Washington lawmaker wants to make police officers' names private

The Seattle Times reports that Washington State Rep. Bill Hinkle, R-Cle Elum, is sponsoring legislation that would exempt information about police officers and their families form public disclosure, even if it is in documents that are normally public records, such as voting and property records. Hinkle and the bill's supporters claim the bill would not stop oversight of police activity as people could request information on individual officers; however, the officer and his supervisors would be told the name and address of the person requesting the information. That will likely put a chill into anybody wanting to find out about officer conduct. A Web site promoting the bill claims that because of "overbroad" public records laws, criminals and "terrorists" (the bogeyman du jour) could get this information and use it to cripple us. The supporting evidence on the Web site for this is a pretty thin gruel; one story about thieves targeting police cars to steal guns, with no indication that these thieves are using public records to find police cars. We hope Washington's Coalition for Open Government can stop this bad bill.