I often post about how cool it is to be connected. Like having a video chat with my brother while he’s on a plane. I remember when my friends and I would talk about how in the future we would have phones where we could see each other. At the time, my family had a party line. But I imagined it would be more like the Jetson’s. You remember? The phone that didn’t ring, but when someone called a TV-like screen would magically pop up. I figured our robot maid would announce the caller before they appeared. Even without the robot maid, our ability to connect is unbelievably awesome — but it’s also pretty scary sometimes.
I’ve said before that I love Nancy Grace. She and CNN got some major points when they listened to me and revamped their web site pulling off the old BLOG (Nancy’s book still sucks out loud — no points to gain there!). Watching last night as she told about the suspect arrested in the murder of 9 year-old Elizabeth Olten being a female minor, I figured I’d see what was being said online by folks that lived there. And holy cow…
Within 15 minutes, I know the suspect’s first, middle and last names even though she’s a juvenile — AND innocent until proven guilty. I know her name on Facebook and have visited her page. I know the name she uses on Singsnap and listened as she miserably tried to belt out one of my favorite 3 Doors Down songs, “Here without You“. (I skipped the rest, but the total was 8.) I know her YouTube screen name and watched short portions of 3 videos (there were more, but I’d had enough), and I know what her two younger brothers look like when they are touching an electric fence. I know her MySpace name and I know that she lists her hobbies as, “killing people, cutting”. I also know that her last “recorded” sign-on was just a few hours ago — and I know it wasn’t REALLY her because she’s in custody. I visited the pages of a couple of her friends. I’ve seen photos of her posted on about all of the sources listed above, as well as on Twitter. I know all about the rumor of a teacher knowing too much being found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound — his name, his teacher profile, everything. (I say rumor not because it’s proven to be a rumor, but because I’m not posting this to talk about an investigation. This post is simply to reveal how easy it is to get information about anyone online.)
Now kids, that’s scary stuff! When people like me can get all this information about some young girl we don’t know in 15 minutes, what does that say to you as parents? Heck – what does that say to you non-parental units out there?
As an aside, Nancy should hire me and pay me lots of money to keep her BLOG updated and give her all the grit to use when she mercilessly attacks her guests. I should be the one who says, “unleash the lawyers!”