Slashdot Mirror
Washington Dancers Sue To Prevent Identity Disclosure
An anonymous reader writes with this BBC story about a Washington open-records law that is having some controversial consequences for some unlikely people. "Government open-records requests can be boring. Government open-records requests made by a man who wants to obtain information about 70 licensed strippers in his town so he can 'pray for them', on the other hand... The godly citizen in question is David Allen Van Vleet of Tacoma, Washington. In September he filed court papers to obtain personal information on 70 government-licensed nude dancers at a nightclub in his area — including their full names, addresses, photos and dates of birth. (Yes, Washington requires nude dancers to pay a $75 a year license fee.) The county auditor granted his request under the state's open-records law - although she also notified area dancers and club managers of her action. On 21 October two licensees sued to block the release of the information. Two days later a county judge issued a temporary order blocking the release, with a final decision scheduled for 15 December."
You can't enter suit as a plaintiff to block a records request without revealing your identity to the court, and, therefore, other parties to the case. Gotta remember to go get the popcorn, for when the court gets to see the look on the dancer's face, when he/she learns that her court action makes her identity more public than answering the open records request would have. :)
Under the freedom of information act this would be refused likely on the grounds of data protection or No discernible public interest. Does the US law not have an equivalent?
But forced things to register (drivers licenses..etc), should be private.
I registered a car after moving to a new state, and within a week, I started getting US mail spam listing my name, the make and model of the car I just 'bought' (I actually got it from someone in the family, but the spam-system probably wasn't smart enough to know that), all from my car registration (which in NC, operations of the registration center have been outsourced to a private company).
This should not be public
... of unintended consequences.
How much of David Allen Van Vleet's personal information is now public record because he filed these court papers?
Does the state's database only include actual strippers? In Ohio, police stole a woman's drivers license information and assigned it to an undercover officer, who then got hired on as a stripper as part of a sting operation. It sure would suck if, after being victimized by the police in that manner, a woman was then subjected to who knows what sort of harassment from a random citizen who just wanted to "pray for" her.
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
I cannot see how the argument for 'prayer' is legit on logistical or supernatural grounds. There is no clear public benefit here to release this information to this person for the purposes of his own (I guess) spiritual needs. I'd even be hard pressed to make the case if he wanted to do direct health outreach. The licensees can be reached via the places of employ.
Furthermore, one can readily presume that if you are prying for someone to an allegedly omniscient being, he/she/it would be able to work out the details.
If your deity has all the info already?
If your deity doesn't want to divulge the information, you shouldn't be asking the government for it, should you?
You can always pray for Jane Doe 1, Jane Doe 2 etc. Your deity will know for whom the prayers are meant and will change his plan, just for you.
Bert
Same idiocy happened here in the Netherlands when a journalist, someone with extreme leftist connections and a known ETA (terrorist organization) sympathizer, requested the names and addresses of firearms license holders under open government laws. In the end, the guy did not get the requested info i.e. name and address, photo, and serial numbers of the weapons, but he did get a list of date of birth and city of residence of each license holder as well as the manual for Verona, the software that tracks firearm licenses. As a gun owner, the idea of government freely handing this info to people closely tied to ETA terrorists somehow does not give me a warm cozy feeling about sensitive data being in safe governmental hands.
It's very simple: "open government" means that the government should disclose information on the details of their own operation, but never information that can be tied to individuals, except where it concerns information on holders of public office that is relevant to the right of the public to monitor them. Only aggregated data on citizens should be disclosed. And for civil servants or elected officials, relevant data means stuff like expense claims, not stuff like their address, records of previous employment or registered religion.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Government open-records requests made by a man who wants to obtain information about 70 licensed strippers in his town so he can murder them.
Doxxing for the greater good.
The open records request and fulfillment isn't the issue here. If the government licenses someone, you should be able to request the information of everyone with that license (although I'm not sure home information should be included since it is a professional license). This would be the easiest way to see who is and isn't a licensed professional.
The issue is why in the bloody hell is the government licensing dancers? There is no reason to do that other than they want to collect some extra fees from people. There is no professional service being offered that a license would effect. The purpose of licensing professionals is to ensure that the person meets some basic requirements. Unless they are going to try and require a minimum cup size or dancing ability, there isn't anything to license here.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
There is no such thing as "fornication in one's heart", only "adultery in one's heart".
If he's concerned about a need to "pray for them", he needs at minimum to restrict the information request to the strippers who are married. Interference with marriage being the one actual case where damage could occur.
Probably an Evangelical. He should drop the inquiry and spend the time reading Song of Solomon instead. He'll probably learn... a lot.
