LA to BA:
Re your comments of:
“But when people start digging up photos, numbers, law associations, etc etc within a matter of hours I think that's a problem”,
“You seem to be stuck on your issue, but what I find troubling has nothing to with that. It was more about moderation.”
“You are messing with someone's career, with someone's reputation that could have lasting consequences.” And
“Hey it could just be the fact that public records are so readily accessible is what makes me uncomfortable.”
Clearly, you don’t need to worry. The fact that this thread is intact and online implies that it has been properly moderated and that defamation has not occurred. You seem to think that people should start from a blank slate of having no information and remain uninformed because you call searching and finding published information “digging” and a “problem”. Didn’t you have to conduct research during your education?
No victim in connection with warning others of danger by reporting a crime has to sustain alone the impact of that by not finding out how that person has been conducting her business affairs, who else has been hurt and how, and generally the extent of dishonesty, and how to redress it. Ditto readers and contributors.
When we’ve known for over a decade at least how quickly info can be accessed, how genuine can our surprise be? It’s impressive, yes, to see what we understood beforehand occur in real time. Perhaps a century ago some felt it dangerous or uncouth to get from point A to B so quickly in a car but we probably didn’t tell this new kind of driver to stay home, ride a horse or cover the car with a blanket so as to not shock our sensibilities by moving so far so fast. A decade later, Henry Ford was mass-producing cars for the middle class. Quicker and broader access to published info is just another development in speed and breadth.
There is no duty of secrecy owed to the perpetrator of this fraud by Bailey, the defrauded renter, nor by we readers and contributors in respect of the published info reprinted, linked and shared here. We don’t live in China. Freedoms that exist only in important documents and that “shouldn’t” be exercised wouldn’t deserve the name.
Are you aware that this temporary rental industry being unregulated means that a landlord receiving rent doesn’t even have to provide the temporary tenant a written rental contract? Or that Argentina’s court system is not practically accessible to any visitor who must fly home as soon as a fraud is completed because the fraud was designed to separate the victim from all access to justice?
It’s easy to do nothing about injurious acts committed upon people. All one has to do to justify turning a blind eye to anything or everything is to propose a hugely generalized ‘what if - oh dear’ scenario as you have so as to ignore, in this instance, the significance of a fraud and its impact upon Bailey, a traveler like you and me. This thread with its mixed fact and opinion has stayed respectably clear of theory and speculation in order to not make wild suppositions or rash and unbased judgments about anyone. I think we’re proud of that. We’re examining a real event, not a theory or notion as you are. This is called “focusing on the problem” and not, may I argue, as being “stuck on our issue”. Focusing reduces the urge to defame or blow off steam. By the way, if you should temporarily rent in BA, this is your issue as much as yours as anyone if you respond to apartment ads.
It’s preposterous to be told that the human ability to read, find published facts, analyze, compare them and then draw or question one another’s and one’s own conclusions – something humanity has been doing since the birth of text - could potentially be an affront to modern society and a fraudster’s good reputation just because we don’t have to trek with 200 pounds on our back uphill thousands of miles to reach far-flung sources of published information . Especially when a lot of that info is out there because the perpetrator advertised her services and high standards towards clients to glean more business. She has been involved in offering online to the foreign public language training, cooking lessons, short rentals of her own property and other tourist services. She has advertised proficiency as a practicing lawyer on 3 continents in order to attract more clients. Thereby she held herself out as being formally bound to a higher than usual standard of care in her dealings with members of the public.
No acts but the perpetrator’s own can or have hurt the perpetrator’s reputation. Her choice of behavior is doing that, presuming it has been sullied. The burden of being personally responsible for one’s acts and their impact does not shift and convert to a duty to secrecy incumbent those hurt or incensed by that fraud.
Compiling and dispersing published info by using a computer available in even the most backward spots on earth is not wrong just because it exposes an intentional fraud by an individual who happens to have a business and used it to commit that fraud.
