FC: Judge deletes SSNs from public documents from web site

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

Judge Robert H. Alsdorf of King County, Washington believes it is illegal 
to republish Social Security numbers taken from public court records. I'm 
including in this post a few SSNs from the justicefiles.org site:

>Blinsink Steven Harold 239-41-9528 Aug-70 Patrol Police Officer IV
>Beath Brian B. 537-46-2392 Feb-47 Police Support Officer $2,619.00
>Coleman Ronald L. 536-68-6894 Apr-59 Master Police Officer $4,690.00

I believe that same information is available from public court records and 
other lawful public sources, and I'm including it here for journalistic 
purposes -- to demonstrate what kind of information the site in question has.

This post will be archived at http://www.politechbot.com/p-02008.html

I invite the city of Kirkland, copied above, to respond.

-Declan

*********

Decision: http://www.politechbot.com/docs/justicefiles.opinion.051001.html

Date: Thu, 10 May 2001 16:32:53 -0700
To: declan@well.com
From: elena luisa garella <garella@mindspring.com>
Subject: Very interesting ruling in Kirkland cop case!

King County Superior Court Judge Robert Alsdorf ruled that the defendants
must take down the SSNs only from the Kirkland portion of
www.justicefiles.org. Everything else can stay up.  His reasoning is VERY
interesting-- even novel-- the judge expands legal protections for
identifying personal information (under a invasion of privacy theory) in
order to respond to the fact that the internet is a new medium, far more
immediate and permanent than traditional fora . . . In other words, the
Judge appears to conclude that fact that the speech is on the Internet
means that it can be treated differently than if it were in pamphlets,
spoken from a soapbox, in the newspaper, etc.    The ruling is attached.

Law Office of Elena Luisa Garella
1325 Fourth Avenue, Suite 1730
Seattle, WA  98101
(206) 689-2142
FAX: 382-9261
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  Thank you.

*********




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