FC: Kirkland police threaten Politech with lawsuit

From: Declan McCullagh (declanat_private)
Date: Fri May 18 2001 - 17:15:23 PDT

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    The city of Kirkland, Washington has decided it doesn't want 
    publicly-available information about its police officers to be, well, 
    public. On May 14, Kirkland's lawyers sent me a letter ordering me to 
    delete three Social Security numbers of Kirkland police officers from a 
    Politech article from last week or risk a lawsuit.
    
    I believe journalists and others generally should have the right to
    reprint information from public court documents, and attempts to
    curtail the First Amendment in the name of privacy go too far. The
    fine folks at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
    (rcfp.org) put me in touch with Bruce Johnson and his colleagues at
    Davis Wright Tremaine (dwt.com), which has a strong First Amendment
    practice.
    
    Bruce responded with a letter to Kirkland saying that journalists
    should be allowed to republish information they obtained lawfully. He
    wrote that: "Mr. McCullagh intends to exercise his First Amendment
    rights notwithstanding your letter." But Kirkland was undeterred,
    saying in their reply this week that they "stand by" their
    cease-and-desist-or-else threat.
    
    This case is important because it highlights how nebulous "privacy
    rights" can be used to limit free expression. Instead of trying to
    muzzle reporters, society should be trying to eliminate the Social
    Security number's widespread use as a personal identifier, which it
    was not intended to be. (Rep. Ron Paul's Identity Theft Protection
    Act, H.R.220, is a good first step.) If Kirkland gets its way, this
    precedent could be used to prevent reporters from printing other
    personal information, such as addresses or ages, that they find
    newsworthy or relevant in their coverage.
    
    You can see news coverage of Kirkland's legal threats here:
    http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/165907.html
    
    The Politech article that is in danger of being taken down if 
    Kirkland wins an injunction:
    http://www.politechbot.com/p-02008.html
    
    All the documents are online here:
    http://www.politechbot.com/kirkland/
    
    -Declan
    Editor, Politech
    May 18, 2001
    
    
    
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