

Letter to the Editor: No need for unscrupulous media to know

7:22 PM, Feb. 8, 2013  |  Comments
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From Dan Hall,


The Freedom of Information Act has as its intent to keep government business open to public scrutiny and not give unscrupulous media with an agenda access to private information. FOIA speaks to open public meetings so that public business cannot be conducted in private, and it intends to make official acts and public records available for review.

Public business is exactly that, government actions that impact the public in some fashion that includes a public right to know private information such as government contracts, appointments to government positions, etc.

The public has no "need to know" the names and addresses of everyone who, for example, has a license to drive a motor vehicle. For law enforcement officials to give out such information without an official need to know violates the law and can result in a hefty fine and loss of their agency's ACIC computer. Such records are for "official use only" and not readily available to be published by unscrupulous newspapers.

We witnessed the misuse of the FOIA by the Gannett newspaper in New York where it published the names and addresses and actually put out an interactive map so that criminals could identify the homes where gun owners lived, and it even included police officers and their families. After it was clear that this misuse of the FOIA had endangered people, New York passed a law making that action unlawful and the publisher finally took down the list and admitted that it was poor judgment to publish it in the first place.

When Missouri passed their concealed handgun law, their legislators included a privacy enactment making the information not subject to FOIA.

We had a newspaper in Arkansas in the past that wanted to do a similar publication of names and addresses and the Legislature then made the address private and allowed only the name and ZIP code. That is inadequate privacy in a small town where everyone knows each other. Hence, the need for SB131 to protect the privacy rights of law-abiding citizens. Why don't you list the names and addresses of everyone with a criminal record instead?

There is no public need to know who owns a gun, a sword, a pitchfork, a chainsaw or any other item that is legal to possess. And there is no public need to know and no public interest served by publishing a list of those licensed to carry a concealed handgun for self-defense. Such a list has negative consequences as it gives potential burglars intent upon stealing guns a good idea where guns might be housed.

For statistical data, there would be no objection that I could see for publishing a breakdown of numbers of persons licenses to carry, even broken down by county or city, But, the individual names and addresses is a privacy issue that trumps your so-called FOIA rights.

(Editor's Note: Dan Hall is a former Baxter County judge, sheriff's deputy and has been an instructor for concealed-carry classes.)

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