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Should the documents you found on The Smoking Gun Web site be made available to the public?

What possible dangers accompany the dissemination of this information? What possible dangers accompany censorship?

What concerns about copycat crime are raised by the publication of this type of information?

2007-08-17 06:03:02 · 8 answers · asked by x 1 in Politics & Government Law & Ethics

8 answers

Everything you will find on the smokinggun already is public record.

Nobody every bothers to look up a police report, or court papers, however you can for a fee.

They are all public record.

2007-08-17 06:10:00 · answer #1 · answered by smedrik 7 · 1 0

Should the documents you found on The Smoking Gun Web site be made available to the public? - They already are. They are on a publicly accessible website.

What possible dangers accompany the dissemination of this information? What possible dangers accompany censorship? - Anytime information about a crime is disseminated you run the risk of a copycat. However the information also makes the public more aware of the crimes discussed and the knowledge may cancel out the increased risk.

What concerns about copycat crime are raised by the publication of this type of information? - See above.

2007-08-17 06:11:23 · answer #2 · answered by davidmi711 7 · 1 0

AFAIK, those documents are in public records.
I don't see any danger, in fact I think that each and every document in the hands of any government agency should be public. Government is public, it can't have private information nor secret information.

And the copycat issue is silly. It implies that without the information there wouldn't be any crime.

2007-08-17 06:10:42 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

The documents they make available aren't classified, or they wouldn't have access, so anyone (or others) could get them themselves, I would think.
The dangers associated with hindering freedom of speech and freedom of the press should outweigh hindering information.
Concerns for copycat crime are no worse than those associated with other news stories, books - fiction and non, movies, etc.

2007-08-17 06:15:46 · answer #4 · answered by ... 2 · 1 0

Your first question is moot. If they're there, they're public.

I don't see any danger at all in publishing the material, except perhaps for the danger that the subject might be embarrassed about it.

Concerns about copycat crimes are negligible. Crimes on that site are reported mostly because they're perpetrated by boneheads, and we find it funny. No one's going to want to put themselves in that position.

2007-08-17 06:12:08 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0 1

Don't throw away your hat, just yet. 1) When this "copy" was issued, 02/17/64, it wasn't called the "Republic of Kenya". It was called the "Dominion of Kenya" until 12/12/64. 2) The price in the upper left-hand corner is "7s 6d", which means 7 shillings and 6 pence, as it would have been in 1964 Britain. However, in 1964, the currency in Kenya was the East African shilling. The sub-units were cents, not pence. Btw, Mombasa was not part of Kenya in 1961. The "Coast Province" was ruled by Zanzibar.

2016-05-20 22:23:13 · answer #6 · answered by ? 3 · 0 0

Yes

nothing

nothing

2007-08-17 06:10:17 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

anyone going to court can aks for the records to be sealed or have a gag order on them... most people do not aks so they do not tell a lawyer.

2007-08-17 06:10:09 · answer #8 · answered by CCC 6 · 1 0

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