The danger of databases

As mentioned yesterday, the promised carry permit database is up at the Herald Times Online, which I won’t link to for fear of contamination.  As has been mentioned by the Herald Times’ own editorial staff, the database does not contain names or street address, which I guess is nice of them to not publish my name on the internet.

Sadly though, the list isn’t exactly benign.  It works by going to the list and inputting a street name, county, or city; then you can see how many people on your street have concealed carry permits.  There are a couple of major issues I have with this:

  1. The HTO is implying that you can use this database to find out how “safe” your street is, the negative implication being that carry permit holders are dangerous lunatics that need to be tracked ala sex offenders.
  2. Mrs. Ahab, who hails from rural Indiana originally, pointed out to me that there are plenty of streets that only have one or two houses on them.
  3. A prison guard in Ohio was tracked down by a former inmate in Ohio using a similar list.

Now, the HTO is clinging to their lie that the database doesn’t expose permit holders to any kind of risk.  It should be pretty obvious to anyone with a pair of brain cells to rub together why that’s plainly not true – it exposes “pink card” holders not only to criminal activity but to potential discrimination from hostile coworkers or employers, as well as a host of other issues.

Unfortunately, we’re probably not going to win this fight with impassioned appeals to the HTO about the right to privacy, as I’ve heard from several sources that they’re as hard core a bunch of leftists as you’ll find in Indiana.  Our best recourse is to contact your state legislator and ask them to sponsor laws making these kinds of shenanigans illegal.  And once again for fun, here are the direct lines to the “leadership” (and I use that term loosely) for the Herald Times Online:

Scott Schurz, Sunday Hoosier Times/Editor-in-Chief
812-331-4250

E. Mayer Maloney Jr., Publisher
(812) 331-4251

Bob Zaltsberg, Editor
(812) 331-4364

Be polite!

9 Comments

  1. It also exposes non-gunowners to danger, since criminals can check what streets seem to have better victim ratios.

  2. And the flip-side to Kaerius’s comment: streets with high pink card densities come prime candidates for break-ins when the net savvy (but unarguably ill-advised) crook wants to increase his/her odds of scoring a free blaster on the next daytime smash-and-grab.

    PS: God bless your street, Owen.

  3. If you want home phone numbers, street addresses, and photos of their houses, google is your friend. Schurz and Zaltsberg are listed in the directory with addresses and home phone number.

    Maloney is a bit tougher. There are 3 total in Bloomington that are listed, with one Mayer Maloney…but that could be Sr, not Jr. No address listed though. The other two Maloneys are females, a Carol that lives with Mayer (same phone #) and a Stephanie that has an address listed.

    Took less than 5 minuets.

    Lo’ the wonders of the information age.

  4. Take it one step further, tdavis. After you collect and post the phones, addresses, and Google aerial/street photos of the “leadership”, take a drive through their neighborhoods and get good pics of their properties from the adjacent roads (public property) and then post a “complimentary security assessment” of each of their homes providing the most likely vulnerabilities to burglary and such. Next, email each of the leftist bigots a link to your post. They’ll whine that you’re giving bad guys bad ideas, but you can always argue that you’re just providing them a assessment of how safe their home is.

    They like playing this little game that destroys privacy? Fine, deal them in.

  5. Join the club – the Commercial Appeal posted full names, zip codes, and city names. Using that information, finding out people’s street addresses, property taxes, registrations, and Lord alone knows what else becomes simply academic.

    And, unfortunately, our Legislature could not pass a bill sealing off our handgun carry permit database, or even restricting access to it, without tripping over their own gorramed shoelaces. Good luck with yours.

    As for the whole “contact the advertisers” bit, I did that with those folks who put up ads on the Commercial Appeal – those who bothered to respond basically said they did not care what the Commercial Appeal did. Better luck with the advertisers at your particular rag…

    And, finally, I did put up my own reciprocal database of the staff of the Commercial Appeal. Net result – nada. Now, your site has a wider exposure, larger reader base, and more traffic than mine, so you will probably fare better, but do not be too surprised if a fat lot of nothing results.

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