Judge: Because of Internet, names and addresses in suit must be public [priv]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

ASEM ELDAGHAR, Plaintiff, -against- THE CITY OF NEW YORK DEPARTMENT OF CITYWIDE 
ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES, Defendant.

02 Civ. 9151 (KMW)(HBP)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK


February 27, 2004, Decided
March 5, 2004, Filed


JUDGES: HENRY PITMAN, United States Magistrate Judge.

OPINIONBY: HENRY PITMAN

OPINION: MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

PITMAN, United States Magistrate Judge:

This is an employment discrimination action in which plaintiff alleges that he 
was terminated from employment with the defendant on the basis of age and 
national-origin discrimination. On December 8, 2003 I held a discovery 
conference during which I resolved most of the parties' discovery disputes. 
Several of the disputes required additional briefing, and the parties have 
submitted letter briefs addressing these issues. I write to resolve these 
outstanding issues.

1. Redaction of Purportedly Personal Information for Employment Records 
Information for Employment Records

Defendant first seeks a protective order permitting it to redact social security 
numbers, addresses and telephone numbers from the employment records of current 
and former employees of defendant. Defendant claims that the redaction is 
appropriate in order to protect the privacy interests [*2]  of the non-party 
employees and to prevent plaintiff from contacting them directly. Plaintiff does 
not object to redacting the social security numbers, and social security numbers 
may, therefore, be redacted. Plaintiff does object to the redaction of contact 
information.

It is well settled that the party seeking a protective order bears the burden of 
demonstrating that such an order is justified. Dove v. Atlantic Capital Corp., 
963 F.2d 15, 19 (2d Cir. 1992), citing Penthouse Int'l. Ltd. v. Playboy Enters., 
Inc., 663 F.2d 371, 391 (2d Cir. 1981); Monarch Knitting Mach. Corp. v. Sulzer 
Morat GmbH, 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 9278, 85 Civ. 3412 (LBS), 1998 WL 338106, at 
*1 (S.D.N.Y. June 25, 1998); Concord Boat Corp. v. Brunswick Corp., 169 F.R.D. 
44, 48-49 (S.D.N.Y. 1996). Thus, to the extent defendant argues that plaintiff 
must show a need for the contact information, it has misallocated the burden. 
Plaintiff need not show good cause for relevant discovery. Rather, it is 
defendant's burden to show good cause to limit discovery.

To the extent that defendant asserts the need to protect the privacy of the 
non-party employees, its argument ignores the [*3]  fact that we now live in an 
age where the Internet has made a wealth of identifying information available. 
Through publicly available databases, it is now possible for a person with only 
modest knowledge of the Internet to find out an individual's address, telephone 
number, his/her spouse's name and date of birth, the names, addresses and 
telephone numbers of the individual's neighbors and the number of years they 
have lived at their current addresses. I have no doubt that an individual with 
greater knowledge of the Internet could access even more detailed information. 
Given the fact that the information in issue could almost certainly be found on 
the Internet, there is not a pro-tectable privacy interest in addresses and 
telephone numbers.

To the extent that defendant seeks to redact the information in order to prevent 
plaintiff from contacting current and former employees, its application also 
lacks any legal basis. Although professional ethical restrictions that may 
prevent an attorney from contacting a current or former employee of a 
represented, adverse party, see generally Miano v. AC & R Adver., Inc., 148 
F.R.D. 68, 74-75 (S.D.N.Y. 1993); Polycast Tech. Corp. v. Uniroyal, Inc., 129 
F.R.D. 621, 623-28 (S.D.N.Y. 1990), [*4]  the pro se plaintiff here is not an 
attorney and is not, therefore, subject to these professional ethical 
restrictions. To the extent plaintiff seeks to prevent plaintiff from contacting 
current or former employees directly, there simply is no general prohibition 
against a party preparing its case by contacting and interviewing witnesses 
informally. n1 Although no litigant, whether pro se or represented, has the 
right to harass a potential witness or to make a nuisance of himself, there is 
no evidence currently before me that would support a finding that plaintiff 
intends to or is likely to engage in such misconduct.

...
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