[lxgr]

As a European, the extent of what is deemed acceptable in the US to publish as part of the "public record" is baffling.

Is this because previously analog processes (i.e. stuff that you could legally look up in a court's microfilm document archive in person and make photocopies of etc.) have been put on the internet indiscriminately? Or is this really generally seen as a desirable property of the legal system?

[ac29]

Disclosing a list of creditors and amount owed is important in bankruptcy cases because the data the debtor has may be incorrect or incomplete. Without a published list, creditors might have no practical way to dispute the records before funds are distributed.

[xeromal]

It's just one of those systems that has both good and bad. We can't seem to pull off a grey area decision where certain info is public and some is redacted for privacy so instead of making everything private, we go nuclear and make everything public. I guess it's better than nothing. lol.

It also very much depends on the state which everyone seems to forget. There are 50 different states that have different opinions of what is public information. There's a joke that Florida Man is the most devious person around but the reality is that Florida has more information made public which makes it appear that bad stuff is happening all the time there.

[MockObject]

I find it baffling as an American, too. Stupid laws regarding public disclosure of campaign contributions has prevented me from donating anything at all, until I can find a candidate as uncontroversial as the Tooth Fairy. Great job, public guardians. Meanwhile, there are so many impediments against access of my medical data, God forbid hackers discover my blood pressure.

[arcbyte]

Well as a US citizen we are very skeptical of government power. Information is power. Anything the government knows that it doesn't tell its citizens has the potential for abuse of power. So on some level we like things to be as public as possible.

It goes back to the idea of open courts, open legislative sessions, etc where any citizen can attend and see everything that happened except for narrow provisions for controversially protected things likes military secrets.

We disagree on how much should be public and im certainly on the end of rhe spectrum that says make everything public (except for military secrets). But there are things that courts regularly make secret like names of minors, health information, social security numbers, etc.

[renewiltord]

How interesting, considering countries like Norway make tax return summaries public against one's name.

[lxgr]

I find that very surprising too, but would consider it a (pretty extreme) outlier.