Thank you guardian! I have been waiting for your latest rant. I am suprised at you though…. You haven’t attacted the Boise Coppers in a few days even with this “Nuclear Bombshell” being dropped on your front porch.

EDITOR NOTE–We understand there will be an announcement on Monday which will no doubt be of interest to you.

Rod,

You are so right about harassment from public officials, titled folk and big businesses. Those ordinary citizens subjected to harassment often live in fear and with ruined lives from a system that would protect elected officials and big names at all costs, despite strong and compelling evidence to the contrary. Without means to pursue action, these people suffer silently or become elected officials themselves for protection. Unfortunately, we are seeing closed doors at every turn, even from those who are repeatedly quoted publicly as saying “we are open, we are transparent.” Just rhetoric. We all deserve protection and we all deserve to know what our public officials do behind OPEN doors. What do they have to hide??? As a journalist and an ELOF, I’m behind the BG on this one.

Guardian –
The number of sworn officers in Idaho varies year to year. It is somewhere around 5500. If you figure 22 officers are de-certified every year we are looking at .004 percent. This is still a small minority of Officers. Not acceptable, but certainly not the majority.

Look at the numbers of de-certified for some other major cities. LAPD, or New Orleans. The numbers are scary. I am glad we have full time investigators that investigate problems that arise. Proper management now can keep future issues from coming.

My point is simple – take extra steps to keep the good officers safe. Don’t target them because of a few bad apples.

EDITOR NOTE–Nobody, including the BG is trying to “target” anyone. We just don’t want to erode the open records law with exemptions for coppers, hunters, judges, or blog editors who take a stand. As for the low rate of decertifications we agree it is a small minority. However, rather than compare to coppers in L.A. or N. Orleans, how about comparing the rate of decerts for doctors, dentists, lawyers, and barbers in Idaho.
Hint: you can get this info through a PUBLIC RECORDS request.

LOL, You must think this is America or something.

I think Follow points out some great examples. What about those military and fed’s who have high level clearances that may be targeted due to access of information? There will always be inherent risk involved with most public trust positions that someone, somewhere is going to be annoyed or have a “beef” with them. It becomes an inherent burden of the job and as uncaring as it may sound, If you cannnot handle or don’t want to accept all the tertiary effects of your chosen proffession then you should look for a new line of work.
This falls right in the line that public trust officials, police included, are and need ot be held to a higher standard in that they represent the people of their fair city or the great state of Idaho.

Public records are “public”. I can remember JR Simplot was listed in the phone book for years. As were a lot of high profile people. It was routine practice for the State to release your drivers license name and address info to mass mailing advertisers.

Public records on people in high places need to remain public. How else would they get caught in the act of waste, fraud and abuse of their positions without public records?

I want to know if my elected and appointed officials are up to no good. Access to these records is not always easy but the media does a decent job of sniffing out falsehoods and deceit by using this access.

You make good points.

It seems to me that the crimes of harassment, threatening, and so on need vigorous prosecution, regardless of the victim’s status or employment.

I would guess that convicted sex criminals suffer quite a bit of harassment, but since we’ve all agreed to fully stigmatize “sex criminal,” we’re OK with that.

It’s a slippery slope we’re headed down, I think, and to no good end. If someone is out for revenge on a LEO, judge, whatever, a little sprinkle of public records secrecy is not going to give meaningful protection.

Look to the witness protection program for a better indication of what’s actually required for prevention.

If the officer who is in the news now is convicted, and if he ever gets out of prison (which I would hope he would not), he would have to register as a sex offender and that would be open to the public, as is all sex offender registrants. I do not believe the proposed law pertains to a retired officer. If so, him being a sex offender should take priority and it should be open record. If an active officer is ever convicted of this type of crime, he would be terminated from employment, so his address etc would not be protected because he would not be a officer then. Many, many states already have this type of legislation, and have for many years. So, as I have said many times, let those that do the job that none of you want to do, have a little more protection of privacy so they can sleep at night knowing their families are a little more protected. Again Mr. Editor, why don’t you go after some other public servants now and then, and give it a rest on police officers. God, every week you have something to say, get off your step stool and find another rant to start.

