[wolverine876]

I agree there are limits; there are no absolutes in anything. We don't have absolute free speech: you can't slander, commit fraud, conspire to commit a crime, incite a deadly stampede, etc.

I think the main concern is that the more powerful the actor (e.g., government is very powerful) the more important transparancy is, and the more vulnerable the actor, the more important privacy is.

For example, if an Apple (picking a random company) employee complains to authorities about dangerous working conditions, that employee may be very vulnerable - Apple could blacklist them; other businesses, if they learned of the complaint, could do the same, not wanting a 'troublemaker'. And that employee may be financially vulnerable, needing the job; their privacy should be maintained if possible. But Apple and the government are both powerful and there should be transparency about the working conditions, investigation, and outcome.

[SllX]

So what’s the limiting principle you would use? That’s the problem. I no more care about Apple’s speeding violations than I do Joe Schmo’s, but I probably do care about whether Joe here has a criminal history if I’m interviewing him, and the nature of that history.

You could go by legal entity, just make lawsuits involving corporations public, and lawsuits between individuals private: but while Apple might have global influence, your rich and litigious neighbor in a rural county is probably a more immediate concern to you. Also individuals can sue corporations and corporations can sue individuals.

I’m still inclined to think court records should stay public, but I’m now more interested in seeing if there’s a kind of filter we can put on what we make public than I was two weeks ago.

[wolverine876]

Two thoughts:

* There are different levels of availability: For example, some court records could be public but not available outside the courthouse.

* Court records could be public by default, but take into account certain factors: Public interest, the power of the party, the vulnerability of the party. Criminal cases should probably be public - it is not dispute resolution (as with civil cases) but the government taking someone's freedom and/or property. The government's actions should be transparent.

[SllX]

I think I’m with you on the first one, but I think on point two you have too many heuristics that themselves would have to be litigated and eat into court time.

[rhacker]

With your same example though, now this employee is listed in a bunch of Apple lawsuits and will be unable to ever get a job again because of this kind of search engine.

[wolverine876]

That was part of my point: The vulnerable person has more need of privacy.