Do Public Records Disclose Too Much?

If you want to know the names of people in Tennessee who have permits to carry concealed weapons ... or the folks who contributed their money in support of California's ballot measure to ban gay marriage ... the answers are just a few keystrokes away.

And that's too close for comfort, some privacy law experts say.

To some, it's all about the public's right to know. But for others, it's too much information. Transparency, they say, can lead to intimidation, harassment and even death threats.

Increased listing of public information by political activists and media organizations has led some to question whether posting data made public through state campaign finance disclosure laws and other methods exceeds the public's right to know.

Read more at FoxNews.com

L.A. COUNTY CONSIDERS HIRING A PERMANENT WATCHDOG FOR TROUBLED HOSPITALS

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday considered instituting a permanent, independent investigator to keep watch over the county's troubled hospital and clinic system.

The proposal came a day after new disclosures about the level of incompetence among employees at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital, 11% of whom had undisclosed criminal records.

The investigator job was proposed by Supervisor Gloria Molina, who said trouble at King-Harbor developed in part because officials with the county Department of Health Services kept problems secret from the board.

"I think what we have is lousy management," she said, "that for some reason is frightened of telling us the truth or doesn't have the ability to tell us the truth and conjure up all kinds of interesting stories to tell us to keep us blind to the real facts that are going on. So I've just about had it."

The review that discovered the criminal histories and incompetence came in response to an article in The Times that King-Harbor workers were not fully vetted as promised when the hospital's inpatient services shut down last year.

PI snooping into Sayles' e-mails to police chief

A Livermore-based private investigator has now submitted a California Public Records Act request to Lathrop City Hall seeking all e-mails between Mayor Kristy Sayles and Lathrop Police Chief Dolores Delgado from Aug. 1, 2007 to present.It covers the time when Delgado was away from work due to an injury.It marks the second time the private investigation firm of J.D. Maurer & Associates has submitted a public records request involving Sayles. On July 30, the PI submitted a public records request for Lathrop Police incident history and 911 tapes from Sayles' home address.The latest request asks for:• All e-mails between Sayles and Delgado from Aug. 1, 2007 to present.• All e-mail to kristysayles@aol.com from any city originating email address including but not limited to ksayles@ci.lathrop.ca.us from the time Sayles was a council member to the present.• All copies of telephone records for any telephone and/or cellular telephone, PDA, smart phone issued to Sayles.Sayles has indicated she does not have an issued city-owned cell phone.The original request asked for:• an incident history of anything that may have occurred at the mayor's home from Jan 1, 2005 and July 30, 2008.• a copy of all 911 tapes for any and all calls that occurred between June 1, 2008 and July 30, 2008 in reference to or that originated from the mayor's house.• a copy of the computer aided dispatch for any incident that occurred between June 1, 2008 and July 30, 2008 that was in reference to the mayor's home.Sayles said that she does recall making two 911 calls but that was last year around March when her child in her care was having seizures.Since the first request was made and Sayles was aware of someone poking into her personal life - court records involving divorces and civil matters that have nothing to do with her duties as an elected official for the City of Lathrop - a slick anonymous website has popped up listing personal information plus comments that aren't exactly flattering to Sayles. The website's address is www.kristysayles.comShopping into the personal background of a candidate that the opposition wants to take out is reminiscent of what Monte McCall did on behalf of San Joaquin County Supervisor Leroy Ornelas' opponents when he first ran for office. At that time, the Sheriff Baxter Dunn had his staff dig through old booking forms from the 1960s when Ornelas was a teen and was detained because he was in the company of another minor who was wanted at the time in connection with a crime.

Sensitive data to be handled with discretion

The newspaper has made California Public Records Act requests to Sutter and Yuba counties and the cities of Marysville and Yuba City for the names, titles and salaries of current county and city employees. This information is a matter of public record; the California Supreme Court ruled as such in August 2007.
Our intention behind the request: Build a public salaries database for the Appeal-Democrat Web site, which already offers a variety of popular databases of valuable information. Our most recent database on the "Info Center" at www.appeal-democrat.com details students' test scores.
Why a salaries database? Taxpayers deserve to know how their money is being spent. And while some of the salary information already is available, for example, on Sutter and Yuba counties' Web sites, our goal is to make it easier for the public to access the information they have the right, by law, to possess. Essentially, we want the A-D database to provide a one-stop resource.
We do not believe a database that includes names would provide information that could lead to identity theft; the salaries database will not include data such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses or e-mail addresses. But perception is reality, and we respect the opinions of those public employees and officials who expressed their safety concerns to us.

Red Bluff denies Public Records Request

The Red Bluff Joint Union High School District denied to release the full 90-page report to the Record Searchlight last Thursday into the conduct of two varsity football coaches.

In a letter received by the district on Jan. 7, Sports Editor Aaron Williams asked for "copies of all investigations into the conduct of Red Bluff High School football coaches Rich Hassay and John Schwabauer between 2003 and this date in 2007. Including any recommendations made by the Red Bluff High School administration and the board of trustees into any disciplinary action that needed to be taken."

The request is covered under the California Public Records Act.

http://www.redding.com/news/2008/jan/26/red-bluff-denies-public-records-request/