Comment by neilv

This project might be entirely well-intentioned, but some possibilities to be careful of, with this kind of effort:

* Intent is to sell the data, or otherwise "monetize" it, in the techbro sense.

* "Shell" effort of a specific company that wants the data.

* Shell effort of an organized crime group.

* Shell effort of a foreign intelligence agency, or terrorist group.

Awhile ago, there was a different project, which had the effect of making different US records, which were already reasonably accessible to US citizens and journalists, easily available to foreign adversaries, such as for espionage profiling and blackmail. When that project was promoted on HN, I caught the promoter seeming to use a sockpuppet account in the comments (accidentally using the wrong account to respond to themself), which I found additionally suspicious.

Even when a project is fully honest and with good intentions, we also have to consider the risks of likely other consumers of the data, which include all the possibilities above.