First, it starts with those without power.
It's sort of an experiment with just how far invasion into one's privacy rights can be pushed..a mesh of right to know and public safety.
Sex offender registries, child abuse registries. Who cares about them?
The public has a right to know where they live, where they go, what they do.
These types don't deserve privacy.
Ah. Different story when regular folks find themselves listed.
Legistorm is a "...web site ... dedicated to providing a variety of important information about the US Congress."
Including congressional staff salaries.
And that's just the beginning.
As cited by Salon:
LegiStorm's founder, the colorfully named Jock Friedly, says his mission is transparency: The public should be able to look at staffers' money dealings in order to spot corruption.
The staffers, though, say the site puts them at risk of identity theft -- some of the documents that LegiStorm posted included peoples' addresses, bank account numbers, and other sensitive, private data.
This is an odd situation, because LegiStorm isn't really making the documents public -- Congress itself has long made these papers public.
(...)
But some are asking for Friedly to also redact home addresses and signatures -- information that is available on most documents. This, Friedly says, will be a costly measure, and he wants Congress to pay $10,000 to do it.
Due to the magic of the Internet, no longer must trips be made to the dungeons of the Cannon Building in order to dig through the "public records".
The public--by the way--is loving it.
Until the same happens to them and they soon discover how quickly the sunshine burns through privacy once thought to be constitutionally guaranteed.
Paying attention yet?
