Privacy Digest

Hotel guest lists may go public - Via Sacramento Bee:

As Roseville Police Chief Michael Blair sees it, parolees and probationers can sometimes be found in motel rooms.

So as an extra tool for police, Blair is asking for a local ordinance that requires motel and hotel operators to hand over their guest registries to his officers.

If innkeepers fail to do so, at any hour of the day, they could be fined or jailed.

This prospect doesn't sit well with Michael Belote, who represents about 1,000 California motel and hotel operators, including some in Roseville.

Providing the home address, credit card number, vehicle license number and other private information of law-abiding patrons is an invasion of privacy, Belote said.

"We want to be careful with the personal information of our guests," Belote said.

Law enforcement officials say officers are turning to registry disclosure laws to help them keep tabs on parolees and probationers.

"If I am with my family staying in a motel and there is a parolee-at-large staying in the room next to us, I want the police to have every tool they need to get the guy out," said Nick Warner, a lobbyist for the California State Sheriffs Association.

"Law-abiding citizens have no reason to be concerned," Warner said.

But critics like Belote, who is a lobbyist for the lodging group that has sponsored legislation to curb disclosure ordinances, say the local laws allow police to cast their nets too broadly.

Officers already have the necessary tools to catch criminals, and disclosing patron identities and personal credit information expose guests to potential abuse, critics say.

Peter Bibring, a staff attorney with the Los Angeles office of the American Civil Liberties Union, said a U.S. Supreme Court decision two years ago that allows police broader power to search parolees has opened the door for more registry disclosure laws.

Bibring said even if such disclosures help law enforcement, they don't justify throwing out constitutional protections.

"It would be an additional tool to stop and search anyone on the street, but the Constitution doesn't allow that," Bibring said.

The issue goes before the Roseville City Council at its next meeting, Nov. 5.

Earlier this month when Blair proposed the ordinance, the council members had few questions and expressed little concern.

Jason Anderson, 28, of San Diego, who recently spent the night at a Roseville motel on Harding Boulevard, said he is concerned about the ordinance.

"I enjoy my privacy. If I could vote (on) it, I'd be against it," he said.

Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, D-Santa Rosa, also is concerned about guest registry ordinances, which are in place in cities such as Rocklin, Sacramento, San Jose and San Diego.

In Blair's proposed ordinance, only Roseville police officers or other sworn officers authorized to act as Roseville police are allowed to inspect the ledgers.

But some ordinances in other cities allow nearly any city employee to access the registries, according to the lodging association.

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