FC: A response to Robert Gellman on journalists, privacy, and Lexis

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Mon Nov 04 2002 - 06:35:15 PST

  • Next message: Declan McCullagh: "FC: An earlier attempt to argue DVD region coding violates EU laws"

    Previous Politech message:
    http://www.politechbot.com/p-04115.html
    ---
    
    From: "Alex R. Cohen" <arcat_private>
    To: <declanat_private>
    Subject: Re: Robert Gellman replies to jlists too eager to side with privacy
    Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2002 13:05:39 -0500
    
    Declan:
    
    I don't know what mechanism controls access to this data by private
    investigators, but I do know what applies to lawyers with Lexis accounts,
    for addresses gleaned from a range of rather private sources, probably
    including drivers licenses: They have to click a button that says, "I'm
    entitled to access this data." No details are required.
    
    What prevents them from clicking that button and getting their favorite
    celebrity's home address? Only the star's ingenuity at keeping the address
    out of the records. I've been invited to run just that sort of search in
    order to learn how to use that Lexis database--I and a number of other
    people, all on one account, so there's no record of who is responsible for
    which search.
    
    ALEX R. COHEN
    Class of 2003
    University of Pennsylvania Law School
    
    
    
    
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list
    You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice.
    To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html
    This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
    Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Like Politech? Make a donation here: http://www.politechbot.com/donate/
    Recent CNET News.com articles: http://news.search.com/search?q=declan
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Nov 04 2002 - 08:02:33 PST