Previous Politech message: http://www.politechbot.com/2004/07/20/nj-state-privacy/
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Politech] NJ state commission wants limits on phone, address disclosure [priv]
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 10:47:43 -0700
From: Jim Warren <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Declan McCullagh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CC: Dave Farber:;
References: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
At 11:37 AM -0400 7/15/04, Declan McCullagh wrote:
-------- Original Message --------
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 09:40:24 -0400
Subject: [Politech] NJ state commission wants limits on phone, address disclosure [priv]
From: J.D. Abolins <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
The proposal to have home addresses of law enforcement officers (active and retired) and other special classes exempt from NJ public records access echos the Kirkland City seeking to keep its police officer's info off a Web site posting court records. ...<SNIP>...
I can understand the desire by l.e. officers, to keep their home addresses and other personal information confidential. But it's unclear why their privacy rights should be any greater than many others.
For instance, why should police privacy be better-protected than that of, say, battered spouses (who might seen court orders restraining their batterers) ... or divorcees who have gone through difficult and threatening divorces (with their accompanying court records) ... or the very wealthy -- who are always at risk of kidnap and other personal attacks ... including not-yet-proven-guilty wealthy CEOs of defrauded and bankrupted conglomerates where employees and shareholders have lost their life savings?
After all, much of police work consists of dealing with domestic violence and protecting the wealthy from attack ... or retaliation.
For that matter, how about the privacy of attractive women who are sometimes or incessantly bothered -- and sometimes attacked or raped -- by both ex-boy"friends" and strangers?
Some years ago, the California police officers' unions managed to get officers' voter-reg information sealed in the otherwise-public voter-reg records (crucial for robust debate and outreach to those who seek to impose their will on us all [via the ballot box] ;-).
Then the state judicial council began considering asking for the same exemption/protection for judges. As I recall, at some point, the judges realized that they should NOT be "above the law" that imposed public-records disclosures on all the rest of the public (except police).
The balance between access to public records, versus the privacy of personal information in those public records, is always a difficult (impossible!) balancing act. And it's usually in the eye of the beholder.
The best illustration I can think of was the police officer who was ardently advocating that court records must be entirely open and readily available to the public ... until someone pointed out that they included records of his just-completed messy and embarrassing divorce.
Suddenly, that ardent access advocate, became a flaming privacy zealot! ;-)
--jim Jim Warren; [EMAIL PROTECTED], public-policy advocate & technology writer [self-inflating puffery: InfoWorld founder; Dr.Dobb's Journal first editor; Soc.of Prof.Journalists-Nor.Cal.James Madison Freedom-of-Information Award; Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award (1992, its first year); Playboy Foundation Hugh Hefner First-Amendment Award (1994); founded the Computers, Freedom & Privacy Conferences; blah blah blah]
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