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Comment by coding123 | Hacker News Reader

I thought something was off about that site. I doesn't seem fair or legal to just publish that data like that.

I think in the era of go in and get things things should be "public".

Now in the search engine age and data available at your fingertips we need to entirely change our public records laws... Immediately.

edit: In fact a HN User said this with NO REPLY from the author of that Show HN: I have some records that are sealed, but show up in this database. So there are records that were once ‘public’ but are no more, but this database makes them public again.

I think that website should be taken offline immediately.

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>> we need to entirely change our public records laws... Immediately.

I am certain that many people in government would agree with you - they would LOVE to be able to hide what they are doing and not be held accountable for decisions they make (or don't make). We need more public disclosures, not less, imo.

>>So there are records that were once ‘public’ but are no more, but this database makes them public again.

This website didn't make them public, they just gave others a way to access them - once something is public, and in control of others, it is impossible to make them 'un-public' without violating the 1st amendment.

What's the point of sealed records then? How would that be managed? We should let citizens have some privacy right?

If they were sealed, they shouldn't be made public until they become unsealed (if ever) - but if they were public at some point, they are for all intents and purposes public forever. Very hard to make something private, after it has been out in the public.

Plenty of things become super hard to find after no one cares about it anymore. High profile cases aren’t like that but most things are not high profile.

Just because you can’t make something 100% perfect doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try. Locks aren’t unbreakable. Seatbelts won’t always save you. Your cloud service won’t always stay up. Yet we use and build all these things and no one has an issue with it.

And for all intents and purposes, if court records are meant to be hidden to protect someone’s future chance of success, by all means we should do what we can.

I don't think the discussion is about sealed records. I think the main point here is that the state needs to adequately seal the record.

As a side note, I don't think Bar complaints should be private. People running the system should be transparent. The only reason transparency should be limited is with the name of the witness. Otherwise, how can we be sure the system is functioning correctly?

> once something is public, and in control of others, it is impossible to make them 'un-public' without violating the 1st amendment.

I do not think that is accurate.

Can you be more specific?

How do you propose someone could stop someone from releasing a record they acquired publicly, exactly?

Seize it? Prohibit someone from saying something they found out via a public route on penalty of fine or prison?

Um, yes? Courts can issue injunctions to stop people from publishing material they have. If they breach the injunction they can go to jail, or have some other penalties imposed.

Even in the US there are limits on free speech. A judge would weigh 1st amendment rights vs other considerations, but there are limits. Yelling fire in a theatre and all that.

Which works if it is 1 document, or one publisher, so someone can do the paperwork and a judge can handle it.

And does infringe their 1st amendment rights, by the way.

And if it’s a million documents and the publisher is everyone who got a torrent done in the months before the injunction?

No one is talking about the reality of removing a million sources from the internet. We’re talking about the legal consequences and 1st amendment rights of individuals.

You do not have a 1st amendment right to post, for example, classified documents or protected intellectual property. If you post those things, even if 2,000 people posted them before you, the law can still come down on you.

We aren’t talking about any of those things - we’re specifically talking about public records however.

You sbsolutely do have a right topost blassified documents if you come across them, but have not attained a security clearance.

There's definitely a massive "should" aspect there, however, the courts will protect you in that case. The one who got them for you, or if you committed a crime in acquiring them however...

That is a different story.

Oddly, classified documents that could theoretically harm real people are legal to share with others but don’t you dare try to share the latest Beyonce track or there will be hell to pay.

Perhaps the RIAA should be in charge of national security from now on?

oooh, while reading this thread, it crossed my mind that, well, if this website knows where it got the data from, then it could provide that info to the end-user, so they could actually have the source removed.

It isn't infeasible to see a future where this website could continue to provide the public the benefit of its existence, and also help protect the people who actually do need to have their records protected;

It sort of depends on how anarchistic the maintainers lean, and how much of an appetite courts actually have for fixing record leaks rather than blocking access to the tools or suing...

I guess you could verify a record should be in a sealed state with the file that states the sealing happened, right? I vaguely remember document IDs from the last time I touched anything related to them.

> No one is talking about the reality of removing a million sources from the internet. We’re talking about the legal consequences and 1st amendment rights of individuals.

> You do not have a 1st amendment right to post, for example, classified documents or protected intellectual property. If you post those things, even if 2,000 people posted them before you, the law can still come down on you.

Did the reporters who broke the pentagon papers see court? Only the source as I recall, which seems contrary to your statement.

>Did the reporters who broke the pentagon papers see court?

Yes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_S...

And the ruling was printing classified documents was protected, though the government is trying to reverse this ruling with the Assange case.

As I understand it, the government is not trying to reverse this ruling with the Assange case. The government posits that Assange helped in the acquisition of the documents, which is separate from their dissemination, IIRC.

Assange faces 18 charges, one of them has anything to do with his allegedly helping acquire documents. The others are violations of the Espionage Act for receiving and publishing documents. So until they drop all other charges, any "acquisition" he may have done is secondary to their attempt to outlaw publishing.

> I am certain that many people in government would agree with you - they would LOVE to be able to hide what they are doing and not be held accountable for decisions they make (or don't make). We need more public disclosures, not less, imo.

Agreed 100%, a local court has been making precedents with that and...it's unnerving.

https://www.thv11.com/article/news/politics/routine-gag-orde...

