> "Governor Kevin Stitt today signed into law House Bill 1643, a bill that makes it crime to dox, or post personal information, of law enforcement and county officials online."
I'm not going to try to judge how wacky that law may be, but this website definitely isn't doxxing:
1. Police officers are public employees, and often a lot of seemingly "personal information" is actually a matter of public record (e.g. salaries). The "personal information" on this website appears to be publicly available (e.g. I found this guy at random https://rateourcops.org/officer/26, it lists a phone number which Google reveals to be on his employer's website https://www.cityofalbertlea.org/contact-us/, so likely an official work number).
2. It cannot be doxxing to truthfully describe your personal experiences with a person (e.g. this cop treated me badly in this way, or I think he only did a one star job).
We all thought what Aaron Swartz was doing was clearly not under the purview of the CFAA, but he got hounded to his death by a prosecutor over it anyways.
I would not want to risk it here.
And I don't believe for one second that only bad police officers will be harassed. There are actual criminals who'd do it. There are activists who would like to get back at cops for doing things like voting for the wrong candidate, or who just aren't good at picking the correct cop to target at all. There are teenagers who'd call the cops' landlord with complaints just for the lulz.
How is it unconstitutional exactly? People seem to throw that term around willy-nilly. It is, however, problematic because it overreaches -- for example, being expected to blur out badge numbers or officer names is needlessly onerous for the reporter of a police encounter.
I suppose the Supreme Court will have to rule on the issue of blurring our badge numbers during the course of a protected activity.
But this does seem related to the constitution through the First Amendment.
One of the more sane elevated rights police officers have long enjoyed is the right to extreme privacy - their phone numbers and addresses are unlisted by default and sharing the private information of an officer with malicious intent carries a more serious penalty than an equivalent action against a regular individual. Police officers face an elevated level of danger in their personal lives from persons they've arrested or interacted with - if you could spin this website as providing information that makes it easier to identify and harass problematic officers (even if they deserve a significant amount of scrutiny) you'll likely have a strong case to have the site shutdown.
Most people these days seem to be confused about what the term "secret police" means. It doesn't mean a police forces that the public don't know exists. It means a police force that has as some of its members, people whos identities are secret. You know, like the NKVD or STASI.
I was taught as a kid 30 years ago, during the cold war, that having a secret police was a key indicator of an oppressive regime. What you describe as "sane elevated rights" was something I was taught that we needed to fight tooth and nail, possibly with nuclear weapons.
I guess times change. Sometimes I feel like crying.
They're not elected, nor are they "public persons." There are plenty of regular folks working for the city, including analysts, beat cops, secretaries, and so on.
This is extremely reductive.
As a non-elected “regular folk” kind of person working for a state government (not city, but Constitutionally there is no distinction) a lot of my employment information that would not be public (and that both I and my employer might seek to protect, or different reasons, from the public were I privately employed) is public. Not just in a theoretic sense, but actually hosted and searchable by anyone in the world in numerous databases compiled by media organizations of public data.
Working for the government, outside of where the fact or nature of that employment is itself, say, classified information, is very much a “public” thing.
Police officers get a number of special treatments that empower them with more and less rights in certain settings due to the specific nature of their job.
https://www.jmllaw.com/blog/keep-mind-9-rules-of-filming-pol...
https://www.solutionlawapc.com/criminal-defense/the-right-to...
https://www.vjamesdesimonelaw.com/can-you-film-police-when-s...
There was even a bill passed in 2015 (still in effect) that affirmatively declared a right to record: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
Your comment is extremely poorly worded with the recent and historical explosion of derision against black people, etc.
Very poor choice of words. :(
Who said they were?
> nor are they public
They work in the public sector. That's what 'public' means.
No, in the context of the First Amendment, that is emphatically not what it means. Where did you go to law school?
Really? A public profile for all... military personnel. FBI, CIA, NSA employees, government contractors, employees of corporation that accepts government subsidies/grants.
Yes, unless there's some kind of security exemption then names can be anonymised. I don't think most police are doing that kind of work though?
Why do you think that's controversial? It's public money.
> government contractors, employees of corporation
The contract details should be in scope, but what the person with that contract chooses to do with that money (paying employees) is up to them and should be private.
This combination in effect turns into a requirement to either not film, or not post videos of cops, which is unconstitutional.
Just to be clear, you're not allowed to post videos of plenty of things (Area-51, a meeting between the Joint Chiefs, closed sessions in Congress, etc.). But you're right that you're allowed to record videos of cops in public[1]. I think the law in question is about personally-identifiable information.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_call_recording_laws#...
2. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/06/you-have-first-amendme...
I mean the Supreme Court just threw out the donor disclosure requirement in CA because it could have the effect of stifling free speech.
https://kfor.com/news/oklahoma-legislature/controversial-ant... [2021]
>"Governor Kevin Stitt today signed into law House Bill 1643, a bill that makes it crime to dox, or post personal information, of law enforcement and county officials online."
Sure, it's egregiously unconstitutional; but just as you say, I wouldn't want to be the one hiring attorneys.
~~~~~
[late edit]: To defend of my assertion of "egregiously unconsitutional", I'll quote this succinct summary of the enumerated First Amendment exceptions in United States v. Stevens [2010], as summarized in Rynearson v. Ferguson. I can't imagine how any of these could even loosely apply here; please correct my misunderstandings if you are able. (For those Googling things, be warned that Stevens is a very disturbing case).
> Over the years, the Supreme Court has enumerated certain “well-defined and narrowly limited’ classes of speech that remain unprotected by the First Amendment. See Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568, 571-72 (1949). The unprotected speech is limited to, (a) obscenity, Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476; (b) defamation, Beauharnais v. Illinois, 343 U.S. 250, 254-255 (1952); (c) fraud, Virginia Board of Pharmacy v. Virginia Citizens Consumer Council, Inc., 425 U.S. 748 (1976); (d) incitement, Brandenbury v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447-49 (1969); (e) true threats, Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705 (1969); and (f) speech integral to criminal conduct, Giboney v. Expire Storate & Ice Co., 336 U.S. 490, 498 (1949). Speech that does not fall into these exceptions remains protected. See United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460 (2010).
https://www.eff.org/files/2019/02/22/order_granting_pi.pdf
Here's a longer (two page PDF) summary of the same, glossing some definitions:
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11072 [.pdf]