Imagine that you are an editorial writer at a newspaper. In honor of the annual celebration of government transparency known as Sunshine Week, you decide to write a column that includes a link to a public-records database that lists names and addresses of all members of a certain population.
Now, try to imagine which of the following databases might provoke a reader response so vociferous that you, the editorial writer, would receive death threats:
1. A list of Republican donors to Democratic political candidates.
2. A list of paroled sex offenders.
3. A list of flat-fee real-estate agents.
4. A list of people with permits to carry a concealed handgun.
And the answer is …
No. 4. Christian Trejbal, who writes for the Roanoke Times, thought it would be instructive to publish a list of the area’s handgun owners. After gathering up the information — it wasn’t simply posted on some government agency’s website — here, in part, is what he wrote:
There are good reasons the records are open to public scrutiny. People might like to know if their neighbors carry. Parents might like to know if a member of the car pool has a pistol in the glove box. Employers might like to know if employees are bringing weapons to the office. … This is not about being for or against guns. There are plenty of reasons people choose to carry weapons: fear of a violent ex-lover, concern about criminals or worry that the king of England might try to get into your house. There are plenty of reasons to question the wisdom of widespread gun ownership, too. But that’s a debate for another time.
Many of the area residents did not take to Trejbal’s idea. (To be fair, some of the objections concerned flawed listings in the database.) The resultant hubbub led the Times to pull the database, and it left Trejbal to write his subsequent columns about air-dried laundry and vanity plates.
This raises an interesting conundrum for journalists, bloggers, and anyone else who has access to public records — which, these days, is pretty much anyone with a computer: At what point does the aggregation and dissemination of public records cross the line into a violation of privacy? For instance, the real-estate sales data that Chad Syverson and Steve Levitt analyzed in their paper about agents’ misaligned incentives was derived from public records; but real-estate agents strongly objected to the accumulation of all these data.
I also wonder why, specifically, the Roanoke-area gun owners objected to their names being published; i.e., what advantage do they gain by having a gun and yet not having other people know they have a gun? It seems to me that, despite Trejbal’s protestations, this incident does say something significant about guns and the people who own them.
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Isn’t the logic the same as “concealed carry”–if enough people carry concealed weapons, the theory goes that bad guys won’t know who is and who isn’t, so will avoid everyone? (But I suspect it’s the same as in David Brin’s Transparent Society, we want privacy for ourselves, and transparency for everyone else.
An interesting example of publishing government data is the Environmental Working Group’s publication of the names and payments made to farmers by USDA. (http://www.ewg.org/farm/) They won a court case under FOIA to get the data. It’s been a weapon in the hands of those who oppose farm programs (though not the ultimate weapon). Ken Cook in his blog just explained why they weren’t publishing the names of food stamp participants. (http://www.mulchblog.)
Isn’t the logic the same as “concealed carry”–if enough people carry concealed weapons, the theory goes that bad guys won’t know who is and who isn’t, so will avoid everyone? (But I suspect it’s the same as in David Brin’s Transparent Society, we want privacy for ourselves, and transparency for everyone else.
An interesting example of publishing government data is the Environmental Working Group’s publication of the names and payments made to farmers by USDA. (http://www.ewg.org/farm/) They won a court case under FOIA to get the data. It’s been a weapon in the hands of those who oppose farm programs (though not the ultimate weapon). Ken Cook in his blog just explained why they weren’t publishing the names of food stamp participants. (http://www.mulchblog.)
Gun owners can be … peculiar. Consider the shameful Zumbo affair, in which a lifelong NRA member and respected hunting journalist was mercilessly pilloried and had his career destroyed merely for suggesting that hunters shouldn’t be using assault rifle knockoffs.
Gun owners can be … peculiar. Consider the shameful Zumbo affair, in which a lifelong NRA member and respected hunting journalist was mercilessly pilloried and had his career destroyed merely for suggesting that hunters shouldn’t be using assault rifle knockoffs.
People in general don’t like information about themselves published in databases where the results are anything more than wholesale data. It is my opinion that the public is increasingly (and with good cause) seeing public databases as creations with little or no benefit to them, but with great benefit to politicians, marketers, scammers, and other individuals with ulterior motives.
This particular instance is a good exampleof this. Very few people would publish a full list of the names of concealed gun owners as citizen heroes. (Those that might think of it whould most likely keep the data wholesale out of respect for the owners’ privacy .) But those with an axe to grind against handgun ownership might consider it to add an extra social dissincentive against ownership. (i.e: You are now open to harrasment by those who think that you’re wrong for owning a handgun.)
The Cottage Economist
People in general don’t like information about themselves published in databases where the results are anything more than wholesale data. It is my opinion that the public is increasingly (and with good cause) seeing public databases as creations with little or no benefit to them, but with great benefit to politicians, marketers, scammers, and other individuals with ulterior motives.
This particular instance is a good exampleof this. Very few people would publish a full list of the names of concealed gun owners as citizen heroes. (Those that might think of it whould most likely keep the data wholesale out of respect for the owners’ privacy .) But those with an axe to grind against handgun ownership might consider it to add an extra social dissincentive against ownership. (i.e: You are now open to harrasment by those who think that you’re wrong for owning a handgun.)
The Cottage Economist
In my experience people don’t usually try to conceal something that they feel is right, good and they are proud of.
In this story about the the guns that obviously is not the case
In my experience people don’t usually try to conceal something that they feel is right, good and they are proud of.
In this story about the the guns that obviously is not the case