[QUOTE=Hamlet]
And, Mike Royko’s words on the topic of ketchup on a hot dog:
“No, I won’t condemn anyone for putting ketchup on a hot dog. This is the land of the free. And if someone wants to put ketchup on a hot dog and actually eat the awful thing, that is their right. It is also their right to put mayo or chocolate syrup or toenail clippings or cat hair on a hot dog. Sure, it would be disgusting and perverted, and they would be shaming themselves and their loved ones. But under our system of government, it is their right to be barbarians.”
[/QUOTE]
grunts
I loves me some ketchup on my hot dog. And mustard. And relish. None of the rest of it, though.
[QUOTE=Absolute]
As I understand it, criminal records are publicly available anyway. This is just making the information more easily accessible.
I don’t see how that would make any difference: if you think criminal records should be private, then complain about that. If you’re okay with them being public, then you should be okay with this.
[/QUOTE]
There do seem to be some problems with this, however. If you will recall, the State of Florida was able to remove a huge number of eligible voters prior to the 2000 election by the simple expedient of having a list of criminals that was not thoroughly vetted for accuracy. Claiming that it is the responsibility of the County Clerk to ensure accuracy simply fixes a scapegoat if bad information is published, but does nothing to actually ensure that the information on the database is actually accurate. And since I have seen no statement indicating that funds were established to actually guarantee accuracy, I see no reason to assume that the data will, in fact, be accurate. If one takes the time to go to the courthouse and look up a felony conviction, there will be sufficient information about the person that one can verify that person’s identity. A simple list of names does no such thing.
There is also another problem with the way the list is administered. I checked out the registry. It requires either a case number or the last name and first initial of the person, nothing more. So I entered the fairly common name J Johnson. It came back with a hit for a Joseph Johnson, providing Last Name, First Name, whether name is real or an alias, DOB, County, Offense, Date Convicted.
I then when to Yahoo! People Search and entered “Joseph Johnson” in Tennessee. I got 156 hits. So there are at least 155 persons in Tennessee who are now under a cloud for meth transactions for which there is no reason to suspect that they have ever so much as been in a room with someone else taking cold medicine.
I suppose that if one’s name was Ferdinand Felgergruber, there would be less chance of error, but how long will it take before some twit decides to harrass a neighbor or sabotage a candidate for public office based on the (incomplete and quite possibly inaccurate) material on the registry?
[QUOTE=Anaamika]
I loves me some ketchup on my hot dog. And mustard. And relish. None of the rest of it, though.
[/QUOTE]
I think there must be some misunderstanding here. Ketchup is a sweetened tomato paste mixed with vinegar. People just don’t put that on hot dogs. It’s not done. You’re thinking of uncooked tomato, and you must be putting pieces of tomato on your hot dog. That’s not ketchup yet.
[QUOTE=Absolute]
Did I say that? No. I made no argument about whether the records should be public or private. I merely said that, if you think they should be public, then you should be okay with them being easily accessible, and thus that complaining about the government making it easier to access already-public records is stupid.
The OP should have been complaining about the records being public in the first place, not the government making it easier to find them.
Personally, I think criminal records should be private. Next time, shut up and read more carefully before you jump to conclusions.
[/QUOTE]
Um, why? One thing that should be pretty much obvious by now is the power inherent in aggregating information that’s freely available. No private individual would have the capacity to turn such public records into a registry; as it is, it’s essentially necessary to know the name of the person you wish to look up in order to find their record - there’s no practical way to assemble information as described in the article. If you don’t understand the pretty obvious difference between public information that requires a great deal of effort to obtain and public information that can be easily accessed with a couple mouse clicks, then you’re foolish and taking an irrationally reductionist stance.
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
I think there must be some misunderstanding here. Ketchup is a sweetened tomato paste mixed with vinegar. People just don’t put that on hot dogs. It’s not done. You’re thinking of uncooked tomato, and you must be putting pieces of tomato on your hot dog. That’s not ketchup yet.
I’m glad I could clear up the misunderstanding.
[/QUOTE]
I don’t like uncooked tomato, except straight with a little salt. Certainly not on hot dogs!
I also like ketchup on my eggs. I guess that will really put me on that offender list.
There is also another problem with the way the list is administered. I checked out the registry. It requires either a case number or the last name and first initial of the person, nothing more.
[/QUOTE]
Huh. I was able to browse by County. There’s a guy in Cumberland County who has the same name as a friend of mine. I guess I should call him.
