The Problem?

Under the current Washington Public Disclosure Law, any person (including criminals and terrorists) can request and must receive general rosters of peace officers from every city, county and/or state police agency in Washington.

This means that a person with hostile intentions toward law enforcement, our state and/or our citizens and infrastructure can and will obtain a list that contains the full names, dates of birth and photograph of every commissione d officer from any agency. This will easily allow criminals to create a database of all Washington peace officers. Further, with the full names and dates of birth of our law enforcement professionals, criminals will be able to go on-line (to a website like Sound Politics.com – which contains the personally identifying information (including home address) of every registered Washington voter to obtain the home addresses of our commissioned officers.

This practice makes our commissioned officers vulnerable. By extension, this practice makes every citizen of this state vulnerable.

The Solution.

The dates of birth of commissioned officers must be exempted from public disclosure.

The full, legal names (first, middle, last) of commissioned officers must be exempted from disclosure when the request is for a roster of all, most, or a significant number of commissioned officers.

The photographs of commissioned officers must be exempted from disclosure when the request is for photos of all, most, or a significant number of commissioned officers.