Opinions
Before the Internet evolved into a global informational system, public records had been essentially private because of limited efficiency of public exposure mechanisms. Now that practically anyone can access wealth of them without leaving the comfort of their homes, governments have faced the task of examining whether certain restrictions should apply to electronic versions of the same documents. As for court records in particular, states may have to consider revamping open records laws now that court records have become "digital dossiers" of people's lives, according to Chris Hoofnagle, legislative counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. Though, the only bills introduced in state legislatures in 2002 had meant only keeping out certain information, such as Social Security and credit card numbers, before posting the documents of the kind online, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
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