It’s Ostergren v. Cuccinelli (4th Cir. July 26). I’m on a trip with my son and can’t blog much this week, and the case is complex enough that I can’t quickly summarize it, though the short answer is that the speaker won. But if you’re interested in free speech vs. information privacy questions, you should check it out. Here’s the opening paragraph:
This appeal arises from a First Amendment challenge to Virginia’s Personal Information Privacy Act, Va. Code §§ 59.1-442 to -444. Section 59.1-443.2 prohibits “[i]ntentionally communicat[ing] another individual’s social security number to the general public.” The district court found this section unconstitutional as applied to an advocacy website that criticized Virginia’s release of private information and showed publicly available Virginia land records containing unredacted Social Security numbers (“SSNs”). Later, the court entered a permanent injunction barring Virginia from punishing the republication of “publicly obtainable documents containing unredacted SSNs of Virginia legislators, Virginia Executive Officers or Clerks of Court as part as [sic] an effort to reform Virginia law and practice respecting the publication of SSNs online.” Both decisions are challenged on appeal. For the reasons that follow, we affirm in part and reverse in part.
There’s a Washington Post article summarizing the case.
Cloudesley Shovell says:
The government at all levels long ago sold its soul to the nine-digit devil, and now they are upset at the entirely predictable and foreseeable consequences of that Faustian bargain.
There are plenty of public sources for SSNs. Older West Military Justice reporters are a treasure-trove of SSNs, since military courts used to routinely publish an accused’s SSN (which is also used as a military ID number) right in the case name, which West faithfully reproduced. I haven’t been to a bankruptcy court clerk’s office lately, but one used to be able to go there and page through the public docket of filings, which was in large binders out on a counter. Full of SSNs, of course.
Anyone w/a Lexis account can simply type random 9-digit number sequences into a people search by SSN and strike gold.
The simple thing would be to just quit using that damn number as an ID, but that’ll never happen.
July 29, 2010, 9:29 amLevi Swank says:
Mr. Volokh’s article Crime-Facilitating Speech 57 Stan. L. Rev. 1095 (2005) is cited on page 13 of the opinion.
July 29, 2010, 11:28 am