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."

Comments

Re:What does God need with a starship?

[frovingslosh]

You clearly don't have a good understanding of prayer. Clearly God knows everything and has a supreme vision of how his eternal plan is to unfold. Prayer is a way to say to God "excuse me, but I would like you to change your plan, I have an idea of how things should progress, and I would like you to at least consider if my idea isn't the right way for things to go". Clearly no one would bother the Almighty just to say "I approve of how you plan to have all things develop, keep up the good work", so when contacting God to ask him to change his plans you better have good facts, like names and addresses and exact birth dates of any strippers that you want him to change his plans for the universe over. Otherwise you're just bothering him needlessly.

If only the licenses were easier to get....

[Fencepost]

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.

Jade

[PopeRatzo]

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.

Re:Why is this on Slashdot?

[grcumb]

First they came for the strippers...

Then they needed about half an hour to recover.

Then they came for the strippers again.