Clare Booth Luce was right.  No good deed goes unpunished.  When I began blogging about the pitfalls of the dissemination of public records online, I knew it would only be a matter of time before some civil libertarian would step forward to accuse me of wanting to infringe on "the citizen's right to know" in order to protect my own job.  Turns out I didn't have too long to wait.

Certain individuals have chosen to make me the issue, taking me to task for perceived dishonest motives, paranoia and elitism, among other things, rather than try to win the debate on its merits.  This is the faction of civil libertarians who believe that not having public records available for worldwide consumption somehow constitutes a limitation upon the "public's right to know."  I reject that notion entirely.  Land records have always been (and continue to be) available for inspection and copying to anyone who physically visits the courthouse during regular business hours.  Why should local taxpayers subsidize the publication of their own information to a worldwide audience over an unregulated medium like the Internet?

The real issues here are quality and security.  First of all, an abstract report is only as good as the information used to compile it.  That is why my company never relies on online information to produce our searches.  Back in 2006, Ed Rybczynski wrote a very informative white paper, "Words of Advice for Anyone Who Cares to Listen," in which he highlights the unreliability of the information on the State of Maryland's public record website, MdLandRec.  Computerized records are only as accurate as the information entered.  As the saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out."  A single typographical or indexing error can mean misplacing a crucial document.  I see it all the time in the course of my work.  Local abstractors, intimately familiar with custom and practice in the jurisdictions they serve, have the unique knowledge and skills required to ferret out these sometimes elusive items.

Secondly, how does an "abstractor" (and I use that term VERY loosely) over in "Crapistan" know which instrument relates to a given parcel or individual and which one doesn't?  Even though it is possible to create and store a digitized image in a database of every single instrument ever recorded in a given jurisdiction, indexing and cross-referencing every single one of those instruments would be a monumental task at best.  There's no way that someone sitting at a computer screen thousands of miles away (who has never set foot in a US courthouse) can possibly understand how these documents relate to one another.

It amazes me when I talk to other abstractors out here in the field, who seem willfully ignorant of the dangers of placing records online, at the expense of not only their own livelihoods and the integrity of the records, but of the security of the citizens served by the counties.  I actually had one abstractor tell me the she would rather have the convenience of being able to do a search from her home computer than have to travel to the courthouse!  Criminals are always looking for easier ways to access personal information and public record websites are a prime target.  With identity theft and real estate fraud at an all-time high, local citizens in their respective communities have the right to expect that their elected officials are taking reasonable steps to ensure the safety, security and integrity of the records relating to their most precious assets--their homes.

Upon reflection, I suppose that in a way, my position on this issue is motivated by self-interest-and there's not a thing wrong with that in my view.  After investing the better part of twelve years of my life in perfecting my craft, building a business, establishing a solid reputation for quality and integrity, earning the good will of my customers and working my tail off to make sure they always receive the very best search product available, not to mention the money I've spent on office equipment, rent, fuel, parking, tolls, E & O insurance and continuing education, I don't want a 30-cent-per-week worker in some third-world sweatshop coming along putting out a crappy product that they claim is not only faster and cheaper, but better than mine.  I also don't want some thief being able to access (from the comfort of his prison cell) all of the information he needs to steal from me or to harm me or my family.

So forgive me, Mr. Civil Libertarian, if I'm not sympathetic to your cause.  No public records law, nor the Constitution of the United States guarantees anyone the right to not be inconvenienced.  I'm an American citizen, too---and I have the right to stand up for myself, my family and my livelihood!