...this guy's not praying for them, he's praying for himself. He's praying that he'll figure out which are the youngest dancers, where they live, so he can stalk/harass them, under the guise of "they need to be saved."
I seriously doubt a stripper believes she needs to be saved. Just ask her paycheck.
There would be no issue here if the state didn't have a BS licensing law.
Seriously: who or what interest does the state imagine it is "protecting" with this license? It isn't there for practical purposes, it's there for the purposes of intimidation and control.
The licensing law is bad because it is the licensing law itself that led to this conflict between public's right to know and an individual's privacy. I do agree that the individual has a right to privacy away from the workplace... but it is the STATE that is violating it with this STUPID law.
The funny thing is that under most circumstances, nudity is not legal in Washington... except, I guess, when you're on stage without a license.
If he seriously believed his $DEITY, then he could pray to his $DEITY to reveal him the information directly instead of a FOI request. Surely his $DEITY is all-seeing, all-knowing kind?
Seriously. The guy doesn't want to pray for them, he wants to publicly shame them.
Fuck you and your region that you hide behind you pieces of shit.
that I am not the only one praying for naked women every night.
That said, you'd think an all knowing God already knows who the strippers are.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
Page 5, line 10: "Van Vleet has been convicted of violating anti-harassment protection orders."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp-content/uploads/sites/14/2014/10/RoevAnderson.pdf
In the past these repositories of personal information, names addresses and dates of birth,were maintained in the explicit interest of providing an expedited avenue for puritanical groups to harass and intimidate through the power of the state. In the past many owners of gay and lesbian night clubs were targets of assaunt and assassination through public records. Today, many modern puritanical laws infringe upon liberty in the pursuit of extremist religious doctrine as well. for example, abortion records have no HIPAA protection in order to explicitly allow religious groups to target service practitioners, customers, and staff. Lately that targeting has been of a distinctly terrorist nature through the reticle of a high powered rifle, or the blast radius of an improvised explosive. Of course Mister Van Vleet insists he merely wants to 'pray' for the dancers. He insists the prayers will not function through their stage names alone, but only through their real names which is strange as many christians pray for the troops amorphously and not by name. when pressured by a journalist, he insisted he would not harm the dancers but that prayer was merely 1 of many 'protected reasons' he needs the names.
strip clubs, whatever we may think of them, are a beacon of nothing less than american liberty. they dont exist in Pakistan, Iran, or North Korea and to suggest as this religious zealot has that somehow 7 million washingtonians are as fervently interested in the personal information of less than 100 dancers is to succor a distant memory of 1850 when the riverboat was queen and the negro was "scientifically" inferior. The menace of sexual temptation in the 21st century as it applies to 'decency' of any nation ranks rather lowly on this millenials list of concerns, trumped easily by the menace of having to explain to his 7 year old son what to do in a school shooting.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/201...
Good people go to bed earlier.
This is becoming a common question: Why is this on Slashdot?
Can you make a request and get the state drivers license records in Washington?
It seems to me that you actually don't need someone's personal details just to pray for them.
There would be no issue here if the state didn't have a BS licensing law.
Seriously: who or what interest does the state imagine it is "protecting" with this license? It isn't there for practical purposes, it's there for the purposes of intimidation and control.
The licensing law is bad because it is the licensing law itself that led to this conflict between public's right to know and an individual's privacy. I do agree that the individual has a right to privacy away from the workplace... but it is the STATE that is violating it with this STUPID law.
Obvious answers: underage dancers, human trafficking, tax collection.
Washington State is supposed to remove certain sensitive information in records requests--like the home address of a state employee--but generally it has a very permissive open records law. The strippers can probably just argue their identity is basically sensitive information, and then the court will probably say that the identities can't be released for a request to pray for them.
Or a request for the particulars on all people with concealed carry permits.
I wonder if the Photos where taken with the women using their work uniform... That this kind of information can be made public is a bit scary
including their full names, addresses, photos and dates of birth
I want to know more about those photos. Do that clearly document how suitable these young women are to be in this profession? If so, maybe I need a copy so that I can pray for then too. And clearly you need all of this information to pray for them, God would have no idea who to credit the prayers to if you didn't have their full name, address and date of birth.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Ummm, why does he need the names and addresses to pray for them? Sort of like “what does God need with a starship?” Surely this man's all seeing deity can take care of these wayward soles by just know this man cares about the state of their immortal souls.
Of course maybe this is a more impotent rather than Omnipotent God, in which case I guess this man has to carry God's message in person, to do what God can't.
Letter To Iran
Ideally, a licensing should be to verify that a particular individual has a licence in good standing. The person supplies the already-known information and the government only confirms that it's valid.