Without transparency, including public records, how do we hold the powerful accountable? Court records are public to prevent secret government courts from abusing people (among other reasons). How do we operate a democracy, which depends on citizens controlling their country?

And most importantly, who does get access to the records? That exculsive access will give them a lot of power.

Something that stuck out to me about that website is that we really do publish a lot. If you ever had a speeding ticket, that’s a matter of public record now. If you ever had a parking violation, that’s a matter of public record. I mean to be honest, if you just have a car, I can probably find you on that website if I know your name.

Also goes for divorces. By and large I agree with your take, but playing around with the search got me thinking that maybe we just make too much a matter of public record and that some things might just be too noisy, even if it isn’t the biggest privacy violation per se. Still mulling it over though, so I can’t say I’m committed to that position yet, feel free to talk me back.

I have owned a car in NY, FL, and CA, have been married, and have received parking violations in all 3 of those states, and my very unique name is not present at all on that website.

Fair. I did search out myself and several others I know. Didn’t find myself, but did find out that there’s a guy with a very similar name to me (different middle name) that likes to live dangerously in the same State but in several different counties racking up speeding violations like there’s no tomorrow.

I was able to find almost every single other person I searched though, chose not to dig into it any further than I could confirm it was someone I actually knew, typically by birth date.

I think their coverage is still spotty. I'm in California, and searched some names I know. The results came from some counties, but nothing from others. Notably I never saw anything from Los Angeles County, but tons of results from San Bernardino County.

My own name brought up a couple tickets. In 2014 I got a cell phone ticket. There's something kind of funny seeing an all-caps official document explaining that THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA were all arrayed against me! :)

there are at least six adults in the USA with my same first and last name, who are professionals and middle-aged .. one of the others died of a drug overdose, and looks a bit like me!

new world now

AFAIK, a parking ticket would be written against a car/license plate. Obviously that can be attached to a registration if the ticket is unpaid but it's not clear to me that a record of the violation would necessarily have the name attached in the record.

I agree there are limits; there are no absolutes in anything. We don't have absolute free speech: you can't slander, commit fraud, conspire to commit a crime, incite a deadly stampede, etc.

I think the main concern is that the more powerful the actor (e.g., government is very powerful) the more important transparancy is, and the more vulnerable the actor, the more important privacy is.

For example, if an Apple (picking a random company) employee complains to authorities about dangerous working conditions, that employee may be very vulnerable - Apple could blacklist them; other businesses, if they learned of the complaint, could do the same, not wanting a 'troublemaker'. And that employee may be financially vulnerable, needing the job; their privacy should be maintained if possible. But Apple and the government are both powerful and there should be transparency about the working conditions, investigation, and outcome.

So what’s the limiting principle you would use? That’s the problem. I no more care about Apple’s speeding violations than I do Joe Schmo’s, but I probably do care about whether Joe here has a criminal history if I’m interviewing him, and the nature of that history.

You could go by legal entity, just make lawsuits involving corporations public, and lawsuits between individuals private: but while Apple might have global influence, your rich and litigious neighbor in a rural county is probably a more immediate concern to you. Also individuals can sue corporations and corporations can sue individuals.

I’m still inclined to think court records should stay public, but I’m now more interested in seeing if there’s a kind of filter we can put on what we make public than I was two weeks ago.

Two thoughts:

* There are different levels of availability: For example, some court records could be public but not available outside the courthouse.

* Court records could be public by default, but take into account certain factors: Public interest, the power of the party, the vulnerability of the party. Criminal cases should probably be public - it is not dispute resolution (as with civil cases) but the government taking someone's freedom and/or property. The government's actions should be transparent.

I think I’m with you on the first one, but I think on point two you have too many heuristics that themselves would have to be litigated and eat into court time.

With your same example though, now this employee is listed in a bunch of Apple lawsuits and will be unable to ever get a job again because of this kind of search engine.

That was part of my point: The vulnerable person has more need of privacy.

>Court records are public to prevent secret government courts from abusing people

Except of course, when "national security" is involved.

It's possible to be both not public enough to ruin people's lives and public enough for journalists or concerned individuals to find. In New Zealand, voter registration details are, by law, available to look at but not to copy. Anyone can walk in to a public library anonymously and rifle through the book but the book is chained to the desk and you're not allowed to photocopy it or take photos. Also, it's only present in the local libraries near where the voters live.

One thing to note, judicial and Bar complaints are generally not considered court records.

In theory, anything that went to trial would have transcripts available (unless it's sealed, like for minors). Many of these complaints could still have the transcripts available for the cases associated with them. But it's hard to tell what the alleged problem or misconduct is. I emphasize alleged because I assume the nonpublic ones were ones in which the lawyer was not found "guilty". In my state, the Bar will only investigate prosecutors if the court has already issued a statement determining prosecutorial misconduct occurred. So prosecutors get off without scrutiny most of the time.

please recall a basic motivation for the formation of the United States of America, versus the Kingdom of Britain under George III. In the legal system of Britain, all Crown records are SECRET unless cleared. Under the Federal Laws of the USA, all Federal records are PUBLIC unless classified.

get the idea?

Blame the state governments for publishing those records in the first place. Everyone knows that once information is published on the internet there is really no “undo” button. If judyrecords goes down another, perhaps less scrupulous, operator will release another similar site.

It's the first reply.

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