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Washington State Site Revealing Police Data Ruled OK
gnarly writes "NYT reports that the courts have struck down a law which censored posting of personal data of police officers, (home phones, SSN, etc, obtained from public sources) on a single website." (The decision in this case took place in U.S. District Court in May.)
Even though being an officer of the law could mean a higher rate of targeting of abuse, public information like that should be available on everyone or noone.
You just can't have it both ways.
Kids these days. They don't know the difference between classic, and just plain old.
On the one hand, I have to agree with another poster in that being a law enforcement officer shouldn't grant you more privacy than an ordinary citizen. On the other hand, it's too bad that the law in question wasn't more specific, like just banning SSN's. We need some sort of protection from abuse of SSN's- they were never designed to be the universal ID number that they are now, and it's far too easy to commit identity theft with SSN's being relatively easy to acquire...
The dry fish swims alone.
IIRC, there is a anti-abortion group that was putting information on abortion doctors on the web that was forced to remove the site as they were used for murdering the doctors listed. I wish I could remember the name of the site, and searching for anti-abortion or pro-life will get me more hits than I care to wade through. Anyone remember the case I'm talking about here?
And this seems like a public TIA targeted towards police officers. We don't want it applied towards us, I certainly don't want it publically applied to police officers who get people pissed off at them daily trying to protect us. It's not like he's publishing a few involved in a specific complaint.
He's expainding following this ruling to include all the people he can in the criminal justice system. He's not just giving their work addresses, but their personal info. TIA for the criminal justice system for Washington State!
I'm glad I don't have a job there. If he was targeting my state, in my field, my personal info would be immediadately accessable on the web just because I work for someone: Not because I pissed someone off, but just because I have a job!
I am, and always will be, an idiot. Karma: Coma (mostly effected by
I have a real problem with this. Most people that law enforcement come across will not go after the officer (and their family). It's the few in society that have the serious grudges against any type of authority figure that would use this information to harm and kill the officers, and possibly their family as a way to mentally subjugate and harass them.
In a psychotic mind, what would be a better way to inact some twisted, perverted, revenge than to kidnapped or kill the child of a police officer. This sets a bad precident.
And as one who has lived through this type of scenario growing up as a child, this does not make for a good childhood.
design is art - art is design
I believe that having the police officer's names, numbers, etc. is okay but I don't think that posting anyones SNN, whether they're a police officer or lawyer, is okay. That number has too much information on a person to give out to the public.
I suppose this was a victory for hard-line free-speech advocates and various other extreme hippies everywhere, but it just seems like a phenomenally bad idea to take advantage of this ruling. I mean, as others have mentioned, a cop gets whacked by someone who gets this information, and the next thing you know, the cop's family is suing the maintainers of the website.
There are good ways to work against the "establishment". This sure isn't one of them - after all, "pigs" are people, too.
I do have a problem with the website, though. If nothing else, it's damn close to libelous. To quote one section on an officer of Kirkland:
"The reason his father and mothers information is listed here is a simple one, they have a lengthy case history of helping each other in evading taxes and other civil responsibilities"
Hell, it's vague and accusatory about people who aren't even police officers (his targets). (And what the hell counts as "other civil responsibilities? Helping grannies cross the street?)
It also appears that the judge ordered the website owner to remove the SSNs. That would be great, except he still has the old version up with a link to it.
Essentially, reading the site makes me wonder how reliable the information is. A lot of it is very vague. (For example, salary figures of about $4,000. Is that per week? Biweekly? Monthly?) Besides, if a man doesn't bother to doublecheck his grammar and spelling, how reliable is he on his facts?
So, while he has a right to do this, the implementation makes me uneasy. May he get enough information wrong that someone sues the bejesus out of him.
To cite a parallel example in meatspace, obtaining the individual components to make an explosive might be legal -- with some effort. But that doesn't give someone the right to open a Bombs R Us franchise, where the same components are available under one roof with convenient onsite parking and a loading dock. At some point, the same principles will have to be applied to "free" information.
Perhaps one way to deal with this conundrum is to consider not only what the information is, but what you have to know to get to it -- i.e. how it's indexed. If I know the name of a police officer, for example, I can look up his/her phone number in the phone directory. But I can't find that same number by looking under "Police Officers" in the Yellow Pages. A directory that allows me to do that would be qualitatively different from the phone book, even though it yields the exact same content.
We haven't heard the last of this issue by a long shot. The next couple decades will truly be interesting!
