Panel to decide if court records belong on Internet
JACKIE HALLIFAX, Bradenton.com/Associated Press, November 14, 2004

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TALLAHASSEE - Thomas Kulaga doesn't want information about his life and finances put on the Internet for all the world to see.

The Palm Harbor business consultant, who's been a victim of identity theft, was dismayed when he learned of plans in Pinellas County to make mortgage documents more readily accessible online.

So when he heard the Florida Supreme Court was studying the question of court records on the Internet, he didn't hold back.

"I am totally against making more information available online and, frankly, I think less information should be available," Kulaga, 55, wrote in an e-mail to the high court's Committee on Privacy & Court Records.

Kulaga's not the only one with views on the topic.

Andra Griffin, a 25-year-old bookkeeper in Bradenton, wrote an e-mail about how she uses Manatee County's online court records.

She logs on to the court clerk's Web page to screen business contacts for her father, who is in real estate, and has even used it in her personal life to do a "light background check" on people who have asked her out. She doesn't put much weight into fears about privacy being invaded or identities being stolen.

"A lot of people do not realize how wonderful this access is and how beneficial it can be," Griffin wrote. "This is public information."

A year ago, though, the state Supreme Court ordered court clerks to stop posting court records on the Internet until a policy could be developed to safeguard privacy. Exceptions to the moratorium included documents that have been screened or are judged to be of "significant public interest."

Committee created

The court created a 15-member panel of judges, attorneys, law professors and court clerks to tackle the thorny issue of balancing access and privacy in an Internet world. The court's committee will hear its first public testimony Wednesday at the start of a two-day meeting in Tallahassee.

Florida has a strong tradition of public records dating back decades, and it was only strengthened a dozen years ago when voters added an open-government provision in the state constitution.

The state also has an explicit constitutional promise of privacy - it's one of the few states in the country with such a clause.

Those two rights both come into play when it comes to court records that are full of sensitive details about people's lives during divorces, child custody disputes and property fights, to name a few of the most common cases.

Everyone agrees a transparent court system is essential, and no one advocates harmful intrusions into privacy, said Jon Mills, a University of Florida law professor and former state House speaker tapped to chair the court's committee.

Mills described the panel's work in one word: "tightrope."

Court files have always been stuffed with personal details about people, particularly in the area of family law. But before the information age such material often was protected by what some call "practical obscurity" - kept in a public file in a records room at a courthouse and sought by few, if any, people.

The Internet changed that.

Panel's timetable

The committee has until summer 2005 to submit its policy recommendations to the Supreme Court. The court could implement some of the suggestions, while the Legislature or even voters might be required to approve others.

Like Kulaga and Griffin, the Florida Bar's Media & Communications Law Committee has already shared its views with the study group.

"We deeply believe that online access to court records will result in higher quality journalism and will foster better public understanding of the court system . . . In principle and practice, electronic access should parallel at-the-counter access to paper records."

The letter was written by Carol Jean LoCicero, a Tampa attorney who chairs the committee's subcommittee on electronic access, and D. Patricia Wallace, a Miami attorney who chairs the full media law section.

Mills said he did not know what the answer would be. "We're at the beginning of the process," he said. "We're listening."

One of the committee members is Jon Kaney Jr., a Daytona Beach attorney who represents the First Amendment Foundation, an open government advocacy center in Tallahassee.

"One thing I'm interested in hearing is I want somebody to explain to me why there is no difference between old-fashioned counter access and modern-day bulk and remote access," Kaney said. "I think the policy argument that says, 'Forget about it, they're all the same' overlooks real and genuine differences in living in a database society and one where there is no digital dossier."

But Kaney also questions whether people are too quick to supply personal information when they have to go to court.

"The right to privacy under the constitution is a right to keep things to ourselves and away from the government," he said. "Floridians rarely exercise that right."

Keeping data private

And once the government knows it, it's hard to call that information private, he said. People should consider if what they include in their divorce or child custody is really necessary to make their case, he said.

For instance, Kaney said, in an uncontested divorce between a husband and a wife with no children is it really necessary for each spouse to file a sworn financial disclosure?

Michael Froomkin, a University of Miami law professor who has taught about Internet law for 10 years, said court files often have so much key information that they're valuable resources to people who want to match information about people from different sources for business purposes such as background checks or to assess their credit worthiness.

"They're like the Rosetta stone for all these different databases," Froomkin said.

Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation, said the crux of the issues focuses on how the custodian of a record protects information that is exempt from Florida's public records law before releasing it on the Internet.

"I honestly don't think we need to be creating a whole slew of exemptions," Petersen said. "I think we need to rethink how we process and handle this information."

WWW.FLCOURTS.ORG/

OSCA/DIVISIONS/

PRIVACY/INDEX.HTML Florida Supreme Court's Committee on Privacy and Court Records

WWW.FLORIDAFAF.ORG First Amendment Foundation

WWW.CDT.ORG Center for Democracy & Technology

WWW.COURTACCESS.ORG The National Center for State Courts

WWW.EPIC.ORG The Electronic Privacy Information Center

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