The People Search Sites in the Suspected Minnesota Killer's Notebook Are a Failure of Congress

[justaprogressive]

On Monday, federal and state authorities charged Vance Boelter with the murders of Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband. An affidavit written by an FBI Special Agent, published here by MSNBC, includes photos of a notepad found in Boelter’s SUV which included a long list of people search sites, some of which make it very easy for essentially anyone to find the address and other personal information of someone else in the U.S. The SUV contained other notebooks and some pages included the names of more than 45 Minnesota state and federal public officials, including Hortman, the affidavit says. Hortman’s home address was listed next to her name, it adds.

People search sites can present a risk to citizen’s privacy, and, depending on the context, physical safety. They aggregate data from property records, social media, marriage licenses, and other places and make it accessible to even those with no tech savvy. Some are free, some are paid, and some require a user to tick a box confirming they’re only using the data for certain permitted use cases.

This notepad does not necessarily mean that Boelter used these specific sites to find Hortman’s or other officials’ addresses. As the New York Times noted, Hortman’s address was on her campaign website, and Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman, who Boelter allegedly shot along with Hoffman’s wife, listed his address on his official legislative webpage.

The sites’ inclusion shows they are of high interest to a person who allegedly murdered and targeted multiple officials and their families in an act of political violence. Next to some of the people search site names, Boelter appears to have put a star or tick.

https://www.404media.co/the-people-search-sites-in-the-suspected-minnesota-killers-notebook-are-a-failure-of-congress/

[Ponietz]

1. The internet is a cesspit destroying humanity

[kirby]

2. This is not an Internet issue...

This is a data broker and lack of data privacy issue.

[Ocelot II]

3. Finding the home addresses of local politicians is just as easy as finding anyone else's.

Boelter didn't have to work very hard to find the info he wanted. In Minnesota, as in many other states (only 10 have full-time legislatures), being a member of the legislature is a part-time job, since the legislature is in session for only 120 days a year, and the annual salary is only about $48K. So when the legislature isn't in session they're working at something else in order to make a full-time living. This means they are just regular members of the community, which is a good thing since they're living among and familiar with their constituencies (unlike members of Congress). But it also means that anybody can easily figure out where they live, where they hang out, where they work or shop or where their kids go to school. 20 or 30 years ago you could have just used the phone book to find them. But 20 or 30 years ago nobody worried about politically-motivated assassins, and it is definitely creepy that so much information about people is on line now. Is it even possible to prevent that information from being generally available?