Activist BJ Ostergren is highlighting the availability of politicians’ social security numbers to stomp for the removal of government public records from the Internet.

I’m not sure of the basis for her conclusions.

Ostergren sees the solution in more simple terms: Keep public records public, but don’t put them online.
“If you want to go snooping in my records, you drive to the courthouse,” Ostergren said. Most identity thieves, she reasons, will neither take the time nor want to be seen.”

Her approach is a typical grassroots, with a dose of alarmism.

Her formula is simple: Target a county, locate personal data on hundreds of residents, send them letters telling them how much of their personal information is or might be exposed online, and urge them to pressure their local officials.