It's not the same as other public records where there is a public interest in having all the information.
I want names, addresses, birth dates and photos, please.
I will pray for them and stuff.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
What's the point of having an open-records law if their openness gets shunted aside the moment the law is applied? Alas, it's yet another illustration of how our politicians don't know what they're doing. Did they ever think through the implications, pro and con, of this legislation?
Probably not. They were too busy dining with lobbyists for this special interest group or that one. They just thought the public would get a buzz off the term "open-records" and voted it in.
If they were easier to get I'd happily cough up the $75 to become an officially licensed exotic dancer, but the county referenced when I first saw this story a few days ago looked like it'd be a pain unless you were actually an employee of one of the businesses.
Of course, if I did this my wife might actually demand that I dance for her and that could just be ugly all around. I am not a man built for a stripper pole.
fencepost
just a little off
I'm interested in the real identity of Jaquie from the Industrial Strip Gentleman's Club in Hammond, IN. Sweetie, if you see this, call me. Daddy's been bad again.
Don't look at me like that. She's working her way through law school, you know.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Does anybody at all see anything wrong with that concept? You can be honest, this is not a poll.
I gotta wonder how long we will remain the dominant species on the planet.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
> ten thousand rapes.
Ridiculous hyperbole. Those numbers were if the Republicans encouraged the rape of women across the entire state by publishing the home addresses for every licensee in the entire state. This xian is only demanding to endanger the women in Tacoma. Considering that is such a Republican shithole, they've already probably been raped more than once so, not to be mean, isn't as big of a deal.
While this is the funniest thing I've seen posted in a long time, I also think it's wrong.
But this is the great thing about the constitution and the bodies of laws we create.
Where does that line start or end.
I wonder what will become of this.
if you see me, smile and say hello.
What a shit site.
Nudes for Nerds! Stuff That Matters!
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
Suppose it was another state licensed field, like barbers. Many state require barbers to have a license. Do you think that story would get posted in the first place, or get so many comments? I wonder.
Why is Snark Required?
Please send me the full names, addresses, photos and dates of birth of all strippers in my state.
P.S.
If you'd like to conserve paper you can just send the photos.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
The bigger problem is that the government feels it has a right to know where you live and requires you to reveal your primary place of business even if that business is operated from your home or truck. This is wrong. While there may be a public interest in the government having this information an illegitimate business can operate without providing this information and thus there is no justification for the requirement as an investigation in the event of corruption or criminality can result in it being obtained anyway by other means.
My personal privacy has been invaded as the results of these laws. Non-governmental agencies have obtained the physical address where I reside and work despite my effort to keep it private via maintaining a non-PO box mailing address. However because the government requires the primary physical address where you operate and other entities can obtain that information my home address ends up in a public database – which is NOT the actual address of the business (all business corespondents go to our BUSINESS mailing address). Unfortunately because I work at home and do not rent office space outside the home I have no choice, because a mailing address is not acceptable to the government. Nor to a number of other entities such as banks and credit agencies. That also is the result of BS laws that the government instituted that require the banks to physically verify customers addresses by driving by those addresses.
Humorously there are numerous way to get around it, but they aren't legal, or are at least costly. IE I could rent an address, but always work from home. However, why should I have to pay $200 month for office space I'm not using? And if you rent a mailbox or PO box you have to provide identify information anyway. The whole thing is unethical.
I had to threaten one credit agency with a lawsuit in order to get them to change the records they had on file of the business. They are an abusive privately held company at that which blackmails businesses into providing them information they do not deserve and what amounts to paying them for a better credit rating. If you have never heard of them the business is D&B.
Just as it took some left-wing extremists to use open access to public records to build lists of people who opposed gay marriage and then use those lists to get them fired from their jobs, here we have a right-wing (presumably, though there ARE leftwing religious extremists) extremist using the public records to build lists of people who are probably more on the left. This (in BOTH cases) is why big government keeping records on everybody and requiring licenses for everything is a BAD IDEA. Let's face it: an unlicensed pilot or surgeon is one thing, but an unlicensed stripper?????
Personally, I hate all this record keeping, which then leads to the need for "open records" acts (so the public can find out what's in those records), which then paves the way for the information to be used and abused for nefarious purposes (no average citizens went combing through the prop8 records in CA, or these stripper records, just as average citizens do not waste their time going through most other government records). Such records too-often end-up as little more than ammunition in various ideological and political fights which people on all sides should have to work much harder to get, rather than being assisted by taxpayer funds. Free people should be free to believe what they believe and vote (and dance around poles, etc) as they believe is right without nasty activists aided by government records intimidating them.
