, has turned reporting upside down. What is important to one family is first page, while news for the country is hidden. Only presenting bad news is promoting a loopsided view of what actually goes on. Giving the idea that mostly bad things are happening.
Unfortunately you tend to get what you put your attention on.
The US has more people incarcerated, in at least the western hemisphere, than anywhere else. Our values have drastically dropped in the last 40 years. When was the last time you even saw a man open a door for a woman? Or for someone to do something unselfish for a stranger?
Though I don't put the blame squarely on the media, or them being casual with private information, it certainly is not helping either. The rule should be a gradual scale of keeping private information private unless vital to society at large.
Much of the reason that trade secrets tends to be sealed is about profits -- but it's about the plaintiff's profits. They are sealed so that competitors can't conduct fishing expeditions into a defendant's trade secrets and force them open by proxy. Basically, the courts are set up so as to not be an agent of corporate espionage. That's why trade secrets are sealed.
Incidentally, the people who do get to see the trade secrets have dirtied hands as well. They can't turn around and tell someone what they saw either. The courts take a very dim view of that.
Is Stoddart a danger or a menace? Or just clueless?
Is 'An anonymous reader' Hitler or Stalin? Or just a pedophile?
Canada doesn't have "Czars", they have commissioners and ministers and such. Where did USA get it's Czar thing from? Those 50+ years obsessing about the Russians? Or the Washington DC fetish for Roman style architecture? So bizarre.
imho the main problem when disclosing court info online is that it's so easy to make copies that MANY duplicates will be around forever. if somebody is at first found guilty and then found innocent, how to update all the copies around? of course it can happen also w/ paper documents, but it's more difficult and the scale is definitely different. an example: italian gov decided to make public all the tax information of many citizens, then the department privacy found this illegal (and dangerous! think about burglars, solicitors, competitors, etc) and removed the contents. but the data has been copied -and inserted in p2p networks-, thus now it is online *forever* and there is no way to remove it.
Which courts have an "innocent" verdict?
Also, I know plenty of people who are aware that OJ(Would that be OJS for the Canadians?) got a "not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" verdict, but still think he murdered his wife, so even knowing how a jury decided things isn't enough to change how something is seen in the eyes of the public, at least in one well-reported case.
The legal system does indeed work on innocent until proven guilty but in most cases I don't belive private citizens are under any obligation to do so (and even where they are it is very hard to prove why someone was not considered).
IIRC in the USA it is even possible to be cleared of a crime but sucessfully sued for damages resulting from that crime because of the lower standard of evidence in civil court.
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
> I know plenty of people who are aware that OJ
skipping
> got a "not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt" verdict,
> but still think he murdered his wife,
Including another jury, in the civil case (based on Wrongful Death, I think), who found him guilty by the Preponderance Of The Evidence.
> Which courts have an "innocent" verdict?
Ones with Hamilton Burger as Prosecutor, and Perry Mason as Defense Attorney.
Yeah, I totally agree all the court records of everyone everywhere should be emailed to everyone on the internet on a daily basis. That way all those spammers, botnetters, phishers, and bored reporters will have lots of data with which to entertain themselves. While we're at it. I think every home should have government installed cameras installed in every room (two in each bathroom and at least four in every bedroom) with sound, and they should all be available 24/7. While we're at it lets put internet cameras everywhere. Who needs privacy anyway? Oh yeah and let's install keyboard sniffers too!
Except on a case by case basis when absolutely necessary.
I replied below-thread to a similar question, but i can repeat it here.
The demand was not to remove false information, the demand was to remove the information regarding an administrative part of the court process that had her court date scheduled.
By this time, the arrest, conviction, and sentencing had ALREADY happened. The person simply wanted to remove their name from the court schedule of cases. What made it interesting was that by the time the person noticed it to complain, all the court website schedule listed was the name/date/room that the case was scheduled for, and not the charges. It was only from the persons demands to take down this information that it became known exactly what conviction was trying to be hidden
I have a clearance and a felony assault would rather ruin that..
It probably ruined it less than ya think. for security clearance they still see expunged records. I also know someone with a felony assault arrest and top secret security clearance with no problem.
