No Punishment for Doxxing Law Enforcement Officers - Federal Judge

WASHINGTON - Rezul -- In what may well establish a precedent for other states, a federal judge has just struck down as unconstitutional a West Virginia anti-doxxing law which would have punished the unauthorized disclosure of individual personally identifiable information (PII) (e.g., "home addresses and phone numbers") about law-enforcement officers (e.g. ICE agents) or other government officials, reports public interest law professor John Banzhaf.

The judge was not persuaded by arguments that the statute should "receive special consideration as a law protecting privacy."  His opinion notes that statutes in other states likewise seeking to protect privacy in such situations are only applicable "where a protected person has made a specific request that their information be shielded" (filed a takedown notice) - something which is not required under the West Virginia statute before the publisher can be punished.

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Here, the statute which was stuck down does contain "a procedure by which judicial and law enforcement officers and their immediate family members can request that a disclosing entity remove their home address or phone number from where it is being displayed."

But even after such a specific takedown notice has been made, the officer - consistent with statutes in other states - may be entitled only to "injunctive or declaratory relief as an initial matter and permitting damages to be recovered only upon the disclosing entity's failure to comply with an injunction or declaratory judgment."

However, once information is made available on one Internet website, it can be copied very easily and further disseminated by others - including disclosing entities outside the state's jurisdiction - thus making even this remedy much less effective if not bordering on useless, warns the law professor.  In many ways it may constitute "locking the barn door after the horses have left"  and fled across the border, he says.

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This persistence phenomenon has been termed "digital permanence," and the concern is reflected in slogans such as "The internet is forever," "Everything on the internet is forever," "Once of the Internet, always on the Internet," etc.

The problem of protecting personally identifiable information about law enforcement officers is being made difficult by the determinations of many courts that the disclosure of such information constitutes "speech" which is protected by the First Amendment.

Moreover, the ability of opponents to identify and then dox law enforcement officials is enhanced by laws requiring officers to display visible identification to ensure accountability, or simply prohibiting the use of masks or other face coverings, and by the rapid expansion of facial recognition software available to the public, says Banzhaf, who has both a technical and a computer background.

http://banzhaf.net/ jbanzhaf3ATgmail.com @profbanzhaf