My mom works for the Department of Corrections in WA and I just quickly and easily found out the following: Institution with code, Job title, Salary range, Salary step code, and Monthly salary. The database appears very complete, but I can't think of much more use that it would have than checking out what coworkers make per month. Those that are in the database, however, supposedly had notice that the information was public (my mom did).
I hope someone just puts a bullet in the back of his head and is done with it.
"If he wants to drop by the house," Lieutenant Caldwell said, "the police officers would be more than happy to welcome him. We're all armed and trained..."
The website creators reason for the existence of the sight is due to his opinion of rampant corruption of WA police. My understanding is it is an attempt to make all officers think twice of their actions since they are real people and should not be able to hide behind a badge if they act out of the public good.
With the very public statement by Lieutenant Caldwell given to the New York Times, stating many officers desire to have Mr. Sheehan drop by since officers are "trained and armed" implies they would like nothing more than an excuse to injure or kill Mr. Sheehan for his perfectly legal efforts. With statements such as that, I find it very likely Mr. Sheehan's opinion of corruption to hold merit.
Lieutenant Caldwell's anger and frustration is understandable, but flagarent statements such as the one given, to the New York Times of all places, speaks volumes for Mr. Sheehan's claim.
Beware blue cats moving at
First, I'm not talking about SSNs and court records. I'll let a judge tackle those issues. I'm refering to the comentary the webmaster has added to the various pages, specifically the Kirkland PD (the only force I looked at in depth). Vicious stuff, although apparently just this side of actionable (or so the judgement would imply). I can see why Kirkland spent $200K spent trying to shut the site down (per the website). Free speech or not, it's an employer's duty to try to stand up for its people (just as its the judge's to protect the Constitution). Heck, I'd probably quit my job if my boss didn't take some action against a fullisade like this against his employees.
Three targets of note:
- Prosecutor Margita Dornay-Noe - Mostly links to stories and commentaries from Seattle newspapers about scandals around her. She appears to be facing disbarment and other stuff over (multiple?) sex scandals, but the big thing that creeps me out is the little piece of grafitti at the bottom of the page. It depicts (what appears to be) a nude woman's privates, a keyhole, and what look like prison bars in the background. Man, Freud would have a field day with that one.
- Phillip Goguen - No commentary, but some court filings, a map to the house, and a photo of his house (perhaps a real estate listing?). The photo also shows two vehicles and partial licence plates. Creepy.
- Gene M. Markle - The crown gem of the site. Not much in the public record. Just a bankruptcy (the webmaster appears suprised that can happen to someone making $60K/year - naive or just grasping at straws?). But then the webmaster puts up a map to the guy's house and starts on a rant: "He's as corrupt as any officer in the city of Kirkland. This [the website's] author will have no problem saying that Gene Markle is a filthy liar that just loves abusing others with his badge to serve his own purposes sociopathic purposes... I have suffered directly at the hands of this maggots [sic] criminal actions, which is certain he takes great pleasure for [sic]. The sad truth is that there is a woman (his wife Roberta) that will actually let him have sex with her and bare [sic] children. Just typing these words makes me want to spray my computer screen with Lysol. Clearly his wife is of questionable reputation."
The fact is, this webmaster's got an axe to grind. His site is hateful and bitter, even if it is protected as free speech. I'd be curious what is out in the public records about this guy (did Markle write him a ticket? Bust him for something heavy?), but if such a suggestion ever registered on his radar I'm sure he'd throw it back at me (that's "Embedded Geek," by the way - two D's when you start skulking around after me, Chuckles).I've gotta wonder about that last bit about his wife and kids with all the gramatical errors. If you read it fast, you can get the verbs messed up ("bare" or "bear"?) it seems to imply the officer is an incestous pedophile. Then again, I was expecting him to be hurling dirt from his tone, so I was primed for that sort of thing. Or perhaps it's my own filthy mind.
It just goes how little it takes to get the domain "justicefiles.org"
"Prepare for the worst - hope for the best."
...that you harass him about it as an AC?
Fear of retribution helps keep cops honest. Too many cops are criminals (i.e. more than zero cops). Perhaps fear of vigilante justice would make the cops behave.
I have no respect for the police. Every cop I've ever met was a) lazy, b) incompetant, c) corrupt. Of course this doesn't mean all cops are lazy, incompetant and corrupt, but 100% of the cops I've had the misfortune to deal with were. Anything to limit the power of the police to harass and annoy is a good thing in my mind.
Our family used to get death threats a lot due to my father being a PO. I answered my first when I was 5. I think this is a terrible idea. I still have to have all the shades drawn 25 years later because it's so ingrained. It's a very real threat to the police and their families.
-William Shatner can be neither created nor destroyed.