By Cindi Andrews
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A Web site that puts anyone with Internet access just a few clicks away from most Hamilton County court documents - documents that can include Social Security numbers and intimate details of divorcing couples' relationships - might soon be a little less open.

The site - www.courtclerk.org - is one of the nation's largest and most complete court sites that's open to anyone. However, complaints about the availability of personal information on the site doubled last year, to more than 200, according to Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Greg Hartmann's office.

A privacy task force appointed in January is close to a recommendation, Hartmann said, that likely will curb online access to domestic relations cases, which include divorce, custody and domestic violence. The group also is likely to recommend that all traffic tickets and information on people who pay another person's bond be entirely removed from the site, he said.

"We're trying to reach a reasonable balance without undermining the value of the Web site," said Hartmann, who inherited the site from former Clerk of Courts James Cissell 1½ years ago.

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• More than 35,000 different visitors viewed 4.7 million pages on www.courtclerk.org in April alone - the most of any court site in Ohio.

Many visitors are lawyers and their clients tracking their cases. Others include parents checking to see if potential baby sitters have criminal records, and singles checking on their dates. But the site can be - and has been - used to steal a person's identity, and by nosy folks peeking into the private lives of others.

Hamilton County has grappled with the balance between the public's need to know and the individual's right to privacy since putting its computerized court records online for public viewing in 1996. It has become a nationwide issue as more courts go high-tech.

Ohio's local courts have had to make their way with little guidance while the state Supreme Court and the General Assembly study the issue. The domestic judges in neighboring Butler County, for instance, have ordered documents in their cases kept off the Internet despite Clerk of Courts Cindy Carpenter's objection to treating them differently from other cases.

Jim Moehring has been on both ends of information-gathering at courtclerk.org. As vice president of US Bank Arena, he has used the site to check the backgrounds of prospective employees.

But Moehring, a Delhi Township resident, also had his identity stolen in 2002. The thief got Moehring's Social Security number, address and signature off of a 1996 traffic ticket that - like all contested or unpaid traffic tickets - was posted on courtclerk.org.

Some half-dozen credit cards were taken out in Moehring's name and at least $6,000 charged on them before Moehring was alerted by a credit card company seeking payment.

It took a year for Moehring to clean up the mess the imposter had made of his credit, he said. Moehring's ticket was removed from the site, but the tickets of thousands of other people remain.

"I don't see its purpose," he said. "It's too easily accessible. With today's technology (the site) is probably a good thing, but some of the specific details need to be taken off."

Most traffic tickets have Social Security numbers because the state ticket form has a place for them.

The Ohio Attorney General's Office has said court clerks do not have the right to redact - or mark out - parts of legal documents that are considered public information. Hartmann has asked the state to remove the space on the ticket, but that has not happened.

Whatever documents he decides to remove from the Web site will still be available in person, he said.

Divorces and other domestic relations cases may remain online but only be available to those with passwords. Attorneys and the people divorcing would have access, but their neighbors and co-workers would not, Hartmann said.

Scott Greenwood, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, is concerned about a solution that would restrict access to certain people. He wonders: Does he, as an attorney, have access only to his cases or to all cases? Who makes those decisions?

Cissell, the creator of courtclerk.org and now a probate court judge, is on a subcommittee of the Ohio Supreme Court that is looking at how to protect privacy through new court rules and possibly new state legislation.

He said Hartmann would be better off waiting for a statewide policy, but Hartmann said it's taking too long. His local task force will finish its first draft by summer's end, he said.

In the meantime, some have simply asked a judge to take their individual cases off the Internet. The paperwork for Cincinnati Councilman Pat DeWine's divorce can only be viewed at the clerk's office, although the Web site lists all filings and actions in the case.

DeWine, a lawyer, said there's no easy solution to the privacy question.

"You have to have a careful balance," he said. "They need to make sure if they're putting things up there, they're not putting up things that make it easier to victimize people."

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E-mail candrews@enquirer.com