[governance] Internet Rights?: Canadian Privacy Czar Wants To Anonymize Court Records On the Web

[Jeffrey A. Williams]

All,

  again on the subject of an "Internet Bill of Rights" consider the
following:

  Vint, you might want to share this with David Eun and Eric.

The web is evil and must be stopped because it makes public information
too public. So says Canada's Privacy
Commissioner. She wants to
http://www.thestar.com/News/Canada/article/481857 'anonymize' court
records by substituting initials for names. The Toronto
Star quotes Jennifer Stodddart as saying 'The open court rule, which is
extremely historically important, has now become distorted by the effect
of massive search engines... Court decisions and other related
documents, which contain all sorts of personal information, are now
searchable worldwide, which was never intended when openness rules were
devised.'  All Stoddart's proposal would do is erect a minor barrier for
the techno unsaavy. Researchers, reporters, geeks, and most teenagers
would still be able to figure out who's who. Stoddart seems to believe
only in an abstract notion of freedom and access but only as long as not
too many people use it and no one suffers. She cites the case of someone
who is upset at reading the divorce case of her parents. Is Stoddart a
danger or a menace? Or just clueless?

Regards,

Spokesman for INEGroup LLA. - (Over 281k members/stakeholders strong!)
"Obedience of the law is the greatest freedom" -
   Abraham Lincoln

"Credit should go with the performance of duty and not with what is
very often the accident of glory" - Theodore Roosevelt

"If the probability be called P; the injury, L; and the burden, B;
liability depends upon whether B is less than L multiplied by
P: i.e., whether B is less than PL."
United States v. Carroll Towing  (159 F.2d 169 [2d Cir. 1947]
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