7-10-2009 Massachusetts:
The ACLU in Massachusetts has been scaring people with a fear-mongering claim that cops are violating CORI (Criminal Offender Record Information) laws by searching through the state’s criminal records database to see whether certain celebrities have rap sheets. They’re using the story to gain support for a proposed amendment to CORI that will provide even more privacy protections for criminal records.
Gov. Patrick wants tighter CORI laws, too. Yet neither Patrick nor the ACLU can explain why a person convicted of a crime should expect to have any “privacy” rights. Maybe this is because there is no rational way to attach the word “privacy” to criminal conduct – which is why most states don’t have CORI laws.
When a person is convicted of a public offense, in a public courtroom, prosecuted with public dollars and reported in public news sources, nothing about it is “private.” Indeed, calling such information private is sort of like watching an eight months pregnant woman enter and leave an “obstetrics hospital” and then having the person in charge of medical records claim that “privacy rights” forbid disclosure of whether she’s pregnant. Some things will never be private – no matter how many laws you pile on.
I am shocked that a legal analyst would make the above statement (highlighted portion) because there is a federal law that prevents discussing, even so much as the person's name with respect to their medical records. It is called the HIPA law and to violate it will cause a substantial fine and imprisonment. If I made such a mistake I would call it a senior moment, I wonder what Wendy calls it?
Massachusetts already has an ignoble reputation as a state where convicted felons have more privacy rights in their rap sheets than law-abiding innocent victims have in their medical records. In one recent case pending in Dedham District Court, a sex assault victim not only was forced to turn over her entire counseling file to her attacker, she then had to spend more than $500 of her own money to facilitate the distribution of her privileged records to the man accused of assaulting her. Had the man not committed a crime, he would never have been allowed to see her private files. And frankly, had he stolen her money, rather than committing a sex offense, her files would be protected because we have a strange way of only violating the privacy rights of sex crimes victims. And now he has the right to use the victim’s constitutionally protected personal medical files against her in court, so the whole world can hear how she suffered after being violated. When the trial is over, if the man is convicted, all the victim’s private information that comes out at trial will remain available to the world, forever, because there are no protections for victims’ privacy. But the criminal’s conviction will become “private” under CORI.
Notwithstanding this insanity, Deval Patrick and the ACLU argue that more privacy protections will enable convicted criminals to avoid social stigma and obtain employment.
State Sen. Scott Brown thinks the amendment is a move in the wrong direction.
“The existing CORI law already imposes burdens on employers because they don’t have ready-access to criminal records of potential employees. And the public has almost no access to information, which means parents can’t easily protect their children from dangerous offenders who live or work nearby.”
What we really need, says Brown, are “more privacy rights for victims and CORI reforms that broaden the scope and improve the overall accuracy of the information contained within the criminal records. We also need to include pertinent information such as psychological evaluations that reveal criminals’ tendencies toward future dangerousness.”
Given the political stripes of our myopic Legislature, Sen. Brown’s concerns are likely to end up in a circular file, but the liberal majority should beware the public’s growing wrath. When lawmakers do dumb things, people will rise up and take matters into their own hands.
Some victim advocates are already talking about creating their own criminal records database, and posting it on the Internet. Private citizens can easily maintain their own files of public information about criminal cases – and share it with the entire planet – for free. Because CORI only applies to the government, there’s little lawmakers can do to stop them.
Full disclosure of such important information is good for a healthy democracy. Reformed criminals may well deserve a second chance and a good job, but the public can hardly be expected to forgive a criminal for past mistakes if the past is hidden in a secret government file. ..Source.. by The Patriot Ledger
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