Do the journalists, bloggers and other busybodies need to know the name of the guy to talk about it ? This story is not about making court records secret; it's about removing the names of the accused from them. Instead of knowing that Jack B. Eggar got unjustly convicted, you'll know that Mr. X got unjustly convicted. The purpose of the public record is still fulfilled, while the negative side effects - such as not getting a job because you've been accused but found innocent of a crime - are greatly reduced.
In other words, this seems like a good idea, and I lean towards supporting it.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
In other words, scientific facts are provable. Even if we do not demand that proof, it still exists. Religion, on the other hand, is not provable.
I agree with you, however:
Despite that proof exists for science, the vast majority or people will not look it up. It is enough for someone in supposed authority to simply say something and most will take it at face value. Is this not faith? And if they did look it up to 'prove' it (ignoring the fact that most the vast majority would not understand the science anyway), is this not the same as looking up something a priest says in the bible? Of course the two will match but that proves nothing.
I'd also put forward that even if it were possible to prove or disprove the existence of God, it would not matter as most people will not look at the proof, and most others will continue to believe what they already believe anyway regardless of the proof (look at the flat earth society or deniers of the holocaust and the moon landing).
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Quite, actually. One huge difference being that science is verifiable while religion is not.
It's only verifiable by an extremely small percentage of people qualified to do the experiment and understand the underlying science. The average layman cannot do this. To them, is faith through believing what someone tells them about religion not exactly the same as believing in what someone tells them about science?
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
You are right, I don't have any proof you are not God. Therefore it is possible that you are.
But people, scientists specifically, accept the existing of unobserved, unmeasured and thus unproven theories.
Scientists used strings and dark matter because it explains other observed but unexplained phenomena.
Eventually dark matter was "observed", or at least it's effect have been measured.
Strings are still a matter of debate.
In the same way God serves as a way to explain existential issues such as life, the universe and everything. Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing?
Never answer an anonymous letter. - Yogi Berra
Thanx you nice text ..
Work: oyun indir dantel
Sites: araba oyunları oyun indir
Best Regards By @ oyun indir
Atheism is not an absence of belief at all since a decision has been made
These two things don't contradict each other. You can decide not to believe in god; that doesn't turn "not believing in existence" into "believing in non-existence."
The two things are different regardless of whether a decision has been made.
Obviously, being able to easily search whether somebody has been to court is a privacy issue. Why am I supposed to be against anonymizing the data?
IIRC in the USA it is even possible to be cleared of a crime but sucessfully sued for damages resulting from that crime because of the lower standard of evidence in civil court.
That meshes with my understanding of the way the courts work. To pick a high-profile example, OJ Simpson was not convicted for murder in his criminal trial. He was, however, held responsible for the deaths in civil court. Criminal cases must be proven "beyond a reasonable doubt" and have a unanimous guilty verdict from the jury. Civil courts only require "preponderance of evidence" and 9 of 12 jurors.
Who TRIES to join the Army?
It's difficult to explain this, but I don't think so.
Science is taken on faith because it's convenient to not have to research and build it yourself. Religion is taken on faith because you're told to do so.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I do, why wouldn't I want to get paid for to receive training.
Likewise it's not being forced down anyone's throat, but it becomes almost impossible to start over anymore, where even minor youthful indiscretions are laid bare even years later.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
Maybe, but don't count on the justice system to do that correctly.
In France, court records deemed worthy are published on the web after puting an initial in place of the names (but keeping the surname intact). That is, unless the clerk in charge butchers the job.
For exemple, I found a court record where they correctly annonymized the name of the person all along the record, only to let her name in plain text in the summary of the court order, conveniently appended at the end.
Look there http://legifrance.gouv.fr/affichJuriJudi.do?oldAction=rechJuriJudi&idTexte=JURITEXT000018758903&fastReqId=322845160&fastPos=1
I did not found other exemples after searching for 5 minutes, but this one was found at my first try at figuring out wether or not names were annonymized in our courts records.
Bad luck or worrysome, I don't know.
Anyway I share the POV already expressed, that the main point of publishing these records is to provide access to precedents, and you can use the case number to follow it's process through the judicial system, no need to use the person's name as the search key.