For all those opposed to this legislation, please explain to me how you not being able to walk into your local assessor’s office to obtain the home address of a police officer or prosecutor infringes on your rights in any way, shape or form. That’s correct – it doesn’t – I thought so.

So, for those of you with any common sense whatsoever, please read the proposed bill (on the Idaho Legislative website, it’s under SB1378). You will find that the bill is extremely strict on who could use the exemptions and when. It’s not as easy as you might think. There are also all sorts of avenues by which an officer’s home address can be obtained for legitimate purposes.

Next time, before spouting off about something you obviously know nothing about, take the time to educate yourself. You’ll look much smarter for it.

There’s already too much effort spent (even in ‘lil ol’ Idaho) trying to evade the existing public record laws.

Case in point, the inspection reports on Confined Animal Feeding Operations were (with the overseeing agency’s concurrence) kept at the actual private facility inspected — under the presumption that since the records weren’t on file at a public agency they would not be subject to FOIA requests. The reasoning being that CAFO-owners and the inspecting agency wouldn’t want rabble-rousers from finding out about dangers to the public health. Fortunately, the court did not agree and thenceforth required that these records be kept by the public agency. But this required a court case to be fought.

It is already too easy to evade existing public records laws in Idaho. If a legislator can point to specific cases (plural) where harm has been inflicted upon an innocent person, through the divulgement of a police officer’s, prosecutor’s, or prison guard’s phone number or address in a public record — I’d be more than willing to stand aside (maybe). And only “maybe” — since someone will have to show me first how this assumed risk isn’t part of the job.

Here’s another question though, if a prosecutor is considered at-risk — wouldn’t also a public defender? What about a judge, what about a warden, what about the Attorney General?

Are only “some” members of the Executive Branch of government eligible for such secrecy? Perhaps one’s status as an un-elected law enforcement officer qualifies one for secrecy? Would a county’s (elected) Chief Prosecuting Attorney be prohibited from using such a statute to redact the public record, what about an elected Sheriff?

Dean Gunderson and the rest of y’all commenters who assert that there is already too much secrecy of public records and doings here, even if they are temporarily deemed “not” public (as in the egregious case of CAFO nutrient info), have exposed another slippery slope specialty of this state.
Another one has to do with the law about pharmacists being allowed to refuse information or to fill med. scrips, based on their ‘religion’ or moral (?) values. Yet they can recuse their names, so doctors or patients couldn’t tell who they are/were until it was too late?

I think that if the records on who harvested a wolf are to remain public anyone wanting to post them in a newspaper for the rest of the public to view should have to pay for every name of every hunter who harvested and filled a tag on any species to be published not just the wolves harvested. Can not convince me that the intent of the person who paid to put the ad in your newspaper did not do it with intent for people to harrass people that were on the list! Mr. Millage did post out of frustration and retaliation and for the light to shine on the issue of the groups who are rallying to harress him along with now the ones on the list in the newspaper. I for one find it funny that a list of who hunted a wolf is of anyone’s right to know. The only reason they have the list in the first place is for the protection and management of the wolves for balance and control of the hunt for them. The fish and Game have had to ask for the wolves to be brought in and documented on the hunt and to study the health of them as well. If it were just any other species as in coyotes no one has the ability or right to that list? So get real on what this issue is about. Selling newspapers for you MR. Editor, and for the anti wolf hunters a way to harrass. Can people not see it for what it is?

EDITOR NOTE–Connie, I do this blog only as a public forum (no ads, no fees). I simply don’t have any dog in the wolf fight (pun intended).
My only issue is to preserve the right of citizens to public records–be they driver licenses, deeds, or video of a public place. Anyone harassing another person is wrong period. Please read the post again and see some of the reasons we want to keep public records public.
A solution to the hunter issue could be to issue wolf–or any tags–by number only. If the info is not collected, it can’t be released.

Once while filling out a police report for an incident that occurred at work, I asked the police officer to put my work contact info instead and got an earful on how I need to stand up, be a man and take the risk that is associated with my freedoms. Seems like the police are not taking their own advice.

I completely agree with Millage.

Since when is it ok to harass/threaten someone for hunting or any other sport for that matter. Millage posting everyone’s e-mail and phone numbers is no different than the Guardian accidently sending out an e-mail and forgetting to BCC everyone on it.