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:In the uk

[LF11]

In the US, FOIA requests can be denied on the basis of privacy violations (exemption 6), and law enforcement information (which this qualifies, I think) can be denied if its release could endanger the life or physical safety of any individual. http://www.foia.gov/faq.html#exemptions

Yes, but the real problem is being ignored.

[Jane Q. Public]

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.

Re:Yes, but the real problem is being ignored.

[wonkey_monkey]

The last sentence should have said "public nudity is LEGAL" in Washington

I found this:

(1) A person is guilty of indecent exposure if he or she intentionally makes any open and obscene exposure of his or her person or the person of another knowing that such conduct is likely to cause reasonable affront or alarm.

which seems not to indicate that "the exception is when a person is nude for the purposes of shock or intimidation."

"knowing that such conduct is likely to cause reasonable affront" seems likely to cover most cases of public nudity.

Re:Yes, but the real problem is being ignored.

[schnell]

Washington used to be a rather "liberal" state, in the social sense of the word. But over the years, for some reason, it has become more prudish and also more oppressive.

Are we talking about the same Washington State that I live in? Because being the only (I believe) state in the US where you can both get a same-sex wedding and legally buy recreational (not medical) marijuana at a retail store does not scream "prudish" or "oppressive" to me.

a historic relic no longer tolerated.

[nimbius]

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...

Re:This should be interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Its called filing under seal.