Science is taught to the masses in school and the majority of that (except for maybe a handful of outstanding teachers) is taught as 'this is what it is because this book says so'. Students are taught science at face value and even tested on it to ensure they retain that knowledge. Writing down an opposable theory on a test will invariably get marked as 'wrong' and have consequences (lower mark, no praise from the family, maybe even restricting college choices, etc).
There is research in religion too and for those that go to seminary school in college get to learn about it. One thing they learn for example is that the story of the three wisemen, the traditional Christmas story was completely made up without a shred of truth. This story was added to the bible long after the new testament was written to try and fill some holes in the life of Christ and to convert some of the original Roman pagan holidays to Christian ones. But most people take the story as truth on faith because they do not bother spending the time to research it.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
It's not a Google search, it's dict.
Description: Dictionary Client
dict is the client that queries the dictd server. Since it is TCP based, it can access servers on the local host, on a local network, or on the Internet.
Also, the syntax for a Google dictionary search is define:atheism
Well. What happened? Here in America it is illegal to stare in people's windows if I remember correctly. Peeping tom laws and whatnot. I can't imagine him getting prosecuted for that. Did they admit that they watched for a while before calling the cops?
zosxavius photography
What if the real estate agent were arrested for murder--but was innocent?
Umm... I read newspapers, and I live in a city of around 250k people. If there's someone accused of murder in the area, I've read about it. The same for most of the "less socially acceptable crimes". The involved names appear pretty much immediately in a Google search.
In other words, while your point is still valid, the crime examples you use are the sort of things that would already be wildly public anyway, and thus entirely untouched by this sort of legislation.
On a completely unrelated note, I've read through this discussion and not seen anyone mention adding more data as a defense; why isn't the best response to public, but incomplete/incorrect information more information that corrects things -- like a message from the real estate agent where they describe their version of the events, or why they're more responsible now?
Mind you, I think that's most easily applicable after the court has reached a verdict, but if I were wrongly accused(or even wrongly convicted), I'd sure like to have a chance to share my version of the events on the same site where people find out about my alleged misdeeds.
I hessitate to quote wikipedia, but :
> The allegory of the cave is told as a fictional dialog between Plato's teacher Socrates,...
Note the word 'fictional'.
Max.
> Your description of agnosticism is somewhat narrow. One can be an agnostic and have a "belief" in God.
Oxford English Dictionary :
"A person who holds the view that nothing can be known of the existence of God or of anything beyond material phenomena.
Also, a person who is uncertain or noncommittal about a particular thing."
I think I had it about right, particularly that second part. Maybe there's some subtleties that you are alluding to regarding the first part...perhaps depending on the definition of 'known'? Sounds plausible.
Max.
There is a tension growing between our calls for greater transparency in government and corporations and the needs of privacy for individuals. Drafting laws to satisfy both of these crucial needs will be difficult.
Oxford English Dictionary :
"Atheist : 1) a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of God or gods."
Seems pretty clear to me. How can it be the 'default position' to disbelieve in God or gods if you don't even know the word God?
I mean, if someone comes up to me and asks me if I believe in the existence of 'God' and I've never heard of 'God'[1], I don't say that I disbelieve in the existence of 'God'; I ask, "What's is 'God'? I've never heard of 'God'." After they tell me about 'God', I might say, "That sounds very unlikely to me." and look generally very suspicious[2], eventually concluding it's a load of rubbish[3] - only *then* do I disbelieve in 'God'. During this process, I move from Ignorance[1] to Agnosticism[2] and only finally to Atheism[3].
Based on my reading of the OED, I stand by my definitions and general understanding of the terms.
Max.
That proves that people are idiots, not that science and religion are equivalent.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Imo, believing in non-existence requires a decision, while not believing in existence could be just ignorance.
I disagree. Consider this:
Do you believe in aliens?
If you haven't yet seen one, the obvious answer to that is "I don't know." So you don't believe in aliens, because you can't be sure that they exist. But at the same time, you obviously realize that there is a chance that aliens exist, so you also don't believe that aliens don't exist.
The obvious answer to "do you believe in aliens?" is "I don't believe that aliens exist, but I also don't believe that they don't exist."
