privacy issues

[vint cerf (by way of chiari mario <chiari.hm@flashnet.it>)]

>Courts Face Privacy Conundrum
>by Joanna Glasner
>2:00 a.m. Feb. 26, 2001 PST
>Wired News
>
>It's a known fact that reams of incredibly sensitive and embarrassing
>personal data are stored in the vast filing cabinets of the U.S. federal
>court system.
>
>It's also true that by federal law, nearly all of that information is
>available to the public.
>
>However, in most cases, getting a court record requires a trip to the
>courthouse to dig it out. Historically, that cumbersome requirement has
>limited the number of people who get to view most court filings.
>
>In the age of instant electronic information exchange, those limitations are
>going away. Courts' ability to post records available online promises to
>make it more difficult to keep documents in obscurity.
>
>Over the course of the year, the U.S. federal court system plans to develop
>a new set of rules governing how case filings are disseminated online. The
>standards could make getting a copy of a lawsuit or a criminal indictment a
>simple point-and-click operation.
>
>Not surprisingly, the prospect of a nationwide system for publishing court
>documents electronically has met with great enthusiasm from investigators,
>journalists and other heavy users of public records databases.
>
>But because court documents contain social security numbers, bank account
>records or excruciatingly embarrassing details about one's personal life,
>privacy advocates see online access to legal records as a worrisome
>proposition. They're pushing the courts to create an online access standard
>that won't put ultra-sensitive data in the wrong hands.
>
>"It's very difficult to accommodate both the First Amendment interest one
>has and rights to public access, and to recognize that public records may
>contain information that is stigmatizing and may allow predators to conduct
>unwarranted invasions into privacy," said Chris Hoofnagle, staff counsel for
>the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
>
>Hoofnagle was one of 240 respondents who sent comments to the Administrative
>Office of the U.S. Courts, which recently posted the results of a
>three-month public inquiry seeking input on how best to tackle the messy
>task of putting records online.
>
>On March 16, the agency will hold a hearing for lawyers, legislators,
>privacy advocates and other selected experts to lay out their case for how
>the court system should approach online dissemination of records.
>
>Committee members of the Judicial Conference of the United States, the
>standard-setting authority of the federal court system, will use the hearing
>to help set policy recommendations. The conference, which is headed by
>Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, is expected to consider the
>issue at its bi-annual meeting in September.
>
>In the meantime, lawyers, students, privacy advocates and others continue to
>disagree over how the courts should proceed.
>
>Dick Carelli, spokesman for the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts, puts
>the debaters into three general categories. There are those who embrace the
>idea of open online access. There are those want open access tempered by a
>few privacy protections, like crossing out social security numbers. Lastly,
>there are those who fear that publishing all court records online is a bad
>proposition to begin with.
>
>"I have long kept in mind that participating in court proceedings is
>traumatic, often, for most people," wrote Seattle attorney David Balint, on
>the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts' website.
>
>Balint believes that many people involved in court cases are willing to be
>open and honest in the discovery investigations and trials because they
>believe the information will not be widely disseminated.
>
>"To make documents available at the click of a mouse button is tantamount to
>active distribution and voyeurism," Balint wrote.
>
>Others are worried that the courts will go too far in the other direction,
>and will put up excessive restrictions on online access to court documents.
>
>"No one should be discriminated against simply because they do not have the
>means or desire to travel to the courthouse to view public records," wrote
>Andrew Straw, an attorney in Bloomington, Indiana.
>
>His views are echoed by a college student in Lexington, Ky., who wrote to
>the court administrators in frustration after failing to find an online copy
>of the complaint filed against Napster by the band Metallica.
>
>"If any John Doe can walk in off the street and get a copy of a public
>document, a student 1,000 miles away should also be allowed the same access
>via their desktop computer," he wrote.
>
>Even so, Hoofnagle and other privacy advocates believes there's a big
>difference between having a document publicly available in the dark corner
>of some federal courtroom and putting it up on the Internet. Online
>publishing makes it easier for information to be used in identity theft and
>other nefarious schemes. Criminals could set up programs that scan court
>records databases for sensitive information like bank account numbers.
>
>Norman Mayer, a federal court clerk in Fairfax, Va., proposes that courts
>create a system for keeping certain types of information out of public
>databases.
>
>"It is my belief that privacy protections should be put in place on
>electronic court records, restricting public access where the privacy
>interests outweigh the public's interests in openness," he wrote.
>
>With all those conflicting opinions to sort through, Carelli belives it's
>unlikely federal court administrators will approve any major policy change
>until this fall, at the earliest, following the September meeting of the
>Judicial Conference.
>
>In the meantime, federal courts will continue offering limited access to
>their mountains of records. Most already have websites, and post certain
>information such as court rulings and scheduling information. A handful
>offer complaints and other documents. Dockets, decisions and a limited
>number of other filings are also available through Pacer, a 12-year-old
>system that federal courts use for electronic publishing.
>
>But now that courts have the ability to offer so much more online, Straw and
>other advocates of open access believe they would be remiss to turn away
>from it.
>
>"Courts should not backpedal on their commitment to openness simply because
>new technology has come along," Straw wrote. "This result would be the
>equivalent of sealing all order books and case files in 1960 because the new
>copy and fax machines made it easier to copy and transmit a document from
>the courthouse than re-writing or re-typing it by hand."
>
>***