The Texas Department of Public Safety plans to update its online sex offender registry this spring to let people know where offenders work or go to school. https://records.txdps.state.tx.us/DPS_WEB/Sor/index.aspx
Anyone can go to the state’s site to look up a person by name or ZIP code. The information includes physical descriptions, photos, offenses, aliases and legal […]
It’s not scarlet, and it’s not a letter, but a bill before the state Legislature that would require drunk drivers to put florescent yellow license plates on their cars makes quite a few think of author Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tale of Hester Prynne wearing the scarlet letter A for adultery… and wearing the shame.
Open Records works […]
People with felony criminal records would be able to more quickly shield that information from prospective employers under legislation filed today by Gov. Deval Patrick.
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino hailed Patrick’s proposals as “much needed.”
“Ex-offenders often have little or no support upon release, in effect giving them life sentences by denying them opportunities for […]
Marjorie Cohn, a professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, said that a Web site that publishes photos of convicted prostitutes violates the women’s right to privacy.
“It’s an incredible invasion of the privacy of the women, with no real benefit to law enforcement,” Cohn said.
Other than reducing the number of […]
The 400,000-member American Bar Association’s policy-making body, the House of Delegates, is scheduled to vote on the resolutions at the group’s national convention in San Francisco on Aug. 13 and 14. One proposal recommended by an ABA commission urges local, state and federal governments to seal the records of criminal cases in which convictions were […]
Why would the largely privately-funded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum want to restrict access to historical archives in contradiction to its stated purpose to exist in the first place? If the records support the long-told official story, one would think that the the museum would want the widest possible distributed access to the actual historical […]
The Open Records Project suggests that crime control cameras be publicly accessible.
A crime-ridden high street in north London has been branded the most spied-upon road in Britain, after it emerged that it is watched over by more than 100 closed circuit television cameras.
“Having so many cameras in one place actually makes police investigations harder because […]
Brian D. Kelly is facing a felony wiretapping charge in Pennsylvania for running a video camera pointed at a police officer during a traffic stop.
This case would seem to indicate that Pennsylvania has a law that needs changing. The Rodney King beating is the best known of hundreds of cases of police misbehavior caught […]
The Arlington Police Department has begun posting the photos of men and women busted for prostitution on its Web site as it tries to cut down on criminal activity.
The photos “could put some pressure on people to modify their behavior,” police spokeswoman Christy Gilfour said.
This statement by Mrs. Gilfour describes the purpose the Open Records […]
Repeated grenade bombings have forced the Mexican daily newspaper Cambio Sonora to close. The newspaper is based in Hermosillo, 165 miles south of Nogales, Ariz.
Following editorials critical of narcotic trafficers, the paper was bombed on April 17 and again on May 16.
Free flow of information is required to establish the trust relationships necessary […]