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 on tape.

According to the defense attorney cited in the story, “An exception to the wiretapping law allows police to film people during traffic stops.” This would seem to give law enforcement the right to capture and possibly edit their version of the truth while simultaneously criminalizing a citizen doing the same thing.

The District Attorney on the case noted that he had handled other video taping cases, “Some involving ex-lovers or divorcing couples who are trying to record former partners doing something improper for leverage in court battles.”

The DA’s use of the word “leverage” would seem to imply a hostility toward the truth as represented by a video.

Using the DA’s logic the video of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Representative John Murtha negotiating an apparent bribe with an Arab shiek is to be frowned on because of the “leverage” it offered opponents to congressional bribery.
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The Boston Herald has placed the salaries of all Massachusetts state employees on line.

It appears that the state payroll may be loaded with friends and family of well connected Massachusetts politicians.

Maybe the list will give Massachusetts taxpayers the info to ask a few pointed questions.
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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 Project, changing people’s behavior.

Opening records to public inspection subjects individuals to peer pressure and embarrassment. Crooked school district employees are less likely to steal money if they will be exposed as theives to their friends and coworkers. Sex offenders are less likely to reoffend if everybody in their neighborhood knows who they are.

AIDS infected individuals are less likely to spread the epidemic if they are known to likely sexual partners.
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Suwalee Iamkhong was an AIDS infected Thai stripper who immigrated to Canada. Her husband, Percy Whiteman, met her when she danced at a Canadian club called Zanzibar. They married 8 years ago, but after 4 years she fell ill with one of the many AIDS-defining diseases. He is now infected.

Suwalee’s identity is only known now due to a lawsuit brought by her infected husband.

This case raises several interesting open records related questions:
1. Does an AIDs infected individual have an unrestricted right to privacy that allows them to kill unsuspecting individuals?

The tradeoffs would seem to balance death on one side versus embarrassment and restriction of sexual opportunities on the other.
2. Should a country allow unrestricted immigration of AIDS infected individuals?
3. What about TB, or hepatitis, or any of a dozen or so infectious diseases?
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Proponents of the Open Government Act have determined that Republican Senator Jon Kyl has placed a “hold” on the bill preventing a vote. By tradition, a senator may anonymously block consideration of a bill he finds objectionable.

Previously Mr. Kyl had objected under a Senate rule that allows members to hold legislation anonymously. He seems to have forgotten that objection.
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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 to create a successful civilization. Mexico appears to be losing its grip on civilization.
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Virginia Tech officials claim that federal privacy statutes prevent them from releasing the medical records of the campus shooter, Seung-Hui Cho, to the Governor’s panel investigating the murder of 32 students.

The Open Records Project has argued since its inception that federal privacy statutes and the Supreme Court rulings that preceeded them are not only not constitutional but create great harm by keeping wrongdoing from prying public eyes.

The Cho case would seem to an intesting example of balancing rights of individuals. On the one hand, did Mr. Cho have the right to be dangerously insane in anonymity?

On the other hand, did the 32 students and faculty who died have the right to know that their personal safetly and ultimately their lives were in danger from a crazy person?

The arguments for privacy appear to mostly about preventing individual hurt feelings, embarrassment, and shame.

The arguments for disclosure of information, whether it be about sex offenders, insane individuals, or those infected with AIDS, mostly relate to personal safety and in the case of Virginia Tech, life itself.

One of the attendees at the Virginia Tech student safety seminar following the murders argued that training students to survive a future attack was wrong because those who survived would only feel guilty about those who did not.

Distilled to its essence, feelings are more important than living. This would seem to be the case for some of the privacy statutes.
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A WEB site now offers photos and names of purported confidential informants, undercover agents, and those who cut plea deals by testifying against others.

The defense bar loves the site, since it is their job to keep guilty parties out of jail. Prosecutors are not so happy. They claim that informants may be intimidated or killed.

There would seem to be a risk of incorrect information being posted as a way of harrassing an individual.
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A study by Australian National University, examined the literacy and numeracy test results of more than 90,000 students with more than 10,000 teachers in Years 3, 5 and 7 between 2001 and 2004, tracking the same group as it advanced through the school system.

It found that classes taught by the best teachers scored twice as high as those taught by substandard teachers. The top 10 per cent of teachers were able to achieve in six months what the bottom 10 per cent of teachers took more than a year to do.

The study results are consistent with an internal study by the Dallas Independent School District. DISD found that one fifth of its faculty were so bad that students actually knew less at the end of the year that at the beginning. Furthermore, the damage done by these incompetent teachers was visible in their student’s performance years later.

The attempt to publicize the names of incompetent teachers resulted in an 8 year Open Records law suit. DISD eventually prevailed in that suit, and the names of the incompenent teachers are now to be kept secret from parents and taxpayers.
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Successful societies possess several important attributes including Private Property Rights, the Rule of Law, and Freedom of the Press.

Private Property Rights guarantee that owners may reap the benefits from investments of money and time in their homes and businesses.

The Rule of Law guarantees that all member of society play by the same rules.

Freedom of the Press and its close relatives Freedom of Speech and Open Records, guarantee that citizens may receive enough information to make informed decisions.

Vladimir Putin is the latest strongman to tighten his grip in a manner similar to that of Hugo Chavez in Venezula and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.

The future of the Russian people does not look good.
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