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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?"
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
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.
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.
> > 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.
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.
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