The Department of Homeland Security should not use the user-generated Wikipedia to decide whether an asylum seeker can enter the United States, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. That judicial statement of the obvious (.pdf) from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals, which said DHS committed no big foul in using a site editable by anyone with a computer to decide the fate of a woman named Lamilem Badasa. DHS decided to deport Badasa after consulting Wikipedia to decide whether a Ethiopian travel document known as a laissez-passer - was adequate to prove her identity. Using the Wikipedia page as evidence, the government convinced an immigration judge that the document did not prover her identity, calling it a one-way travel document based on information provided by the applicant. While the Board of Immigration Appeals subsequently said it didn't "encourage the use of resources such as Wikipedia.com in reaching pivotal decisions in immigration proceedings," it allowed the decision to stand since it couldn't find any clear error. The three-judge panel of the appeals court found that split decision disturbing. The court reiterated that anyone can edit Wikipedia and there's no guarantee that the information on the page at the time the government officials looked at it had any correct information at all. The site may have misled and tainted government officials' decisions i ...
Anytime
The Department of Homeland Security should not use the user-generated Wikipedia to decide whether an asylum seeker can enter the United States, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. That judicial statement of the obvious (.pdf) from the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a ruling by the Board of Immigration Appeals, which said DHS committed no big foul in using a site editable by anyone with a computer to decide the fate of a woman named Lamilem Badasa. DHS decided to deport Badasa after consulting Wikipedia to decide whether a Ethiopian travel document known as a laissez-passer - was adequate to prove her identity. Using the Wikipedia page as evidence, the government convinced an immigration judge that the document did not prover her identity, calling it a one-way travel document based on information provided by the applicant. While the Board of Immigration Appeals subsequently said it didn't "encourage the use of resources such as Wikipedia.com in reaching pivotal decisions in immigration proceedings," it allowed the decision to stand since it couldn't find any clear error. The three-judge panel of the appeals court found that split decision disturbing. The court reiterated that anyone can edit Wikipedia and there's no guarantee that the information on the page at the time the government officials looked at it had any correct information at all. The site may have misled and tainted government officials' decisions i ...