The criminal enablers at the Bloomington, IN Daily Puppy Trainer are now trying to claim that there's no possible harm that could come to innocent citizens from their online pistol permit database.
Riiiight.
Like they care. The kind of people who would lump carry permit holders, (who get into a database by passing a criminal background check,) with sex offenders, (who get into their database by, you know, committing crimes) just point up that the term "journalistic ethics" has become an oxymoron.
Isn't this usually dealt with by publishing a database of newspaper columnists and editors? What's good for the second amendment is good for the first amendment and all that?
ReplyDeleteLike they'd keep J Random Hacker out of the database anyway.
ReplyDeleteCreating ANY kind of a database means hackers have a target.
ReplyDeleteWe have one of these in Canada, for all firearms. Its former head of IT said in an interview that "any sixteen-year old" could crack it.
Let's see...detailed list of guns, who owns them, and the owner's address.
Gotta wonder if that's why Toronto had a rash of home break-ins targeting (sorry!) large, expensive gun collections.
Folks, any info is a database is accessible to the wrong people if they really want it.
The interesting thing is that the state of MA specifically prohibits newspapers from releasing the names of permit holders.
ReplyDeleteProbably because, in many towns (BOSTON, I'm looking at yooooouuuuu), it would read like a list of the rich and connected...
Living in the town that this rag resides in, I wondered when this would happen after seeing this done in other states. The a-holes running that rag like to pretend that they are big-city sophisticated when they have the subscription readership of a urinal wall in a not so popular bar.
ReplyDeleteSupposedly the database only shows how many permit holders there are on your street. Of course, if you are the only person on the street, it doesn't take a level 5 math-a-lete to figure out where the good stuff is.
ReplyDeleteYou bring out my inner cynic. Okay, my inner cynic is not far from the surface.
ReplyDelete'...the term "journalistic ethics" has become an oxymoron.'
This is news?
From the HT Q&A:
ReplyDelete"The ISP has to release the entire database to me because the entire database is subject to an Indiana public records request. ... If you think this information should not be public record, I would say you can contact your state representative and ask them to sponsor a law making it not a public record."
The Roanoke Times fish wrapper did something similar, but the information they published was searchable by name, town, street, etc. They acquired the information through a FOIA request to the state police. The outcry was so sudden, so loud, and so vehement, that they pulled it down within 24 hours, without admitting any wrongdoing. Of course, they denied all culpability for the parolee who used the database to find his parole officer's address and stop by to say "hi" to is wife and baby.
ReplyDeleteWe've since fixed that hole, but the information is still available as public record to anyone who bothers to stroll down to the local court clerk's office. There are several newspapers who still publish local names.
Charles,
ReplyDelete"This is news?"
No, it's rhetoric. ;)
This little nugget from the H-T article on gun owners, LTCH, and the "Obama Effect:"
ReplyDelete"This shows a troubling distrust — paranoia? — about the new administration. Our research doesn’t say whether it’s just political or political and racial, but we have our suspicions."
provided, in Taminology, a high-pressure test of my cerebral arteries.
I once read that the explicit reason the Swiss don't keep records on which legal gun owner owns which legal guns legally is not to provide burglars with shopping lists.
ReplyDeleteIf you are not a gun owner by elimination using this database you could be the prime candidate for a breakin. NO DEFENSE.
ReplyDeleteT. Stahl,
ReplyDeleteYeah, in Indiana all the list would tell somebody is that the person had a pistol permit, which doesn't even necessarily mean they own a gun.
Yes, and even that information is too much.
ReplyDeleteWhat if a newspaper published a database on who bought which kind of jewlery lately?
If you are not a gun owner by elimination using this database you could be the prime candidate for a breakin. NO DEFENSE.
THAT is a great angle of attack! The problem could be to find the burgled not-gun-owner to press charges against the paper.