Posted on 07/11/2003 8:09:36 PM PDT by jern
Dispute Simmers Over Web Site Posting Personal Data on Police By ADAM LIPTAK
illiam Sheehan does not like the police. He expresses his views about what he calls police corruption in Washington State on his Web site, where he also posts lists of police officers' addresses, home phone numbers and Social Security numbers.
State officials say those postings expose officers and their families to danger and invite identity theft. But neither litigation nor legislation has stopped Mr. Sheehan, who promises to expand his site to include every police and corrections officer in the state by the end of the year.
Mr. Sheehan says he obtains the information lawfully, from voter registration, property, motor vehicle and other official records. But his provocative use of personal data raises questions about how the law should address the dissemination of accurate, publicly available information that is selected and made accessible in a way that may facilitate the invasion of privacy, computer crime, even violence.
Larry Erickson, executive director of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, says the organization's members are disturbed by Mr. Sheehan's site.
"Police officers go out at night," Mr. Erickson said, "they make people mad, and they leave their families behind."
The law generally draws no distinction between information that is nominally public but hard to obtain and information that can be fetched with an Internet search engine and a few keystrokes. The dispute over Mr. Sheehan's site is similar to a debate that has been heatedly taken up around the nation, about whether court records that are public in paper form should be freely available on the Internet.
In 1989, in a case not involving computer technology, the Supreme Court did allow the government to refuse journalists' Freedom of Information Act request for paper copies of information it had compiled from arrest and conviction records available in scattered public files. The court cited the "practical obscurity" of the original records.
But once accurate information is in private hands like Mr. Sheehan's, the courts have been extremely reluctant to interfere with its dissemination.
Mr. Sheehan, a 41-year-old computer engineer in Mill Creek, Wash., near Seattle, says his postings hold the police accountable, by facilitating picketing, the serving of legal papers and research into officers' criminal histories. His site collects news articles and court papers about what he describes as inadequate and insincere police investigations, and about police officers who have themselves run afoul of the law.
His low opinion of the police has its roots, Mr. Sheehan says, in a 1998 dispute with the Police Department of Kirkland, Wash., over whether he lied in providing an alibi for a friend charged with domestic violence. Mr. Sheehan was found guilty of making a false statement and harassing a police officer and was sentenced to six months in jail, but served no time: the convictions were overturned.
He started his Web site in the spring of 2001. There are other sites focused on accusations of police abuse, he said, "but they stop short of listing addresses."
Yet if his site goes farther than others, Mr. Sheehan says, still it is not too far. "There is not a single incident," he said, "where a police officer has been harassed as a result of police-officer information being on the Internet."
Last year, in response to a complaint by the Kirkland police about Mr. Sheehan's site, the Washington Legislature enacted a law prohibiting the dissemination of the home addresses, phone numbers, birth dates and Social Security numbers of law enforcement, corrections and court personnel if it was meant "to harm or intimidate."
As a result, Mr. Sheehan, who had taken delight in bringing his project to the attention of local police departments, removed those pieces of information from his site. But he put them back in May, when a federal judge, deciding on a challenge brought by Mr. Sheehan himself, struck down the law as unconstitutional.
The ruling, by John C. Coughenour, chief judge of the Federal District Court in Seattle, said Mr. Sheehan's site was "analytically indistinguishable from a newspaper."
"There is cause for concern," Judge Coughenour wrote, "when the Legislature enacts a statute proscribing a type of political speech in a concerted effort to silence particular speakers."
The state government, he continued, "boldly asserts the broad right to outlaw any speech — whether it be anti-Semitic, anti-choice, radical religious, or critical of police — so long as a jury of one's peers concludes that the speaker subjectively intends to intimidate others with that speech."
Bruce E. H. Johnson, a Seattle lawyer specializing in First Amendment issues, said Judge Coughenour was correct in striking down the statute because it treated identical publicly available information differently depending on the authorities' perception of the intent of the person who disseminated it.
"It forces local prosecutors to become thought police," Mr. Johnson said.
Elena Garella, Mr. Sheehan's lawyer, said there was one principle at the heart of the case.
"Once the cat is out of the bag," she said, "the government has no business censoring information or punishing people who disseminate it."
Fred Olson, a spokesman for the state attorney general, Christine O. Gregoire, said the state would not appeal Judge Coughenour's decision.
"Our attorneys reviewed the decision and the case law," Mr. Olson said, "and they just felt there was very, very little likelihood that we would prevail on appeal. Our resources are much better used to find a legislative solution."
