Dan Peterson breaks Church Rules in pursuit of Mopologetics

[Guest]

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[_Jaybear]

Okay, so there are members who have access to church records who believe it is acceptable to use them to uncover the in real life identities of anonymous posters.

I guess that's all I really wanted to know.

I recommend that posters keep this in mind. So stuff like previous church positions/locations/ward names should probably be avoided. Any direct mention is "throwing down the gauntlet" and warrants investigation and exposure.

More precisely, you should say ...

... it is acceptable to use them to uncover the in real life identities of anonymous posters [who express criticism of the LDS Church.]

With that caveat, I doubt you will find a self-appointed defender of the faith that will disagree with the request Dan made on his bishop friend.

[_Darth J]

Alter Idem--

Since it usually is not confidential who a bishop is, please post the name of the bishop who performed this detective work at Peterson's request.

If it's not confidential, then why does the church hide it? That database is not open to members or the general public. Only certain people have access. So... that makes it private, right? And those people whose information (address, phone number, membership number) is protected by the church's decision to keep their information private, their expectation that their private information will be kept private by the church, has now been violated by an authorized person accessing this private database for an unauthorized reason.

Well, Harmony, that's the disingenuous equivocation to which I alluded. It's not confidential who the bishop is of a given ward. The personal information of a church member, however, is confidential, per church policy. The equivocation is between, "If I look up the Happytown, Utah 3rd Ward, who is the bishop?" and "If I get a bishop friend of mine cross-reference a list of people who paid me to talk about my religious dogma in Israel with the Church's database of member records to find out if any of them really is a bishop, when I could not otherwise access those records myself, have I only looked at publicly available information?"

[_Darth J]

The words in front of my face aren't there! Objective reality is a product of your anger and hostility!

[_Rollo Tomasi]

The records of the Church are confidential, whether they exist on paper, in computers, or in other electronic media. These include membership records, financial records, notes of meetings, official forms and documents (including records of disciplinary councils), and notes made from private interviews.

I see it doesn't say anything about not being able to run a list of people's names to see if any are bishops.

Do you not understand that the Church leadership directory (the access to which is very limited, which is why DCP went to his bishop buddy) is a confidential "record" of the Church?

Leaders and clerks are to safeguard Church records by handling, storing, and disposing of them in a way that protects the privacy of individuals.

And whose privacy was not protected here? No one's? Okay, great.

Let me try to say this slowly: Dan tried to discover an anonymous Internet poster's in real life information by accessing (through his bishop buddy) confidential Church records. And you don't see anything wrong?

Leaders ensure that information that is gathered from members is (1) limited to what the Church requires and (2) used only for approved Church purposes.

So, in this case, not one piece of information gathered from a member was more than the Church requires and none of it was used at all.

But what DCP had his bishop buddy do was absolutely NOT "for Church approved purposes," even if DCP's effort failed.

Information from Church records and reports may be given only to those who are authorized to use it.

Define use. I think this is the area in which you'll start getting chuckles from people who ever get this case brought before them.

Now you're beginning to sound like Bill Cllinton (i.e., "That depends on what the meaning of 'is' is."). How on God's green Earth would DCP (the recipient of any information found by the bishop buddy) be "authorized" to use Chung's in real life information in any way related to the LDS Church?

Information that is stored electronically must be kept secure and protected by a password (citation omitted). Leaders ensure that such data is not used for personal, political, or commercial purposes. Information from Church records, including historical information, may not be given to individuals or agencies conducting research or surveys.

Again define used. Was there anything in the information accessed by this bishop that was actually used? Not a single piece of information found in the data he accessed was used.

Well, President Clinton, DCP was asking his bishop buddy to find information from Church records for DCP's personal purposes (i.e., outing Chung's in real life identity); the fact that the bishop buddy apparently failed, just not change the fact the bishop violated the Church's confidentiality and records policies in several ways, for which he should be released from his calling immediately.

Sorry, Stem, but your hole just keeps getting deeper and deeper. Carry on ...

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[_3sheets2thewind]

So if Dan did nothing wrong, then there is nothing wrong wig letting BYU know.what he did, or say the student paper at UVU,

Or posting this information on CARM or some other website?

[_Darth J]

Leaders ensure that information that is gathered from members is (1) limited to what the Church requires and (2) used only for approved Church purposes.

So, David, when Peterson has a bishop access records Peterson cannot get himself, to cross-reference the names of people who paid Peterson to tell him about Mormon dogma in Israel, in attempt to discover the identity of an anonymous nobody Peterson is having a private dispute with on a message board, (all of which are facts you have conceded), the official Church purpose in doing so is__________________________________________________________.

What's the name of Peterson's bishop friend who did this, since that usually is not confidential?

[_MrStakhanovite]

The fact that Stem thinks a Non-Bishop asking a Bishop to run a list of names from a third party commerical resource through a confidential database for the sole purposes of trying to identify a messageboard poster is totally legit and totally within the realm of confidentiality is a slam dunk.

This is exactly why this thread was created, to document this kind of stuff. I know stem thinks he is doing something clever here, but by being this stupid he is only highlighting the wrong done here.

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