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 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if it remains intact. To subscribe, visit http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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