I didn’t exhaustively check out the search options. I was mostly looking for ways to eliminate false positives. Given the rate at which Americans change addresses, even having the county is hardly much use. In crime stories around here, I frequently read about people who have moved from Cleveland (Cuyahoga) to Akron (Summit) or Youngstown (Mahoning) or Painesville (Lake) or Lorain (Lorain) or more than one of these cities (counties) in just one or two years. A seven year record? The guy could have moved to Florida or West Virginia and back twice in that time.
I have no problem with the public having access to criminal records, but they should be aware that there can be a lot of mistakes in them and take that into account. As an example, in Pinellas County there was a county clerk in the 1990-1992 time frame who almost always put down the person’s offense date as their date of birth - a good percentage of records you pull from that time frame have the wrong DOB, I’d say almost 1/3 to 1/2. This is not an unheard of mistake in any county at any time, but in that particular county in that time frame it is unusually common. This wouldn’t be likely to cause someone to be falsely accused of a crime, but it makes it easy for people to overlook records that they might want to be aware of.
These are not difficult public records to get. As mentioned, if you know the person’s name anyone can look them up with a small filing fee. If you want to pay a larger fee, a lot of counties sell their archives to background check companies, you can get a decade’s worth of criminal records for a few hundred bucks.
[QUOTE=D_Odds]
Too many damn useless laws on our books as is, and yet people still are allowed to put ketchup on hot dogs. There just ain’t no fairness in the world.
[/QUOTE]
I heard of a little bot named Cole who was forced to eat ketchup on a hotdog by an evil babysitter. This babysitter had a history of putting ketchup on inapprpriate things. The registry could have prevented this tragedy. I propose we name the law authorizing the registray after Cole.
[QUOTE=tomndebb]
If one takes the time to go to the courthouse and look up a felony conviction, there will be sufficient information about the person that one can verify that person’s identity. A simple list of names does no such thing.
[/QUOTE]
I admit that accuracy (or the lack thereof) is a problem with this system, but that didn’t strike me as the primary complaint in the OP.
Obviously I understand the difference at a basic level. But not when you’re talking about privacy concerns.
Data that is public and hard to get to is no more private than data that is public and easy to get to. When you’re talking about privacy concerns, both levels of accessibility are equal: they’re both public.
The only difference is that only the rich can access hard-to-get-to public records, while everyone has equal access to easy-to-get-to public records.
[QUOTE=Absolute]
The only difference is that only the rich can access hard-to-get-to public records, while everyone has equal access to easy-to-get-to public records.
[/QUOTE]
I thought that might be what you were driving at. I would draw a distinction between “data that is a matter of public record*” and “data that can be accessed by some yahoo screwing off at work.”
By the way, I cannot exress how much I think having criminal proceedings be a matter of public record is a good idea. The alternative would, of course, be trials that are not a matter of public record.
[QUOTE=Uvula Donor]
Obviously, no, you don’t.
[/QUOTE]
All jokes come from somewhere.
…though I’m beginning to wonder if I’m being subjected to a giant mass whoosh. Are you people seriously contending that hot dogs are such a gourmet delicacy that it’s “improper” to put ketchup on them? I can see it raising an eyebrow or two if ketchup were put on a steak (which I don’t eat anyway), but hot dogs?! They are, pretty much by definition, junk food to be eaten on the fly or in extremely informal circumstances, not at the Vanderbilts’ house by candlelight wearing a tuxedo.
Hot dog snobs. Now I’ve heard everything…
Excuse me while I go to a nice restaurant for a glass of milk.
I loves me some ketchup on my hot dog. And mustard. And relish. None of the rest of it, though.
scratches self
[/QUOTE]
Swap the relish for minced onions and I’ll join you! (oh, and a slice of American cheese-the good kind, from the deli counter, mind you).
I wonder what those who get angry about ketchup on hot dogs would do if they found themselves at Primanti’s.
[QUOTE=Absolute]
As I understand it, criminal records are publicly available anyway. This is just making the information more easily accessible.
I don’t see how that would make any difference: if you think criminal records should be private, then complain about that. If you’re okay with them being public, then you should be okay with this.
[/QUOTE]
There is a massive difference between the two types of access, and not just monetarily.
In order to access someone’s criminal record (which is, of course, pulbic) you need at minimum their full name (correctly spelled) and date of birth (to insure that you’re not collecting the info from some other person w/that name) and even in some cases, you would need more.
for these registries, they’re searchable by a number of factors - zip code, for example, and name/age. So, w/these data bases, you can, in fact find out the criminal record for the person who once registered as living next door to you (and thereby find their date of birth as well). You really don’t need to know much at all about them.
once you find that data, it’s not all that difficult to find more.
