« Ind. Gov't. Bill to spare high-fence hunting sure to draw fire [Updated] | Main | Ind. Decisions - 7th Circuit decides five today, one is an Indiana case »

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Ind. Law - Committee endorses bill to protect e-mail addresses

"Committee endorses bill to protect e-mail addresses" is the headline to a brief story in the Indianapolis Star today. The story reports:

Lists of e-mail addresses kept by public agencies would be entitled to even more privacy than lists of mailing addresses under a bill endorsed by a Senate committee Tuesday.

Current law seeks to protect lists of names and addresses kept by public agencies, while also ensuring public accountability, by allowing the public to inspect lists but not obtain photocopies or electronic records. The state's public access counselor has ruled that this exception doesn't apply to e-mail addresses.

Under Senate Bill 205, approved 9-0 by the Senate Economic Development and Technology Committee, the public couldn't even look at a list of e-mail addresses. The bill moves to the full Senate.

There may be much more to this story than meets the eye. The bill's author is Senator Jeff Drozda, Kokomo. The Mayor of Kokomo has been engaged in a dispute with a "youthful political operative" who sought a copy of the email list the Mayor and the City use to send out newsletters. The high school sophomore finally filed a complaint with the PAC, which produced this PAC opinion, dated Sept. 9, 2005.

Read the entire saga in this ILB entry from Oct. 18th, 2005.

One more thing. According to this page of the State's Office of Technology, we already have a law protecting public email addresses from being used for commercial purposes.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 18, 2006 01:56 PM
Posted to Indiana Law