Privacy Digest

In court: right to privacy vs. free speech - Via inRich.com :

Social Security numbers of officials posted on Web site in effort to pressure state

A privacy advocate's free-speech challenge to a state law aimed at protecting Social Security numbers readily available on government Web sites might soon be resolved.

"I think this case presents some new questions and some hard questions," U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne said yesterday afternoon after several hours of argument during which he asked some tough questions of both sides.

Betty "BJ" Ostergren of Hanover County has posted the Social Security numbers of 20 state officials and others on her Web site, www.TheVirginiaWatchdog.com, to pressure state officials to keep the numbers off government Web sites.

Identity thieves can use the numbers to perpetrate frauds.

On July 1, the state required courts to make land records -- some of which contain Social Security numbers -- available online but to redact the Social Security numbers by 2010. Officials say 100 clerks out of almost 120 have already done so.

Also on July 1, a new law took effect imposing fines on those who disseminate Social Security numbers, even ones from the court Web sites. The law is not being enforced pending Ostergren's challenge or she could face an estimated $70,000 in fines.

She is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, which says it is wrong for the state to punish her for publishing information the state readily makes available.

The solution is not to infringe on her speech rights, but for the government to redact the sensitive information, Ostergren says. The ACLU argues that the numbers, used for shock value, constitute political speech protected by the Constitution.

Payne asked Ostergren's lawyer, Rebecca K. Glenberg of the ACLU, "to what extent does the principal that two wrongs don't make a right . . . come into play here?"

"She's doing something that can harm people," he said, and, "the state's trying to stop her."

He questioned whether Ostergren's conduct was permissible when it can "ruin the lives of people, destroy their fortunes and it can take years to undo the damage all so she can make a political statement?"

And he asked Glenberg whether it was unreasonable for the state to take a stop-gap measure -- the July 1 law prohibiting dissemination of Social Security numbers -- to try to control the damage. She said it was not a stopgap measure because anyone could find far more Social Security numbers on court sites than on Ostergren's.

Payne also held the state's feet to the fire. James V. Ingold, a senior assistant Virginia attorney general, said that, "perhaps it does have shock value, but shock value does not equate to political speech."

But Payne said, "Shock value has long had its place in political speech."

Ingold argued that what Ostergren "seems to be saying is if [the law] is not perfect, it's not constitutional." He conceded that the safeguards used by the state to protect the Social Security numbers might not be perfect and are the result of political compromise.

Politics can be a matter of compromise, said Payne, "but the First Amendment isn't." He suggested the General Assembly was negligent in the way it has handled making land records available online.

"You'll have a [ruling] shortly," Payne said at the end of the hearing.

(Read Original Article - Via inRich.com .)