Anyone curious about who donated what to facilitate the recent passing of California's Proposition 8 is going to have an easier time with their pursuit than they may have expected. Recently an anonymous entrepreneur (or entrepreneurs,) created www.eightmaps.com, a Web site designed to present the public registry of political donors using the Google Maps interface. The site presents donors' names and how much they contributed, along with contact and employment information in some cases, neatly laid over an interactive map.
Now, this information is public domain according to California's campaign finance disclosure laws. It's also a creative and intelligent way to encapsulate public information that is usually ignored by the greater populace in a more accessible fashion.
Unfortunately, outspoken radical liberals California are abusing this information. Recently, many people whose names are listed on www.eightmaps.com have been contacted and harassed or even threatened by a variety of outspoken opponents of Proposition 8. A few people have received death threats and envelops filled with white powder, the go-to method of terrifying someone via postage.
This story comes fast on the heels of another piece on a similar subject, this one from Florida. Katherine Evans, currently a freshman at the University of Florida, faced suspension in her senior year of high school for starting a Facebook discussion concerning her hatred for a particularly poor sounding English teacher. Her school's administration panicked and charged assault, which prompted Evans to contact the ACLU.
Now, the fact that it sounds like Evans' teacher sounds like a poor teacher aside, both of these stories center around the lifespan of information in the digital age, and the problems that that lifespan can lead to.
Simply put, if something gets onto the Internet, it's forever. As time goes on people will learn this, but for the time being they still remain surprised when idle comments or public registries come back to haunt them. We need to be careful of what we say because our words will be increasingly immortal as the technology advances. We are fundamentally responsible for our words and actions.
On the other hand, it is unforgivable to abuse public information in order to intimidate a person for their ideologies. The people in California currently harassing supporters of Proposition 8 are just as guilty as moral conservatives who harass homosexuals for their lifestyles.
We're shifting towards a time marked by ubiquitous informational technology; whether we will live in an environment marked by total honest accountability or by a constant fear of being recorded is up to us.
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
