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Reload
The Public Lives of Private Figures

By Jon Surmacz


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July 22, 2003 — I’ve been getting my hair cut at the same shop in Boston since I was a sophomore in college (almost 10 years now). The barber, Louie, always busy working on another customer’s mop, makes sure to nod at me each visit as I make my way past the first chair to the waiting area. Louie cuts hair for all types: college kids, young professionals, politicians, professional athletes. We all wait our turn to sit in his chair.

For years, all I knew about Louie was his first name, which is kind of an embarrassing admission for a regular. We would usually talk about me and my family, or the regular shop talk (weather, sports, politics). He just never came up as a topic of conversation. Then, for a class assignment, I decided to find out more about him, not by talking to him but by digging through public records. In a matter of days, I learned plenty.

Knowing the address of his barbershop, I did an online search on the Massachusetts Division of Registry website (because I knew barbers had to be licensed) and found his last name. Using switchboard.com I found his publicly listed phone number and address (a lucky break). I went to his hometown to get a copy of his voter’s registration, where I obtained his birth date and previous residence (in another town). In the town assessor’s office, I found property records for his residence. A trip to the Registry of Vital Statistics rewarded me with a copy of his birth certificate, which provided me with the Hacker’s Holy Grail – his mother’s maiden name. Jackpot!

The next time I went back to the barbershop, I didn’t mention any of this to him. I was a little embarrassed. I felt like I'd done something wrong even though all of that information was legally obtained. I felt like maybe I knew too much.

But how much privacy should we, or can we expect in a market economy that is driven by open government and public records? Furthermore, will the Internet be used as a channel to disseminate this public information, or as an excuse to close or restrict heretofore open records?

The battle lines are being drawn, and it’s anybody’s guess as to where the courts and the policy makers are going. David L. Sobel, general counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), a Washington, D.C.-based privacy research center and government watchdog, says the private vs. public battle is too complicated and layered to apply categorical standards. While EPIC supports open government, it has carved out some areas where it believes openness infringes too greatly on privacy. For instance, EPIC supports privacy protections for Social Security numbers and online sex offender registries. “Obviously there’s been growing concern about the amount of private information that’s becoming available online,” Sobel says. “It remains a difficult issue.”

What if I were to publish everything I know about Louie on the Web? I made copies of all the documents. I could easily scan them and put them online. One website in particular, thesmokinggun.com, has made quite a name for itself by doing just this sort of thing – and some would argue the site serves a public good.

While the courts have determined that some information may remain public in a filing cabinet in town hall (not on the Net), the courts have been less clear about third parties who obtain that information and publish it on their own. Take, for instance, the case of William Sheehan of Mill Creek, Wash., who has published the names, addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers and salaries of some Washington police officers on his website www.justicefiles.org. According to the website, Sheehan expects to compile a database of similar information for all law enforcement employees in the state of Washington (including judges and court clerks) by the end of the year. Is there a public good in having this information available?

Charles Davis, executive director for the Freedom of Information Center at the University of Missouri School of Journalism, says that Sheehan’s website represents an isolated case of possible abuse. (Sheehan had removed some of the information – birth dates, Social Security numbers, home addresses, phone numbers – in accordance with a law passed by the Washington Legislature, but after the law was ruled unconstitutional in May, he put that information back online.) Davis believes that in most cases public information should remain public because once it is taken off the books it becomes the government’s information.

“The Internet is a great democratizer of information. More people can obtain records more quickly than ever before,” Davis says. “The great irony is we’re asking the government to protect our privacy, so in essence we’re telling the government to control information, meaning we don’t have access to it. Just they do. It worries me.”

We don’t want to get into a situation where we’re splitting hairs over which data is or can be redacted from the record. We have to face the fact that there will be people who take advantage of open records, like Sheehan, and we’re going to have to live with them because public records should remain open, even if they reveal our addresses, phone numbers and birth dates. We ought to protect our privacy, but putting too much information in the government’s hands only is too high a price to pay for it.

How private do you want to keep information?


Reader Comments:
private information
Paul
July 24, 2003


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