From: adamg@eff.org (Adam Gaffin)
Newsgroups: alt.internet.services
Subject: Re: Personal info via modem?
Date: 7 Oct 92 00:48:13 GMT
Organization: Electronic Frontier Foundation
Originator: adamg@eff.org

In article <92278.155107C31002WB@wuvmd.wustl.edu> William Burris <C31002WB@WUVMD> writes:
>Hi all,
>
>      I have a friend who claims that it is possible to find out information
>(address, SS#, telephone #, drivers license #, police records, etc...) about
>anybody by dialing up certain government agencies (such as the DMV).  Is this
>correct?  Can _anybody_ do this?  Isn't there some kind of privacy violation
>taking place here?
>
>      If this is possible, how?  Does anyone know the numbers?  Has anyone
>ever done this?
>
Since these things are all state issues (well, there are federal
criminals, but most convicts are convicted under state law), it depends on
the particular state.  

For example, in Massachusetts, everything on your driver's license is
considered a public record.  Last year, Gov. Weld proposed creation of a
dial-in service so that anybody willing to pay an hourly fee could
download/browse these things.  Since most people use their SS number as
their driver's ID number, there are some privacy concerns.  Weld backed
down because he didn't want to jeopardize some other initiatives.  But you
could go to the Registry of Motor Vehicles HQ in Boston and ask to see my
driver's license data and you'd get it.  And under state public-records
law, if you give them $150,000 or so, they will give you computer tapes
containing *every* such record. 

In fact, Massachusetts not only has a very strong public-records statute
(and is one of just two states with a full-time public-records office), it
also has this odd law that requires cities and towns to compile yearly,
public residents' lists that detail what people do for a living, when they
were born and whether they lived somewhere else the year before.

But criminal records in Massachusetts are a different matter.  In 1988,
the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune won a Pulitzer for exposing the post-jail
career of one Willie Horton (remember him) -- state officials would not
disclose any information at all about him under a state law that
essentially exempted criminal records from the public-records law (the
criminal-records law has since been modified a bit, so that you can now
find out if somebody does have a criminal record, although I seem to
recall you still can't find out specifically what he's been convicted of).

 In contrast, in neighboring Rhode Island, such criminal records *are*
public -- and a few years ago the Providence Journal got a database of
criminal records and a database of drivers' licenses, compared the two,
and found a whole slew of school buses being driven by convicted child
molesters, drunk drivers, etc. 

Meanwhile, federal bankruptcy and district courts are making their dockets
available for free online inspection.  Every week, for example, I download
a file from U.S. Bankruptcy Court that lists all of the previous week's
filings for Massachusetts.  In Boston, anyway, the federal district court
records are so far limited to civil cases, but there's no real reason why
this can't be extended to the criminal side. 

-- 
Adam Gaffin
adamg@eff.org     Voice: (508) 626-3968
Putting the Internet on paper!
Newsgroups: alt.internet.services