Too Much Transparency?
February 7th, 2009 — Chris Van BurenThe Times ran this somewhat disturbing piece on the fallout from the passage of Prop 8 in California, and how one website, eightmaps.com, is (mis)using voter disclosure information to potentially target and intimidate voters who supported the measure.
The “disinfectant of sunlight,” which open disclosure laws were intended to produce, have ironically generated a spate of anonymous hate mail, targeted at proponents of the gay marriage ban through the EightMaps Google overlay. Some of the harassment has evidently been serious, including death threats and anthrax scares.
I think regardless of how you feel about Prop 8 (I have doubts about it), I think this crosses the line. Voter intimidation is what sectarian ethnic groups in Iraq do. What saddens me is how the internet, a mass medium capable of much healthy democratic discourse, is being twisted to allow for instant access to private information. There’s a reason ballot boxes are secret.
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