The lives of others
The balance between personal privacy and freedom of information is a matter of continuing controversy in many countries, although cultural attitudes towards openness and privacy vary enormously across the globe.
Last week in Sweden to find out details of someone else's income and debts - but to many people in other countries the surprising thing will be how comparatively easy it still is.
And yesterday indicates that in many American states the salaries of individual state employees is a matter of publicly available information.
Meanwhile a new website in the US makes much easier the task of applying for a copy of a dead person's FBI file - . But of course it's not limited to checking out the background of your own family ...
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I tried to get my great-grandfather's FBI file a few years back.
(Background: In the early 1940's the FBI was investigating German-American immigrants suspected of Nazi connections. My great-grandfather wasn't a Nazi, though he did know Hitler- and argued with him. As a result, the FBI interviewed him, though he was never charged with anything.)
After I first sent in my request, they asked for a copy of the death certificate, since they couldn't release the information unless they knew he was dead. I was able to obtain a copy of the certificate and sent it in. Not long afterwards, I received a letter stating that the FBI at one time had my great-grandfather's file, but it had been destroyed sometime in the past. The (US)National Archives didn't have anything on him in their section on FBI investigations into German-Americans.
Still, this was an entry into the world of FOIA, and it helped start me asking questions about things.