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Don't Tie a Horse To a Tree and Other Open Data Lessons

Posted by samzenpus on from the made-sense-at-the-time dept.

itwbennett writes "Baltimore this week became the first city to hop on the open data bandwagon with the launch of the Baltimore Decoded website. The site makes the city's charter and codes more accessible to the public and will eventually include information on court decisions, legislative tracking and city technical standards (e.g., building regulations, zoning restrictions, fire codes). The site also offers a RESTful, JSON-based API for accessing the data. ITworld's Phil Johnson dug in and found these lesser-known Baltimore codes: You can't hold more than 1 yard sale every 6 months, you can't tie a horse to a tree, and you can't have fruit on a wharf. What you do with this information is up to you."

3 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. A step in the right direction by BetterSense · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Laws should be tracked, with dependencies, by an apt-like system. Anyone should be able to query what is illegal, without a lawyer. Automated systems can flag unfairness, conflicting laws, and obsolescence.

    Lawyers and judges' jobs would be reduced to addressing bugs.

    The whole lot should be committed to a git repository (git-blame anyone?). New laws should take the form of pull requests.

    1. Re:A step in the right direction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Little known fact: the United States Code is not the definitive compilation of Federal law. The definitive compilation is the "United States States Statutes at Large", which is basically an append-only journal of all of laws passed by Congress. Updates to this log are "traced" by clerks who then update the United States Code appropriately. The USC originally was entirely the handiwork of these clerks because Congressional bills were (and to some extent, still are) basically just random statements of law disembodied from context. These clerks have to organize and codify those statements into something that can be used as a proper reference.

      These days many laws are written as diffs against the USC. But these diffs are still appended to the official journal and subsequently applied by the clerks to the code.

      These clerks are basically system administrators for the legal machine. They can't read your e-mail, but they could do lots more nefarious things, and no doubt have. It would be the height of ignorance to believe that none of these clerks hasn't inserted or redacted anything. And who else would pour through the journal looking for inconsistencies.

      I've personally found interesting tidbits in court opinions. 150+ years ago, court opinions were published by private companies, and 200+ years ago things were often quite shady. Many times there were multiple reporters transcribing oral opinions for publication. As a law student, lawyer, or judge you never really question whether the reporter erred in their transcription.

      Fortunately for the skeptical and inquisitive, Google Books has scanned a tremendous amount of old legal report volumes. On more than one occasion I've found different transcriptions of an oral opinion from different reporters (i.e. two different reporters in the court room transcribing arguments and judges' opinions) with material discrepancies that, had one transcription become more popular instead of the other, could have substantially altered the course of laws that we still apply today.

      (I'm too lazy to go back to my notes and find these. It's not like they would have altered the course of civilization. Just changed various esoteric rules in Contracts, Torts, etc.)
       

  2. Re:No Horse/Tree Connectivity? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What kind of place is Baltimore if their "openness" doesn't allow horse/tree connectivity? I realize it's probably IP/patent related, but geez folks, can't we work this out?

    Probable actual reason: A horse tied to a tree will gnaw on the bark. If they gnaw away a ring around the trunk, the tree will die. If it is your tree, on your own property, fine. But if it is my tree, and I have not given you permission, or it is a tree on public property, it is perfectly reasonable for it to be illegal for you to tie your horse to it.

    The other laws seem reasonable too. What if you neighbor starts collecting goods and holding a garage sale everyday? When does it become a commercial enterprise in a residential area? I am not sure I would draw the line a twice a year, but if zoning means anything, they have to draw a line somewhere.

    Fruit on a wharf attracts fruit eating insects, which can spread to/from ships, encouraging the transfer of invasive species. It is a reasonable law.