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Friday, November 18, 2005
Want Cops’ Personal Data Off Internet
Bill Also Shields Judges
By Reuven Blau
Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick J. Lynch
and U.S. Rep. Anthony D. Weiner last week urged the U.S. Senate
to pass legislation designed to keep personal information about
police officers and judges off the Internet.
The Secure Access to Justice and Court Protection Act would make
it illegal for individuals to intimidate law-enforcement officers
by posting on Web sites data such as what car they drive and where
their children go to school.
‘Public Harassment’
“It is clear that the information infrastructure has made
remarkable things possible,” Mr. Weiner said at the Nov. 7
press conference outside the 13th Precinct in Gramercy Park. “But
it has also made it possible for those who seek to harass and intimidate
law-enforcement officials to do it quite easily and quite publicly.”
The House of Representatives passed the bill last week, and the
Senate is expected to introduce a companion piece of legislation
soon. According to Mr. Weiner, President Bush has indicated that
he will sign the proposed bill, which also calls for additional
funding for court security.
The American Civil Liberties Union is opposed to the legislation,
noting that it includes provisions for mandatory minimum sentences
in specific cases and denies inmates on death row for killing law-enforcement
officers the ability to appeal their cases in Federal court.
Greg Nojeim, the acting director of the ACLU, stressed that his
organization recognizes and understands the need to protect law-enforcement
officers. “We also understand that these efforts should not
be done in a way that undermines the basic constitutional principle
of habeas corpus and having access to Federal court,” he stated
in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee.
The bill is widely supported by national law-enforcement groups.
Backers of the measure have cited the slayings of U.S. District
Judge Joan Lefkow’s husband and mother in Chicago. “This
is not a hypothetical,” Mr. Weiner said. “Authorities
discovered that a Web site had posted the judge’s home address,
family photographs, and violent threats against her,”
Patrick J. Lynch, the president of the Patrolmen’s Benevolent
Association, noted that officers have been targeted by vengeful
drug dealers and other criminals in the past. “This is not
something we just talk about may happen,” he observed. “We
cannot be asking New York City Police Officers to put themselves
between the miscreants that try to tear down our society and the
good citizens of this city, and not give them the mechanisms to
protect themselves."
Naming Kids’ Names
Mr. Weiner noted that last year a Queens man previously found guilty
of harassing a cop created a Web site revealing NYPD officers’
addresses, phone numbers, hangouts, and children’s names.
Robert Mladinich, the Sergeants Benevolent Association communications
director, said that he had personal information about himself posted
on a similar Web site two years ago. “I must have gotten 30
calls in two days,” from concerned friends and family members
who discovered that the information was being posted, Mr. Mladinich
said. “I was very disheartened to find out this was not illegal.”
Mr. Weiner said that information about himself has also been posted
on the Web. “Since I’ve targeted this effort, the posting
on me has gotten quite prodigious,” he remarked.
He pointed out, though, that elected officials make their contact
information and schedules available to the public. “But when
you are a Police Officer, information about the comings and goings
of your family …. that information is being put on the Internet
for one reason: to intimidate, and in some cases harm those officers.”
“I can pride myself on being a fervent civil libertarian,”
Mr. Weiner added. “But if the Internet is going to be used
as a tool to intimidate and harm Police Officers and their family,
the line has been drawn and crossed, and we in Congress need to
stop it.”
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