Web Site Causes Unease in Police

William Sheehan does not like the police. He expresses his views about what he calls police corruption in Washington State on his Web site, where he also posts lists of police officers' addresses, home phone numbers and Social Security numbers.

State officials say those postings expose officers and their families to danger and invite identity theft. But neither litigation nor legislation has stopped Mr. Sheehan, who promises to expand his site to include every police and corrections officer in the state by the end of the year.

Mr. Sheehan says he obtains the information lawfully, from voter registration, property, motor vehicle and other official records. But his provocative use of personal data raises questions about how the law should address the dissemination of accurate, publicly available information that is selected and made accessible in a way that may facilitate the invasion of privacy, computer crime, even violence.

Larry Erickson, executive director of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, says the organization's members are disturbed by Mr. Sheehan's site.

"Police officers go out at night," Mr. Erickson said, "they make people mad, and they leave their families behind."


Brightening, Lieutenant Caldwell said some officers even welcomed the posting of their home addresses, if that encouraged Mr. Sheehan to visit.

"If he wants to drop by the house," Lieutenant Caldwell said, "the police officers would be more than happy to welcome him. We're all armed and trained."

NY Times


The site, the name of which is being withheld by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, was temporarily deactivated over the weekend after police agencies, led by the Kirkland Police Department, protested the release of officers' personal information, including Social Security numbers.

Seattle PI


Seems the news sites are refusing to say what the name of his site is. I found this legal doc
and was able to obtain the web site.

William Sheehan's Site
justicefiles.org


[Edited on 12-7-2003 by MiStErBeLLaTrIx]

He's not doing anything that can't be done anyway. Any moron can find anyone's personal information. The biggest downside of the interent.

Originally posted by Echo
He's not doing anything that can't be done anyway. Any moron can find anyone's personal information. The biggest downside of the interent.

Try posting Local & Federal employee information on a site and see how far you get before the knock on the door arrives.


Now that Washington's censorship law is sacked, we're now compiling 23 million records on the entire criminal justice system in Washington state. It's going to take a while but this searchable web database will be on line by December 31st 2003. Any person visiting this site after that point will be able to search for any employee by any type of information they have available for all of Washington state from Governor down to the newest court clerk in Yelm that is available in the public record.

that's kind of messed up. just because someone doesn't like the job someone else does, it doesn't give them the right to post stuff like SSN's online. that's a one-way ticket to identity fraud. it reminds me of a wacko that was posting personal info on abortion doctors online...just because you don't like what they do doesn't give people the right to endanger their safety.

they have the right to interrogate and probe.
we have the right to know who the mother F*ckers are.

fight the power

Agree his motives are wrong but he is using the power givin to him by the constitution. I might do that shere ha ah like kitty said fight the power

Yeah

Fight the power !

I agree his motives are a little questionable, but they can find out anything they want about you. Why not give us that same power over them? They have the power at any time to look up anyone they feel like, its about time someone fought back. I just saved everything on his site to a mini CD, cant wait till the whole thing is completed.