Spokeo

This episode was written, researched, edited, and produced by Josh Hallmark with additional research by Jordan Taylor and research assistance by Michelle Tooker and Shayna Walensky.

Sources include newspapers.com, Spokeo, the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League, ancestry.com, the Spokane County Sheriff's Office, the Spokesman-Review, Califia's Children, The Washington Post, and The Seattle Times.

This episode was made possible by the following Patreon producers: Amy Basile, Kendall C, Heather Horton-Weeden, Sherry D, Kristen Hoffman, Dale Axton, Stephanie Taylor, Lydia Rodarte-Quayle, Drew Vipond, Amelia Hancock, Christina Sisson, Nicole and Dennis Henry, Jillian Natale, Lana Holiday, Rural Juror, Tuesday Woodworth, Kathleen S, Annette L, Casey Jensen Richardson, SC, Benjamin Chapa Fong, Trista, Nicole, Ash Fish, Becky C, Pink, Jen J, Corey D, Robin, Carol, Jordan M, Kate Lusier, John Comrie, Kathy Nation, Carrie, Jordan T, Bethany, Lauren Fieri, Emily Payne, Tori Myers, Sabrina Abbott, Megan Inman, Megan Daigle, Ashley Kuplin, Michael Randall, Dwayne C, Jen, Justin Runyon, and Trixie.

And thank you to True Crime Bullshit's newest Patreon supporters: Carrie E, Nicola M, Jay Mason, Jessica M, Jonathan H, Aaron R, and Helga.

They will then match that up with the data set that is from these data brokers, you know, with white pages, true people search, fast people search, yellow pages dot com, been verified, all those things.

Spokeo.

they'll match both of those things and say, who is likely to have $4,000 in their checking account?

So they'll

I'm gonna give you a breakthrough.

How about you research them? Why does that matter? How long? If I come in and I know everything about you and where you've been, how do I do that? What's the best way to do it? Spokeo.

Spokeo.

Look them up on Spokeo.

It has all the social media stuff, many cases, right? I check out their Facebook, whatever it is.

I'm looking for two main things.

It absolutely does not, and this is one of the most heavily litigated areas of modern structural law.

The Supreme Court addressed this precisely in the Spokeo case and firmly entrenched the rule in TransUnion.

Right.

In TransUnion, the credit reporting agency mistakenly flagged thousands of consumers as potential terrorists in its internal database, which obviously violates the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

Let's dig into exactly how this personal stake is defined in modern jurisprudence.

What is absolutely critical to grasp here is how recent doctrine has severely tightened the definition of an injury in fact.

Cases like Spokeo and TransUnion make it explicitly clear that a mere statutory violation created by Congress is not enough for standing.

Congress can certainly create causes of action, but they cannot manufacture an Article III injury out of thin air where no concrete harm exists.