Court Says Activist Protected In Republishing Social Security Numbers That Virginia Revealed On Its Website

from the maybe-time-to-fix-the-problem... dept

Two years ago, we wrote about an absolutely ridiculous situation in Virginia, where the state regularly published government documents online without redacting anyone's social security numbers. Betty "BJ" Ostergren felt that this was a huge privacy violation, and in order to highlight it, she set up a website that displayed the documents that exposed social security numbers from documents published by the state on its website -- including the SSNs of various Virginia public officials. Now, there are plenty of ways government officials in Virginia could respond. A good one would be to start being more careful about not revealing people's social security numbers. But that's not what it did. Instead, it passed a new law that would fine people like Ostergren for republishing the information, even though it was the government itself who made the social security numbers public in the first place!

Ostergren, with the help of the ACLU, sued, saying that such a law was unconstitutional. A district court agreed, but only said it was okay for Ostergren to publish SSNs of public officials. However, now, an appeals court has gone even further and said that Ostergren had the right to republish SSNs of others, beyond just Virginia public officials. Basically, the court effectively says that Virginia should be redacting the SSN information, and it's ridiculous to punish Ostergren (or others) for simply pointing out what the government is publishing.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: betty ostergren, first amendment, privacy, social security numbers, virginia


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    out_of_the_blue, 28 Jul 2010 @ 5:24am

    If matters are clear enough, courts have at least

    even chances of deciding right. -- But notice that the administration part is dead set *against* obvious sense.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    BPcares, 28 Jul 2010 @ 7:18am

    How much moneys would you say they've spent on writing this document and making it official?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Pixelation, 28 Jul 2010 @ 7:38am

    I can't believe there is a law out there that the politicians/ lawyers haven't screwed yet. It boogers my mind.

    Wait for it. They will get to this one very soon.

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.