You are absolutely right. The statute has two elements. The disclosure and the intent. So, disclosure without criminal intent is just disclosure.
The first element like I mentioned in an earlier comment, would not be violated by Google either because Google does not do the disclosing. They simply copy disclosures made by others.
You are right about several things here. The police can already prosecute doxing cases if the doxing is part of other criminal conduct. Conduct done with the same intent this statute would prohibit. It is already illegal to attempt to incite crimes of violence, so doxing with that intent is already illegal.
This statute looks similar to 18 U.S.C. 119 which prohibits making personal information about law enforcement publicly available. The key language is that law is the "makes publicly available" part because most doxing uses information made publicly available by the government in public records.
In this proposed statute I would argue that one cannot disclose what has already been disclosed by the government in public records, so an affirmative defense would be that you are simply disclosing publicly available information that has already been disclosed.
This would bring the enforceable arm of the statute into play only when the information has never before been disclosed, which is almost never. To convict someone they would have to prove that the personal information has never been disclosed before and that would be really hard.
My legal team successfully argued this to make a federal prosecutor back off when he suggested charging me with violating 18 U.S.C. 119 for doxing local, state, and federal law enforcement personnel. My defense was that I had gotten the information from public records and therefore I had not made it publicly available even though I made it easier for the public to find.
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This Statute Will Do Nothing to Stop Doxing
This bill defines personal information in such a way that most doxing is not covered. See the first page of the section by section summary https://eshoo.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Section-by-Section-Online-Privacy-Act-Eshoo-Lofgr en.pdf that says "Personal Information does not include...Publicly available information related to an individual."
Re:
Defamation would also be a defense to alleged violations of this statute since it only criminalizes disclosing true information.
Re: Re:
You are absolutely right. The statute has two elements. The disclosure and the intent. So, disclosure without criminal intent is just disclosure.
The first element like I mentioned in an earlier comment, would not be violated by Google either because Google does not do the disclosing. They simply copy disclosures made by others.
Re:
You are right about several things here. The police can already prosecute doxing cases if the doxing is part of other criminal conduct. Conduct done with the same intent this statute would prohibit. It is already illegal to attempt to incite crimes of violence, so doxing with that intent is already illegal.
Re: Re: If Doxing were Banned Uncle Sam Would Be Public Enemy Nu
The consequences of civil disobedience are rarely linked to stupidity.
If Doxing were Banned Uncle Sam Would Be Public Enemy Number One
This statute looks similar to 18 U.S.C. 119 which prohibits making personal information about law enforcement publicly available. The key language is that law is the "makes publicly available" part because most doxing uses information made publicly available by the government in public records.
In this proposed statute I would argue that one cannot disclose what has already been disclosed by the government in public records, so an affirmative defense would be that you are simply disclosing publicly available information that has already been disclosed.
This would bring the enforceable arm of the statute into play only when the information has never before been disclosed, which is almost never. To convict someone they would have to prove that the personal information has never been disclosed before and that would be really hard.
My legal team successfully argued this to make a federal prosecutor back off when he suggested charging me with violating 18 U.S.C. 119 for doxing local, state, and federal law enforcement personnel. My defense was that I had gotten the information from public records and therefore I had not made it publicly available even though I made it easier for the public to find.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by CopBlaster.
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