5 ms·
> How did we get to a place where no one seems to believe this anymore? It's technology's fault. Before the advent of widespread computers capable of indexing
by csense 11y ago
> How did we get to a place where no one seems to believe this anymore?
It's technology's fault. Before the advent of widespread computers capable of indexing large amounts of data, in order for someone to know a person had a felony, they would have had to know where you were convicted, travel to the courthouse in that county, and go through stacks of dusty paper files.
This struck a good balance between making court records public (anyone can look at them), and the privacy of individual defendants (few people bothered because it's time-consuming and inconvenient, therefore expensive).
Of course software's eaten this market, there are companies that have digitized and indexed all those public records, and now you can run background checks on people with a few mouse clicks and a few bucks on your credit card.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- x0x0 11y agoIt's clearly technology's fault. Just like police never assaulted black/brown people before everyone had video cameras on their persons 24/7. And ufos stopped visiting. On a serious note, you're running perilously close to google and the right to forget. I strongly agree with you, but it's the google party line that there's no difference at all between (1) the ability to conduct a background check on someone as long as you're willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars, and (2) the ability for anyone to conduct and publicize a background check for free. You'll note also that asshole Eric Schmidt simultaneously suggested people should change their names if they want youthful indiscretions not to follow them for the rest of their life while using his billions and lawyers to erase his mistresses' stories from the internet.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago> It's technology's fault. Its our fault, not technology's. Technology is just a tool; we've failed to properly address how it should be used. See: Drones, NSA spying, etc as well.
- CyberDildonics 11y agoTrue. We're still broadcasting most of our internet traffic in the clear for fuck's sake.
- m_mueller 11y agoAnything that can be done, will be done, to whatever degree people can profit from it, as long as it isn't regulated. If a majority of people are against these privacy violation, then it's simply a failure of the political system to come up with a solution.
- ovi256 11y agoTools shape society just as much as society shapes tools.
- _delirium 11y agoTraditional tort law also put some barriers in the way of doing various negative things you could imagine doing with the public information. For example photocopying a bunch of public records about someone you don't like, and then mailing them to the person's employer, flyering the neighborhood with copies of them, etc., or following the person as they go apply for employment and handing a copy to the prospective employer, would all fall afoul (in some jurisdictions) of economic torts and anti-harassment law. But running an "information service" that does this systematically for everyone doesn't have the same element of targeted harassment, so avoids these torts, while still harming the person in question.