Demaestro - 9:58 pm on Aug 9, 2010 (gmt 0)

you obviously accept that nutcases do exist (because you are accusing me of being one) thereby at least partially defeating your own argument... DOH!

Firstly I never accused you of being a nut. Please don't spread misinformation. We have enough of it to deal with on this planet. Secondly I never suggested there aren't nut jobs. I am suggesting that a nut job having your address doesn't make you a target of said nut job.

The reason why collecting, collating and publishing public data can be a bad thing is that it makes life easier for nutcases to find people

Ok I get that, but try to understand my counter to your point.

The same can be said about a phone book. Should they be outlawed because someone can up another person in the phone book and have their address? Would they target that person simply because they have their address?

If having info on a person is enough to target them, then all these nut jobs have to do is go outside, look at a house, and they have someone's address. That would be much easier than setting up a trap website hoping to acquire an address close enough to you so that you can target it and it would ensure that your target lived close by.

Criminals don't open to a page in the phone book and point to a name and decide to go attack that person. Just like if you go to a website and it records your area, that isn't going to create a situation where a nut job decides to show up at your house.

There is as much chance of some nut job following you home from a mall as there is them following you home from a website.

What I am trying to convey is that anything can make you a target of a nut job. You could flash your lights at someone to let them know their lights are off and they could shoot you for it. That doesn't mean we need a law stopping people from flashing people with their headlights if that person's headlights are off.

There are a million scenarios where things can make a criminals life easier to find you... none of these justify a society loosing rights to free access to public info just in the off change some mystery nut job may or may not target me becuase they got my address from somewhere.



Curious... what law(s) in the UK make it illegal to hold public info?