Jim Warren on why police shouldn't have special privacy rights [priv]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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 <jwarren () well com>
To: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>, politech () politechbot com
CC: Dave Farber:;
References: <40F6A4B2.2060500 () well com>

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 <jda-ir () njcc com>
>
> 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; jwarren () well com, 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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