The guy wants this information, so he can use the real names of the dancers when he prays for their souls. He comes across really creepy. The fact that he will get addresses, or be able to use their real name to get address, is just a perk. It'll make it easier to know that you are praying for the right soul when you are masturbating in the dancers' homes.
On large correction to your belief system. This has nothing to do with "puritanical groups". It's simply an example of government facilitating the ability of fanatics of any group to go after individuals who do not share their belief system. In today's United States the biggest offenders are actually far-left groups who think of themselves as the opposite of "puritanical groups", but are actually operating from the same psychological viewpoint in attacking those they view a morally repugnant. They have been using these laws for years now to get lists of people they dislike directly from the government (gun owners, past supporters of traditional marriage, people who don't believe global warming is an emergency, etc) and publishing them in the hopes it will harm or kill them or simply going after them to get them fired from their jobs. In truth, the far-left progressives in the U.S. today are as bad as any puritanical group was in the past -- just see the alarming number of comments from them that state anyone who disagrees with them should die and if they ever got the power to do so they would kill many, many, many people.
Thy Will Be Done.
That's the number one prayer recommended by all sorts of Christians. Seriously.
And the term used to refer to Christians in the Bible is 'Slave' (Greek: doulos, or bond-slave) NOT 'Servant'.
Christians are basically brainwashed slaves to a psychopathic monster.
Thy Will Be Done.
"so he can 'pray for them', on the other hand"
So, um, what is he doing with the first hand?
...omphaloskepsis often...
This asshole's interested in intimidation, harassment, and possibly assault or even sexual assault under the guise of helping the strippers.
So what they need to do is picket the motherfucker's house and his church.
Post pictures of him, his address and a picture of his house on the door of every fucking strip club and let the patrons know that this guy is trying to put them out of business by harassing the girls.
We should pray for local police officers. I'm sure they'll admire our good intentions.
Shouldn't he be off helping the poor instead of victimizing women that have enough trouble without a vigalantee with a hard-on turning up outside their front door?
He wants to pray for them, a dollar bill at a time.
Isn't the point of the FOIA that people can freely get information?
Has anyone even considered the legitimacy of this action? As in, considered the idea that it may be legitimate?
Some people believe that this type of behavior (the stripping, not the praying) is wrong, and that the bible says to make requests known to God. Even if you disagree with this notion, can you not even conceive that a person might think this would be good information, to be able to be more specific with the prayers? And, upon the person thinking about the available option of a FOIA, why shouldn't a devout person attempt to use the available tools?
Maybe you think that a person should not send informational brochures to a person's home address. That is a valid opinion; maybe the state should deny the request. It's just interesting to see how all the visible comments seem to just assume that this person's actions have evil intent.
Obscenity laws are 100% unconstitutional and the first amendment lists no such exceptions to freedom of speech; that nonsense was created when judges modified the constitution with invisible ink rather than interpreting it as they're supposed to. Care to try again?
Can I get the address etc of this guy under the same laws? Surely, records of who asked for information are kept... Then I can 'pray' for him.
I'd find it amusing if the guy found himself on the receiving end of 70 restraining orders where he can't go within 50 miles of those 70 people all at once when he got the information.
I agree. A minimal fee would help pay for additional police presence. Why hasn't anybody accused Mr Right of stalking?
There is no public benefit at all to making strippers beg a government bureaucrat for permission to take their clothes off for money.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I have their personal data. pls. refer to them as poor souls stripping in Washington DC in your prayers.
Too bad your mechanical manhood doesn't do anything about actual threats. Blaming strippers however, lets you transfer everything into women, which you probably have additional problems with, hence the need for your attempts at augmenting your manhood.
This guy wants personal info of strippers so he can "pray" for them? Right.
Please send me the personal info for Jessica Alba asap. I'd like to pray for her too. Sigh.
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
What great idea. This doesn't in any way place women's lives at risk by openly giving personal info to every creeper in the country... What herp-derp numbnuts came up with this crap?
Any chance this guy was recently defrocked?
Political correctness is really just herd psychology pushed by insecure people who desperately seek social conformity.
What deity do he pray to that needs him to know the names? Most people who pray choose to pray to an all-knowing, all-seeing, everywhere all the time, all-powerful deity. Surely if he prays for them in general an omniscient, omnipresent, all-powerful deity could figure it out.
This sounds like a ploy for a dirty stalker.
So a girl can dance nude in public but insists that she has a right to keep that public performance history a secret. She must be a blond to think like that. There is not one thing wrong with being a sex worker. She should be proud of what she did. And yes if she danced she was hooking.
You are intentionally conflating several issues into a delusional pile of shit. Whether due to ignorance or willfully misleading is yet to be seen.
