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SCOTUS Rules Petiton Signatures Are Public Record
Reader SheeEttin reminds us that back in October, the Supreme Court accepted a case testing whether or not petition signers' names could be kept anonymous. (The premise was that the act of signing a petition is covered by free speech, and thus signers are entitled to anonymity, especially to protect them from harassment.) Now the Court has issued its ruling: signatures are part of the public record. "By a strong majority Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a setback for opponents of gay marriage who wanted to keep their identities secret. The justices favored transparency over privacy in a case testing whether signing a petition is a public act. The case began with a bill that the Washington state legislature passed in 2009, expanding the state's domestic partnership law. The new referendum was known as 'everything but marriage' for the enhanced rights it gave same-sex couples. People who opposed the bill gathered 120,000 signatures for a ballot measure asking voters to repeal it. That measure eventually reached Washington voters, who upheld 'everything but marriage.' Those who signed the repeal petition feared that they would be harassed if their names became public, so they went to court challenging Washington's Public Records Act. They argued that signing a petition is speech that is protected from disclosure. But in Thursday's 8-1 ruling, the Supreme Court disagreed. 'Such disclosure does not, as a general matter, violate the first amendment,' Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court."
...if you feel about something so strongly that you are willing to sign a petition about it, you shouldn't be hiding your name. Stop being a coward, and own up to your opinions/decisions.
Living With a Nerd
Signing a petition is very much like grabbing a sign and picketing. On the flip side it is similar to casting a ballot. I don't know which side to agree with on this one.
I think it should be expected that if you sign a petition, the information is public. Otherwise, there would be no way to validate the petition. The constitution protects free speech, although not necessarily ANONYMOUS free speech. There are other avenues for anonymous free speech anyway.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Shouldn't the same be true about voting?
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
Cowards. If you are willing to put your name on a petition to get a measure on the ballot, then you should be willing to stand by your decision. Claiming you don't want your name to be revealed because your friends and neighbors might think differently about you is no excuse to try and hide from your decision.
It's always funny when those who try to wrap themselves in the veils of freedom and democracy are generally the first ones who don't want others to know what they're up to.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
The SCOTUS pointed out that there are exceptions, and the lawyer for the petitioners stated that he believes their case falls in the realm of those exceptions. So it'll go back to a lower court to determine if it within them.
It strikes me as odd though. I thought the whole point of signing a petition was to publicly announce your support for the petition. I mean, if you don't feel strongly enough to write your name publicly, why not just write Mickey Mouse? And hell, if there is going to be no public scrutiny of who is brave enough to actually back the petition, what's to keep the petitioner from just writing Mickey Mouse 120,000 times.
There SHOULD be an element of risk to signing a petition. You have to be willing to put your name on the line, literally. That includes showing support for the issue, and dealing with people who may disagree with you.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Or maybe the resistance to releasing the names is that most of them are fake anyway, so this "overwhelming" number of concerned citizens is really just a red herring anyway.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Indeed. Although I don't know why this got modded funny. I'd say insightful. The 1st and the 2nd prop up the people and ensure that we can not only freely speak, but that we can protect ourselves against those who would abuse our rights in the first place.
If I go into a voting booth, I close a curtain and nobody's looking over my shoulder.
If I sign a petition, I can see the names and addresses of everyone who signed the petition before me (at least the ones on the same page I'm currently signing). And after I sign it, I know the next guy, or the signature gatherer, can read what I just wrote.
That's a pretty clear difference in expectation of privacy if you ask me.
"The signers of the Declaration of Independence have asked that their names be redacted for fear of harassment by citizens of the British Empire" Yeah, that would work...
Isn't it kind of obvious that the whole point of signing a petition and printing your name (and probably address as well), that you are formally and non-anonymously declaring that you want something?
With anonymity, what is left of the very idea of petition? Nothing; you might as well get rid of the signatures, names and addresses altogether, replace the lines with a grid of boxes, and say at the top, "Check off a box if you want ___" and then give a sheet full of Xs written with different pens in different styles to your government representative to totally impress them with how passionately their constituents feel about something.
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