A thoughtful decision has been made, and it's not a decision that was made out of ignorance, yet there is no belief in non-existence.
An absence of belief in the existence of aliens is not belief in the absence of aliens (or god, or fairies, or anything else).
You are confusing two terms here. The two sides of the spectrum are theist and atheist. A strong theist would be an "active believer", e.g. a 100% convinced evangelical christian. A strong atheist would also be an "active disbeliever", someone who wouldn't believe in God even he announced himself. Both position are pretty rare, and it is as unfair for christians to assume most atheists are strong atheists, as it is for atheists to assume most christians are 100% convinced evangelical christians.
Agnosticism refers to strength of belief. For example, an agnostic theist doesn't claim to know that God exists, but still believes in it. An agnostic atheist is similar. Most people who would refer to them selves as theists (believers) or atheists (non-believers) would fall into one of these categories. Some people are strong agnosticists too, they believe the question of Gods existence is fundamentally unknowable. A weak agnosticist believes the question is unknowable now, but future evidence might help. And so on, people have discussed this for so long, that every position you can have, already have a name!
Anyway, very few people are actually agnosticists, sitting straight in the middle of choosing between reason and superstition. It is more useful to view agnosticist as a qualifier of the strength of you (non)belief, than as a position by itself.
> > About the same as your argument for not believing in Shiva or Thor and Odin, I'd guess? > > As for the throwing away above, try replacing "stamps" with "infectious agents" in your sentence above:
I'm not sure I get your point. We're examining the stamp analogy, so what use it is in replacing 'stamps' with anything else?
I'd say loads - if you don't have a clear grip on how X differs from arbitrary other Ys, you have little grip on X.
In this case, I was trying to show that you were exploiting the "positive value" aspect of stamps, by showing in something with negative associations.
The true fallacy in the rewrite of the metaphor - using "stamps with values" instead of looking at "not collecting stamps" like "not playing football" or "not juggling" or any other simple negative example - is that stamps are tradeable items with monetary value, while religion is an abstract and not possible to trade (for this context, at least).
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
Well, that's just a criticism on my alteration - and my assumption that the motive for collecting them is their (tradable) value, which may well be incorrect.
I'm still hunting for a good analogy using stamps that gets my point across (irrespective of if you agree with my definitions).
Max.
The problem is a different definition of the word. I'm going with this one:
Atheism, as an explicit position, can be either the affirmation of the nonexistence of gods, or the rejection of theism.
That proves that people are idiots, not that science and religion are equivalent.
No, it just shows that it is completely impractical to question everything and prove it to yourself before believing it (including the problem of researching the science behind the experiment then questioning those underlying assumptions as well).
I'm not saying that science and religion are equivalent, but that faith in scientific principles and faith in a higher power are essentially the same thing.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
But they're not the same thing. In fact, "faith in scientific principles" is a nonsensical statement: the only fundamental scientific principle is the Scientific Method itself, and the Scientific Method does not require faith.
Even the axioms all the rest of science is built upon don't require faith; they're nothing more than the guesses that, as far as we can tell, come closest to matching the observable reality. The only "faith" involved would be if you continued to believe an axiom or principle after it was disproved (e.g. the Earth-centric universe after Galileo), and that's obviously the opposite of science.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
The only "faith" involved would be if you continued to believe an axiom or principle after it was disproved
That's not faith, thats denial. You seem to think that if you have to merely believe something then it cannot be true.
I'm not saying that science is based on faith - you are missing my point. What I'm saying that the general population when told a scientific principle and simply believes it to be true without understanding the science that was used to create that principle, has no hope of an understanding on how to prove that principle (and this I'd guess is 90%+ of the population) simply believes that principle to be true without proof. This is the same as faith.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Fine, just do not pass laws requiring me to masturbate by the window or reveal embarrassing information during court proceedings. If somehow that's necessary, I sure hope there are rules and limits on public dissemination.
Yes, I realize that, and you're still wrong. Faith is not simply believing something without proof, it is believing something without the possibility of proof or in the face of disproof.
Here are some examples:
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Yes, it is too much to ask. What part of the fact that court records are PUBLIC do you not understand? If you don't like that, don't sue or get sued, or get charged with something. Making court records PUBLIC routinely protects us from abuse by our government. We should never give it up.
