In my view, it isn't a case of technology catching up, but one of the law catching up with the technology. Laws that were designed to protect access to the records were never intended to deal with technology that provides for instantaneously broadcasting the records to the world. This could not have been the "public" the writers intended when they wrote of access to local government records.

One of my favorite quotes for this issue comes from a memorandum ruling by Judge Robert K. Alsdorf. He wrote,

"It is hard to conceive of a broader invasion of privacy than freely disseminating the information to the entire world and rendering it instantaneously accessible to all."
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What many well meaning county recorders and clerks failed to see when they first embraced the technology that reduced huge stacks of documents to a single CD was that in this form, the county totally loses control over the collection as a whole. For hundreds of years the records were protected by the practical obscurity. A balance was maintained between privacy and the publics right of access. Technology has turned this balance on it's head so that the only one who is practically obscure are those who traffic in the information in bulk.

Some county officials saw the Internet as an efficient means of delivering the documents to their constituents. They failed to understand the Internet is not a delivery system but a broadcast system. Email, fax and the U.S. mail are delivery systems in that they deliver one document to one person, one case at a time. The Internet broadcasts millions of documents to everyone, anywhere in the world.

For the citizens, the result has been rampant deed fraud, identity theft, and terrorist risk. For the counties the result has been loss of control over the single largest asset owned by the taxpayer. Some government agencies are facing class action suits when their constituents find out they have been broadcasting their information to the world. Others are facing suit from a few national companies demanding the county deliver at cost or free, every document the county has digitized.

There are a few national and international data miners, aggregators, and data brokers who profit. Thousands of identity thieves, terrorists, stalkers, and foreign agents are facilitated. Local abstractors, title companies, and citizens experience little benefit but instead are asked to pay for this service to those those outside the jurisdiction.

As early as 1989 the U.S. Supreme Court recognized this imbalance in U.S. Department of Justice vs Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. The court ruled, “But the issue here is whether the compilation of otherwise hard-to-obtain information alters the privacy interest implicated by disclosure of that information. Plainly there is a vast difference between the public records that might be found after a diligent search of courthouse files, county archives, and local police stations throughout the country and a computerized summary located in a single clearinghouse of information.”

As legislation and court rulings catch up with technology, it is becoming clear, the privacy and security of entire communities should not be sacrificed for the convenience of those unwilling to live or work in the community