Thank you for your explanation of why some companies are pushing for automated online searches.

I am concerned with your reference calling the documents a "commodity". Are you suggesting that the private information contained in these documents should be considered a commodity like wheat or cotton, to be exported in bulk on the open market over the internet to anyone in the world with their own need to know? These documents often contain the personal identities and information of the American citizens who submitted them to their local counties for safekeeping. The documents you call commodities are much more than this to those who trusted our local government to preserve and protect them. They are the records of our lives and those of our parents and children. I don't consider my social security number, home address, date of birth, spouses name, or account numbers as a commodity. Do you?

I wonder if Rebecca Shaefer thought her personal information compiled by the government would ever be offered as a commodity? We will never know. Before the Interenet was even a factor a stalker she had never met accessed her public record by subscription to a California online service. She was found dead in her driveway the following morning.

Did Jim Moehring of Ohio consider his Social Security number and other details of his life a commodity when someone accessed his public records through Hamilton County court's Web site and opened seven credit cards in his name  charging $11,000? "It was absolutely terrifying," Moehring said. "I got smoked in a bad way. The information is way too accessible." The Cincinatti Post

Should the location of our high pressure gas lines, chemical and explosives plants, communications centers and high voltage electrical substations be considered commodities for any terrorist anywhere in the world to download at the click of a mouse?