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

[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?