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Thursday, January 19, 2006

Ind. Law - More on: Committee endorses bill to protect e-mail addresses [UPDATED]

Was it only yesterday - it seems like longer ago - that the ILB posted this entry on SB 205, and noted:

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.
Today the Kokomo Perspective has this article by Paul Allor headlined "Drozda takes McKillip’s battle to the legislature." Pretty interesting. Some quotes:
This Friday, the case of Ryan Nees v. Matt McKillip will convene in Howard County Circuit Court. But State Sen. Jeff Drozda had introduced legislation that would quash anyone hoping to follow Nees' path.

Nees, a 16-year-old Western High School student, is seeking access to a list of e-mail addresses compiled by the mayor, and used to send out e-mail updates. Last year Indiana's Public Access Counselor ruled that the city of Kokomo must turn over the list. But McKillip declined to do so, saying he disagreed with the counselor's interpretation of the law, and wanted to protect the privacy and safety of those on the list.

After Nees sued, McKillip and Drozda discussed changing Indiana law. Drozda said his legislation is a direct result of Nees' conflict with the mayor, although it will likely not affect the current lawsuit.

“I question whether Drozda is doing this for the public good or just carrying water for the mayor,” Nees said. * * *

Under current law, a list of standard mailing addresses kept by a city cannot be copied but is open to public inspection. So, a citizen can view the list but cannot take a copy of it with him when he leaves.

Drozda said his legislation would make e-mail addresses be treated the same .

“I think if you read the language, it does say that they can be inspected,” he said. “The intent is not to make e-mail addresses any different from other addresses.”

But in actuality Drozda's bill goes a step further, protecting e-mail addresses not only from duplication, but also from any form of inspection, meaning any e-mail lists maintained by the government could be completely secret.

The Perspective discussed the bill with, and showed it to, several attorneys, all of whom said Drozda misunderstood his own legislation.

And while Drozda stressed that e-mail lists should not be completely sheltered from the public, McKillip said exactly the opposite.

“It seems odd to allow it to be inspected,” McKillip said, “when somebody who wants to sit there for weeks on end could just copy them all down.” * * *

William Groth, Nees' lawyer, said the legislation would allow public officials to create “a new secretive mode of communication,” by simply corresponding by e-mail instead of standard mail.

“If anything we ought to be making documents more open to the public not less, and this measurement, as I understand it, represents a step backwards,” Groth said.

But McKillip said the need for an open government is outweighed by the potential for abuse.

“There's just a litany of very destructive things that could happen as the (e-mail) list could get passed, possibly from person to person to person,” McKillip said.

[Updated 1/20/06] This thought occurred to me this morning. What about voter rolls? See this ILB entry from 3/28/04 about access to voter registration information.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 19, 2006 09:56 PM
Posted to Indiana Law