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Originally Posted by mcrowder
You seem to have missed some of my point, so I'll reiterate.
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No, I didn't miss your point. I was commenting on the rationalization, which I quoted in my response. I was commenting on these two things:
1) Only people who have something to hide should refuse to disclose information or permit searches, or the corollary, that if you refuse to disclose information or permit searches you must be hiding something.
I reject that notion categorically. Maybe all I am doing is defending my liberty.
2) Loss of liberty is worth it if it protects "just one" innocent. No, it isn't, since the loss of liberty leads eventually to the repression of many innocents.
You'll note above in this thread I pointed out that much of the information needed to "invade our privacy" is publically available in commercial databases. Commercial databases are the property of the business owner, not the property of the individual the data is about. I'm talking about credit reports and the financial records and other random data that back those up.
The other common source of data you (or someone) listed has always been public data - criminal records. It is just only recently with the computerization of these data and the interstate cooperation in the wake of 9-11 that combines these data across jurisdictional boundaries that this massive amout of data could be searched cost effectively.
So, background checks are relatively easy and cheap to do due to the combination of commercial databases and the computerization of criminal databases.
All of that has absolutely nothing to do with the rationalization I was commenting on.