alt Hacker NewsAs far as I am aware, there's no Federal law prohibiting the publication of SSNs for lawful purposes (which is the typical default.) In Virginia, Ostergren v. Cuccinelli (4th Cir. 2010) touched on this very issue, and ultimately concluded that publishing SSNs is protected speech (some nuance there, but this was the outcome.)
License plates are explicitly designed for legibility and are legally mandated by every state to be displayed in public view. The entire purpose of this object is to be seen and create accountability. An SSN is a private, individually-issued piece of information that isn't intended for public view - and courts are still saying publication is okay.
Law in the United States isn't an autistic, overly-rigid computer system where edge cases can be probed for "gotchas:" judges and case law exist to figure out these tough questions.
I’m surprised that SSNs could be published like that. It’s curious that nobody has attempted to “do a journalism” and publish the SSNs of HNW individuals. It seems there would be little to stop you.
> Law in the United States isn't an autistic, overly-rigid computer system where edge cases can be probed for "gotchas:" judges and case law exist to figure out these tough questions.
That’s obvious, and you seem to be going against yourself here. If some details are considered too sensitive for publication then it would follow that a judge may be able to interpret the law to prevent mass publication of even sensitive public or semi-public data by creating an interpretive carve-out. But if you can publish SSNs then there’s little to no hope for that. It almost seems that the law is “autistically” tilted in favor of data brokers.
Someone ought to set up a tracker that updates a list of known HNW individuals with last detected location based on license plate data and/or facial recognition. Maybe also a list of last detected million dollar+ supercars. That will get some bills started.