Senate Bill 420, which I have addressed before in this blog, appears to create a number of serious problems for people who want easy access to public information.
The bill would make it a crime to print the addresses or other information about public officials, whether they are elected or appointed, on the Internet. Officials interviewed for an article in today's Kansas City Star say it would be impossible to do and they would simply have to remove all records from the Internet. Of course, the proponents of the bill say people could go back to the old fashioned way of looking up records...going to whatever courthouse you need to go to and laboriously digging them up. The same people who say that are probably people who have the ability to order other people to do their digging for them.
The compliance officer for the Missouri Ethics Commission notes that the law requires that the names and addresses of those who contribute to political candidates must be filed on campaign disclosure forms. If the bill is signed by Governor Matt Blunt, who reportedly is still thinking it over, those forms would probably no longer be on the Internet.
Plus, as I have mentioned before, this would also require the removal of information on court websites about public officials who are involved in criminal or civil cases. The portion of the bill that involves internet records was the idea of the late Richard Byrd, according to the Star. Byrd reportedly added the amendment following the murder of an Illinois judge's family.
While Byrd's intentions were no doubt honorable, it should be remembered, people who want to do harm, unfortunately, will find other ways to get hold of the information they are seeking.
All a bill like SB 420 does is throw roadblocks in the way of honest, hard-working taxpayers.
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