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Today I learned that 20 years ago I was a defendant in an unlawful detainer (eviction) lawsuit regarding an apartment I shared in college. I had moved out of th
by cryptnotic 5y ago
Today I learned that 20 years ago I was a defendant in an unlawful detainer (eviction) lawsuit regarding an apartment I shared in college. I had moved out of the apartment after graduation. Apparently my roommate stopped paying the rent and the landlord sued both of us. I was never served and didn't know about the case until now.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- reaperducer 5y agoToday I learned that my boss has a lead foot. 15 speeding tickets in six states, all over 85 MPH.
- amelius 5y agoSounds like a privacy nightmare, though.
- tinco 5y agoWhy? There's no private information being shared right?
- amelius 5y agoNot officially, no. But that's not the only possible interpretation.
- spaetzleesser 5y agoTechnically no but it makes a difference if you have all that information available easily through the internet vs having to put some effort into obtaining the records one by one. Same goes for surveillance: technically you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public spaces but once it becomes feasible that somebody can plaster a whole state/country with cameras and can analyze the data automatically it gets a little scary. I think a lot of privacy rules need to be revised in the context of current and future technological capabilities.
- giantg2 5y agoThat would be more of a problem with the legal system, not this search page.
- spaetzleesser 5y agoVery true. We have to rethink a lot of the rules around privacy considering the scale technology has made mass surveillance possible. .
- boomer918 5y agoThat's not true. Court records used to be accessible in person only. You would have to be motivated to find anything. This puts everyone's past and often forgotten transgressions on display. This might look cool or even useful to some, but it's straight up immoral.
- EvanAnderson 5y agoCourt records, including traffic violations, have been accessible online in the jurisdiction where I live for nearly 25 years. They've been aggregated from that website by third-parties for most of that time, too (which I know because I've done contract sysadmin work for one of the courts for most of that 25 years).
- chaps 5y agoMixed feelings on this, and a lot of it unfortunately stems from these systems requiring access in-person only as well as courts generally being inaccessible through FOIA. Had these records been available through FOIA from the beginning, for example, then these records would have gone through a review/redaction process. But, they're being released now, which can many ways be seen as a reaction to the lack of access to this information, generally. The extensive overuse of courts for non-violent cases definitely doesn't help either. As a researcher, there are deep problems with the inaccessibility of court information in that it prevents the general public from learning about systemic issues, for example identifying extensive abuse by judges (singular, or in a group), or identifying whether bail is applied uniformly. I don't know what the solution is and things get trickier the more you look at them. Restrictive access isn't a perfect answer, since it allows gatekeeping of those critical. Having talked with lawyers who have access, they basically have to keep completely out of public spot light while they have restrictive access, at the fear of losing it. And our massive systems around incarceration have shown themselves as being uninterested in providing information to those who are critical of them. We've dug ourselves into a pretty deep hole.
- Pixeleen 5y agoThere are records here connecting my legal name to my deadname, not even on a court name change order. I had gone to lengths to keep things private. This is devastating. I want to cry.
- TigeriusKirk 5y agoI learned there's an attorney with my exact name and middle initial and his kajillion filings obscure my traffic tickets.