Here's Steve Jobs' speeding ticket: https://www.judyrecords.com/record/vde11sdzw25ac
hmmm, middle initial checks out. though it's possible it's another steve.
Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
41–50 of 289 posts
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#42This is... not great. It's crucial that these records be open to public inspection. But instant full-text search of the entire dockets of 630M cases feels wrong, invasive, and dangerous to me. It's yet another instance of panopticon surveillance now being too cheap to meter. I think our society needs to come to grips with this new reality and figure out what to do about it. Or are we all just cool with this?
These records have always been available to people with money to spend on a lawyer with a subscription. So what you're complaining about is that normal people can also access the information now.
Quantity has a quality of its own. To use a similar example, arrest and imprisonment records are public data in my country. But you have to actually go to the courthouse and fill out some paperwork and/or hire a lawyer to do it for you.
This has consequences. For example, in some US states it takes a few seconds for an employer to find out a candidate was once arrested while drunk, or has a conviction for a minor offense from 15 years ago. And employers do that sort of search routinely, because it's free and easy. Only someone being targeted for a specific background check gets that treatment here, because it's not so easy.
Same argument applies to, for example, reading the previous divorce case for someone you're dating. Only a real weirdo would do that here, in part because it involves time and money. If it's freely available online, I do think it would be a lot more common.
I don't know whether it'd be better or worse to have such information more accessible, but it can change things.
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#43This is... not great. It's crucial that these records be open to public inspection. But instant full-text search of the entire dockets of 630M cases feels wrong, invasive, and dangerous to me. It's yet another instance of panopticon surveillance now being too cheap to meter. I think our society needs to come to grips with this new reality and figure out what to do about it. Or are we all just cool with this?
I think you may be misunderstanding what this is... All of these documents were ALREADY public records, and were ALREADY available online. Most US courts have been publishing these records online, for a while now.
And they are ALREADY other websites/search products that provide a unified search interface... Lexis Nexus is probably the biggest/oldest, and I believe Bloomberg also has this feature... There are dozens (if not hundreds) of cheap public record search websites that charge $10/month for it, too.
If you're surprised by all this, you haven't been paying attention... For a few decades now.
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#44This is... not great. It's crucial that these records be open to public inspection. But instant full-text search of the entire dockets of 630M cases feels wrong, invasive, and dangerous to me. It's yet another instance of panopticon surveillance now being too cheap to meter. I think our society needs to come to grips with this new reality and figure out what to do about it. Or are we all just cool with this?
Seems closer to a form of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#45This site will be the first stop for anyone wanting to harass another person online. Some times a little friction is a good thing. I love projects like these, but they're the digital equivalent of "dual use technologies". They can be used for good or evil. That said, nice work.
Given that one third of Americans have criminal records of one sort or another, so that somebody almost certainly has a criminal in their family or near circle of friends, I suppose criminality is about the same as finding out somebody watches porn.
on edit: actually one third is probably overstating but close.
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#46Mind sharing info on server, backend, costs etc?
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#47603 total cases for: emacs
260 total cases for: "mind control"
768 total cases for: "donald j. trump"
State of Minnesota vs Steven Captain America Rogers https://www.judyrecords.com/record/vfvd30smme78f
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nice false equivalence. Lawyer: duty-bound professional, is an officer of the court, can be publicly disbarred, very expensive degree that needs to be paid off Some guy on the internet with an axe to grind: ???
I believe in California you only need to pass the bar to become a lawyer, no expensive degree required.
I’m sure both of the attorneys who have done an apprenticeship are happy about that.
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nice false equivalence. Lawyer: duty-bound professional, is an officer of the court, can be publicly disbarred, very expensive degree that needs to be paid off Some guy on the internet with an axe to grind: ???
I believe in California you only need to pass the bar to become a lawyer, no expensive degree required.
You're all missing the point... ANYbody with a Lexis Nexus subscription, or a Bloomberg terminal, or one of those background check sites, already has this exact capability. It's not new.
You dont need to be a lawyer to access any of it... I think the other poster simply meant that lawyers generally have Lexis subscriptions, already.
Also, the various court databases this site is searching are ALREADY online and publicly available, and have been for years. This is just providing a free, unified interface with a fast search index.
Re: Show HN: Full text search on 630M US court cases
#50This site will be the first stop for anyone wanting to harass another person online. Some times a little friction is a good thing. I love projects like these, but they're the digital equivalent of "dual use technologies". They can be used for good or evil. That said, nice work.
> I love projects like these, but they're the digital equivalent of "dual use technologies". They can be used for good or evil.
Isn't pretty much every technology "dual use"? Just look at social media. You need a platform that gives you the ability to harass someone in order to actually do it.
> Some times a little friction is a good thing.
We as a market repeatedly justify the frictionless experience of being spied on for ads in ways that we have little to no control over, but we're gonna deny ourselves the frictionless experience of being able to see public records because we're worried about our privacy?