But Bill Finkbeiner, a state senator who was the main sponsor of the law that was struck down, said the judge's opinion left little room for a legislative repair. He said he was frustrated.
"This isn't just bad for police officers and corrections employees," Mr. Finkbeiner said. "It really doesn't bode well for anybody. Access to personal information changes when that information is put in electronic form."
Mr. Sheehan says one sort of data he has posted has given him pause.
"I'll be honest and say I do have a quandary over the Social Security numbers," he said. "I'm going to publish them because that's how I got the rest of my information, and I want to let people verify my data. But our state government shouldn't be releasing that data."
Lt. Rex Caldwell, a spokesman for the Police Department in Kirkland, said his colleagues there were resigned to Mr. Sheehan's site, and added that much of the information posted on it was out of date.
When the matter first came up, "people were extremely unhappy about it," Lieutenant Caldwell said. "Now it's more of an annoyance than anything else. The official line from the chief is that we're still concerned. At the same time, everyone's greatest fear, of people using this to track them down, has not materialized."
Nor is there any indication that the site has led to identity theft, he said.
Brightening, Lieutenant Caldwell said some officers even welcomed the posting of their home addresses, if that encouraged Mr. Sheehan to visit.
"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."
I've always thought that if we expose public servants and elected officials to the type of open information that they require of us sheeple, then they'd be more accountable.
You guys nailed it. Just about everyone else here misses the point entirely.
A lack of critical thinking and analysis is becoming a real problem aroung here.
While posting home addresses and SS#'s is crossing the line, I have no problem with posting background info, especially if it includes criminal behavior.
My nephew was a rookie cop in CA and witnessed his fellow officers tossing small bombs or grenades (can't remember which) into groups of homeless people, then laughing when they fled for their lives. He also witnessed them beating hand-cuffed prisoners (usually black, while the officers were white). When he couldn't look the other way anymore, he reported it to internal affairs. As far as I know, nothing ever came of his accusations, but he was threatened, feared for his life, and ended up quitting the force and moving far away.
When the decent cops (and there are many) quit hiding behind the blue wall that makes them co-conspirators, and speak out against the bad cops in their ranks, then the public will have more confidence.
And since this rant is too long already, I won't even mention how the cops in my rural community routinely lie under oath in order to back up a fellow officer's statement.
If the government respected our privacy, I would say the guy needs to take the site down.
They are trained to lie under oath on the stand. It brings in convictions and big buck fines.
Law Enforcement Officers and Firemen- put their lives on the line for us everyday when they go to work.
Elected Officials- Nothing that I am aware of.
BAAAAAAHHHHK. Wrong answer. Cops rarely if ever protect anyone, they're job is to catch bad guys after the fact. I can't remember one time in my entire life being protected by a cop.
Which some are very good at, like Mark Furman et al. The FBI is an excellent investigatory org. When they start protecting us is when I get worried. ATF is great at investigating fires, when they protect people is when they're the most dangerous.
Are you a cop or do you know any? Get it through your head, you "protect" almost nobody. I don't need a half-dopey guy in a uniform to protect my family, I have my own guns and shoot a lot better than most cops do.
I do need him to investigate stolen property and such, but they loath to do stuff like that. My Sheriff office is too busy with their "seatbelt enforcement task force". No I'm not kidding, it's on some vehicles.
Take your protection racket to those who actually believe that horseflop.
For instances, the police can't make your home phone number, address and SSN public. Perhaps some annonymous police officers should start a web site where they posts arrest information and the phone number, address and SSN of the arrestee.
Oh no, Fred who let you see the new national standards for jackbooted thugs? Fred, if you weren't so damned entertaining you might be frightening.
I see you're making law now. The only "line" is in your brain, as the law isn't based on how you think things should be in your world. What he's doing is not illegal, nor should it be.
Now if it were illegal for police to run background on anyone at any time they please, then I would agree they shouldn't have sites like this. Until then equal justice.
What I want to see is for the citizen to have the ability to stop cops at roadblocks "just in case" he's a bad guy.
Something tells me there were no takers amongst that valiant band of brothers.
It is actually illegal in many place, but most importantly, in King County, Washington. Whenever an officer, or any other employee of the King County Sheriff's department runs a Triple I, that information is automatically logged with the Washington State Patrol.
Those transactions are routinely audited by independent auditors and any Triple I that is not properly accounted for, or not within the deputy or employees scope of duty (according to state code) is dealt with.
There has been more then one person fired for minor transgressions of this. There has been one charged in the last two years.
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