Buyers, beware

Meredith Oakley

Of over-disclosure

LITTLE ROCK — Information in the personnel records of city, county and state employees whose disclosure “would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy” is not something that the general public has a right to see.

So says the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act, and although proponents of open government continue to disagree about some of the particulars covered by that exemption in the act, I’ve never known anyone to argue that Social Security numbers of public officials or anyone else should be readily available to all comers.

Many of us grew up in an era when SSNs were not used for identification purposes. Indeed, the Social Security cards we were issued even carried that admonition across the bottom. No more. Now they’re used in all sorts of transactions and situations, and it would be pretty difficult to move through life without one. Heck, even newborn babes are issuedSocial Security numbers.

After more than 30 years in the information-gathering business, I’m nigh on to unreasonable about public access to information maintained by government. I’m for it. I can envision an outrageous situation or two inwhich knowledge of a person’s Social Security number might serve the greater good; the debunking of a public official who is leading or has led a double life, for instance. Hey, it happens. But so does identity theft. For the life of me, I cannot see the virtue in disclosing Social Security numbers as a matter of routine.

Let it be noted that this is not what’s been going on at the Pulaski County Courthouse, where some documents having to do with real estate have caused a minor ruckus. It’s my understanding that SSNs haven’t been included in real estate papers for quite some time, so I’d be willing to bet that in the grand scheme of things very few SSNs have been posted on the county clerk’s Web site.

I’d have to be willing to bet, mind you, because there aren’t enough hours in the day to spend scrolling through the thousands of records that have been posted there. Crooks are different, though. When it comes to ripping off others, there’s no such thing as not enough time, so here’s hoping their time is being spent on something other than the real estate records posted on the aforementioned Web site.

According to a Washington Post story published back in January, federal courts have forbidden the inclusion of SSNs on public documents since 2001, and since then a number of states have passed laws to that effect. But as the story points out, literally millions of records were filed inthe United States before such laws and practices took effect. Can you imagine trying to do a sweep of all of them?

Some Arkansas laws specifically prohibit the release of such information, but I know of no blanket prohibition in state law.

Pat O’Brien, the county clerk, has done the public a great service by making a variety of public records-civil and criminal cases, property transactions, voter registration lists and the like-readily accessible online, and I’m not going to join the chorus calling for him to shut the site down. If he is to be faulted, it is only for rushing into the electronic agewithout due diligence about past practices that made Social Security numbers a part of some business ventures.

Well, there is one other thing for which he can be faulted: taking steps to protect prominent people first. When it was brought to hisattention that some documents contained the SSNs of some such people, he acted quickly to remove them.

Alas, it was not in time to help a certain former North Little Rock mayor, whose SSN has been posted on the Internet by a vociferous opponent of online access to public documents. Betty Ostergren, a.k.a. The Virginia Watchdog, did it by posting two versions of a page from his mortgage papers: the original one containing the SSN and the redacted one. Then she had the audacity to accuse O’Brien of “spoonfeeding criminals.” Go figure.

O’Brien is ready, willing and able to redact SSNs from all posted documents on which they appear, but to have that done promptly, you’ll need to call it to his attention. Otherwise, it could take awhile.He told our reporter earlier this week that his office is installing software that will help identify SSNs on documents, but the actual removal has to be done by hand, so it could take until the end of the year to complete the process.

If you think you might be affected-the online files go back only to April 5, 1999-you can check everything online that carries your name at pulaskiclerk.com. Click on “archives” for a helpful menu.

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Associate Editor Meredith Oakley is editor of the Voices page.

Editorial, Pages 23 on 06/27/2008

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