1. The Washington State "adult entertainer" registration is not the same as say the German registration for prostitution. You can not in reality compare Germany's registration which does include health checks, counseling, and even a vacation and retirement fund to Washington State who's registration is nothing more than a money grab. You can pile up as much imaginary shit as you want to make a claim, but your claim amounts to nothing because it's all imaginary.
2. Economic reasons that women get into adult entertainment. Lacking other opportunities is the primary reason for people to get into this business. Cognitive dissonance due to the conflicting "need to make a living" with "breaking personal morality codes" leads many of these people to drugs, not the other way around as you are implying. Certainly there are exceptions that get into the business due to a drug addiction, but those exceptions are not the normal. Reputable clubs won't hire addicts, and some of these same clubs provide counseling services at their expense because the State provides nothing to the employees.
3. Age verification in all other jobs is the responsibility of the employer, not a State money grab registration. This includes validation of minors who have a different set of work regulations from adults. What's your job? How would you like to have to pay 75.00/year to register with the State to work legally as an Oracle DBA so that someone can find you by a simple PIR after Oracle pisses them off? A "Carpenters" registration before you can legally be a carpenter? A sys-admin registration with the State to have that job? I'd be willing to bet a box of donuts that if it was _your_ job you would have a fit, even if it was done under the same guise of "age verification".
4. You clearly demonstrate a lack of respect by calling adult entertainers "sex workers". I'd suggest you actually talk to some women who work in the industry, amazingly they are people.
The lack of respect, the delusional list of benefits that do not exist, and the delusion that addicts get into adult work all smells like a well spoken troll.
I don't like obscenity laws anymore than you do but your argument is flawed. When you say "rather than interpreting it as they're supposed to" what one is usually trying to imply is that it's not being interpreted the way they want it to be. If you aren't trying to imply anything, which I'm sure you'll claim, then "interpreting it as they're supposed to" would require a literal interpretation and that makes your argument fail as well. The only literal interpretation is actual speech. So dancing, expression, painting a billboard, donating your money, etc are not physical speech. A literal interpretation says you have the freedom to physically say whatever you want along with gathering for grievances and printing it in newspaper. Nothing else. I, for one, am glad that judges can from time to time, realize that sticking to a literal interpretation is stupid and entirely too anal retentive.
If this kind of thing keeps happening I want the identity of the submitter included aliong with the title in my emails.. please.. so I can avoid wastiong my time.. TY.
I bet there are quite a few people arguing that this is a Bad Thing here but were all in favor of the New York fiasco of publishing maps to the homes of people with firearms permits, because it was after all, you know, "public record".
I don't like obscenity laws anymore than you do but your argument is flawed. When you say "rather than interpreting it as they're supposed to" what one is usually trying to imply is that it's not being interpreted the way they want it to be. If you aren't trying to imply anything, which I'm sure you'll claim, then "interpreting it as they're supposed to" would require a literal interpretation and that makes your argument fail as well.
You are wrong on both counts. I think you should take into account *both* the spirit and the wording, but that, this being "the land of the free and the home of the brave," judges should err on the side of freedom, rather than on the side of government thugs. So, yes, "speech" obviously meant more than just literal speech, but at the same time, you can't just add random exceptions to freedom of speech because you feel like it.
It is absolutely 100% nonsensical to interpret the spirit of the constitution as saying that it is okay for the government to arbitrarily ban certain speech because people are offended by it. Absolute nonsense.
Leaving aside the issue of whether (voluntary) prostitution ought to be the government's concern at all, I still don't see why this requires public records. Want to know the person's age? Ask to see their government-issued photo ID. Driver's licenses, non-driver ID, passports, and so forth all already exist for (among others) that exact purpose. Yes, they can be forged, but what about a driver's license is more forgeable than a nude dancing license? As for criminal background checks, those are a standard part of many hiring processes.
There's no need to license and track this particular form of occupation specifically. None at all.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Well not a lawyer but this doesn't pass mustard for things that must be handed over for public knowledge. They are not government officials, they don't make laws don't get a government check same as asking for all data from drivers license oh wait they sell that data right?? And he can stand outside of the business and pray for them there, that is public property. making them get licenses is purely a money making scam by the local government.
Jack of all trades,master of none
You don't need their names and addresses to pray for them. But you do need all this information to prey on them. Clearly buddy wants to harass the dancers (or get his jollies off or whatever). He could spend time raising money for womens shelters, or womens education, or job skills training for women (surprise, but some nude dancers would prefer doing something else).
Be very careful about voting to release someone else's information. Government lists are -not- perfect, and no matter how strange the list, -your- name and info might be on it!!