On balance, the right of citizens to know someone HAS been charged is more important than the desire of charged persons to remain anonymous. It's important so that government cannot hold trials in secret. Court records MUST remain public documents, accessible to the public.
I understand what you are saying but I don't agree with your definition of faith.
Faith can be used in many cases interchangeably with belief or trust. For instance you can have faith in your friends that you can count on them when you need something. That doesn't fit with your definition of faith.
Don't you remember your star wars scenes?
Luke: Soon I'll be dead, and you with me.
The Emperor: [laughing] Perhaps you refer to the emminent attack of your rebel fleet? Yes, I assure you, we are quite safe from your friends here.
Luke: Your overconfidence is your weakness.
The Emperor: Your faith in your friends is yours.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
Why should I care who is abusing me - my government or my neighbors - when I am still getting screwed?
You are right, I don't have any proof you are not God. Therefore it is possible that you are.
Nevertheless you seem to have no problem arguing with me, so I conclude that you do not consider the possibility that I am God in any practically meaningful way.
But people, scientists specifically, accept the existing of unobserved, unmeasured and thus unproven theories.
Not at all. Scientists will always dismiss a theory that does not explain their observations better than everything else. You have to present an observation that contradicts other theories, or demonstrate that your theory explains all currently known observation in a more simple/generalized way. If there is an observation that is predicted by your theory but not others, someone has to perform an experiment that would determine which prediction is correct -- this is the closest thing to a "proof" that science can use. Everything beyond that is an idle speculation, and religion falls completely into that range as long as its relationship to scientific method is concerned.
Scientists used strings and dark matter because it explains other observed but unexplained phenomena.
"Observed" does not mean "seen with a telescope". "Dark matter" is one of possible explanations of some observed phenomena. It's a hypothesis, and not even a very detailed one, that basically states that there is more matter in the Universe than what we can reliably measure with simple methods that we currently use. The alternatives are many, and they all are much more complex -- such as, that laws of physics are not exactly the same as we know, what is, though also possible, not nearly as simple. Also no one writes books that describe how hard a husband is allowed to beat his wife (or even how to navigate a spaceship) based on the existence of dark matter.
Eventually dark matter was "observed", or at least it's effect have been measured.
No. "Dark matter" hypothesis was initially proposed when an observation of its possible effect was made in the first place. There were subsequent observations consistent with this hypothesis, however at this point there is not enough both theories and observed data to make clear conclusions, so it can be at best seen as an area of ongoing research.
Strings are still a matter of debate.
There is no "debate". There are no two theoretical physicists in a room perpetually yelling at each other stating their belief or disbelief in string theory or inventing various fallacious "proofs" that then are instantly rebutted by the other side. It is accepted that string theory is consistent with known observations. It's also accepted that string theory is not much better than other possible alternatives, and that it's not yet feasible to perform an experiment that can invalidate it or its alternatives, so again, it's an area of ongoing research. Better yet, since so far nothing anywhere outside of a small area of physics is actually dependent on string theory being valid or invalid, it has very little effect on anything despite its fundamental nature.
In the same way God serves as a way to explain existential issues such as life, the universe and everything. Why am I here? What am I supposed to be doing?
By "Why", of course, you don't actually mean "why" (then the answer is trivial) but "for what purpose". This already implies that someone placed you in the world with a particular goal. And it's a meaningless question if such a person does not exist. It's not unlike the question "For what purpose Scandinavia is shaped like a penis, and India is shaped like a breast?" -- despite the wide range of sarcastic answers that such a question can provoke.
If your question is "what goals should I pursue in my life", then I am sure, you are a part of some society that already made your ears bleed on various occasions with frequent advices on that matter -- supernatural beings are quite irrelevant to this.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Yeah, but we're talking about "faith" as religious jargon, not in a general sense.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
No, it started of with a discussion about 'belief' then weather on other planets. The discussion was in no way limited to religion.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
The fact that court records are public doesn't hurt you in the least. When they're NOT public, it opens the door for all kinds of government abuse of the legal system. Today, the government doesn't do that (except in "national security" cases). And it's BECAUSE records are public they don't dare.