Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is this about shielding law enforcement from public scrutiny?
2. Aren’t dates of birth public information?
3. Isn’t there a public interest in the DOBs of law enforcement?
4. Since the proposed statute clearly requires agencies to disclose last names, years of birth and photographs of specific officers, won’t criminals be able to develop a roster anyway?
5. Don’t officers have to provide their full names on tickets; state their full names in court, and don’t their full names appear on subpoenas?
6. Since the information (full names, DOBs and photographs) can be obtained through various sources is there really a reason to protect it?
7. Is it really necessary to prevent all photographs from being disseminated?
8. When officers are commissioned aren’t their names read during a public ceremony? Couldn’t a database be developed this way?
9. The media claims that full Names and DOBs in databases are “critical components” for investigations of public employees. Doesn’t this include commissioned officers?
10. What if a police agency refuses to release internal investigation records or redacts the names of the officers in those records?
11. Isn’t the threat that a criminal organization will use a public records request to establish a database of law enforcement too far-fetched to be reasonable?

Is this about shielding law enforcement from public scrutiny?

NO! Bill 2490 is not about trying to hide matters of public import; to protect agencies or the personnel of these agencies from reasonable levels of public scrutiny; or from the consequences of actions or conduct of an officer or a law enforcement agency. It is about providing commissioned officers with just enough protection to allow them to continue to focus on public safety and public protection.

Under the current Public Disclosure Act, if general rosters containing the personally identifying information of law enforcement is disseminated pursuant to one (legitimate) request, there is no way to prevent this information from being disseminated to organized crime entities or terrorist organizations. (See, RCW 42.56.080).

This is only about preventing the dissemination of peace officers’ DOB and preventing criminals from easily being able to create databases of Washington peace officers. Terror groups (both domestic and international) will use what ever means necessary to gain a tactical advantage over law enforcement. The release of general rosters constitutes a tactical advantage for criminals and this cannot be allowed to continue.

If Bill 2490 is passed, individuals and media entities will still be able to request and receive the names, years of birth and photographs of individual employees. Additionally, Bill 2490 would have no impact on the release of such information like internal investigative records each law enforcement agency completes on its employees.

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Aren’t dates-of-birth public information?

No. Just because dates of birth (DOBs) can be obtained does not make them public information. Every person has a privacy interest in his/her own date of birth. That dates of birth are recorded in various venues does not constitute a blanket waiver of privacy on this matter. Participation in our modern, technology-based society that makes such personal information more easily obtainable does not magically transfer “personal information” into “public information.”

That it is the policy of Washington State to consider DOBs “public information” could be one of the reasons Washington is the 8th worst state in the country for identity theft.

Some argue that we routinely give out our DOBs (at restaurants for birthday specials, for gym memberships, etc.) and certainly some people do. Most law enforcement professionals do not. This population is more likely to safeguard their full names and DOBs than any other. They take identity theft reports every day and can see first-hand how devastating being the victim of this crime can be.

The federal Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPPA) prohibits the disclosure of information, including DOBs, that identifies individuals. 24 U.S.C. Sec. 1320(d)(6); 45 C.F.R. Sec. 164.501; 45 C.F.R Sec. 164.514(b)(2)(i)(C). And Congress enacted the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act of 1998 which criminalizes the theft of another person’s date of birth or other personally identifying information to fraudulently establish credit, incur debt, or capture financial accounts. Public Law 105 – 318 (1998).

With a full name, a date of birth and a stolen credit card criminals are easily able to obtain social security numbers of anyone. It would be an added bonus for criminals to target law enforcement professionals.

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Isn’t there a public interest in the DOBs of law enforcement?

No. Dates of birth (DOBs) are necessary only to properly identify an individual. There is no public interest in this information as it pertains to commissioned peace officers.

The process of becoming commissioned as peace officers for the State of Washington necessarily means that a successful applicant has gone through interviews, oral boards, an FBI fingerprint check, a psychological profile, the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Academy or the Washington State Patrol Academy AND a polygraph examination. (See, RCW 43.101.095). At the time of hire, no commissioned employee will have a criminal history or a background that should have precluded their hiring.

Every single commissioned officer can definitively, and sufficiently for media purposes, be tracked and identified through the dissemination of the last name and badge number. Badge numbers are unique to each commissioned employee.

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Since the proposed statute clearly requires agencies to disclose last names, years of birth and photographs of specific officers, won’t criminals be able to develop a roster anyway?

The purpose of this statute is to prevent a criminally inclined individual or entity from easily developing or maintaining a general roster of all of an agency’s commissioned peace officers. It is highly unlikely that a person with criminal intent would even consider submitting 1,000 separate public disclosure requests for the purpose of obtaining the information on every state trooper or 1,200 separate public disclosure requests for every Seattle police officer. And, if someone WAS inclined to take this action, it would attract the attention of law enforcement in a big hurry.

The purpose of Bill 2490 is NOT to shield commissioned peace officers from the public eye. The public has the right and responsibility to be able to identify specific officers who have done something (be it good or bad) that generates legitimate public interest. The law enforcement community does not want to infringe upon the First Amendment and this proposed legislation does not do this. All it does is to make it harder and less cost-effective for criminal elements to identify and track them.

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Don’t officers have to provide their full names on tickets; state their full names in court, and don’t their full names appear on subpoenas?

No. Even name badges worn by officers contain only initials and last names.

1. Most officers do NOT provide their full, legal names on tickets or reports. A significant majority of officers use only their initials, last name and badge number. Others might use their first and last name. Some officers only use their last name and badge number. But you will almost certainly not find a peace officer who uses his/her first, middle, and last name on a ticket or report.

2. Most officers will state their first and last name for the record when testifying in court. They do not provide first, middle and last names. Further, most will not identify whether or not they are a “junior,” “senior,” etc. Some officers will only identify themselves as “Trooper Lastname” or “Officer Lastname.”

3. Subpoenas vary, but will often contain only a trooper’s title, last name, and badge number or a trooper’s title, first initial and last name, and badge number. Subpoenas do not contain the full legal name of a commissioned officer – unless (of course) that officer uses his/her full legal name on tickets or reports.

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Since the information (full names, DOBs and photographs) can be obtained through various sources is there really a reason to protect it?

Absolutely, YES! That the information can be obtained by a truly determined individual does not mean that there is an automatic obligation to disseminate the information – particularly where the dissemination can and will be used to substantially and irreparably damage vital government functions.

On October 9, 2007 the FBI issued a bulletin to Texas Law Enforcement because members of the Aryan Brotherhood were actively working to create a database of state troopers and Dallas PD. Texas does not disseminate general rosters of its law enforcement officers so this criminal organization was required to gather the names of officers the “hard” way. The plan of the Brotherhood was to obtain the full names of the officers and then “ the Aryan Brotherhood would cross reference the names with other databases to locate an officer's residence, telephone number and undercover status.” (FBI: White Supremacist Group Targeting DPD, by Jay Gormley, Cbs11tv.com, October 9, 2007.)

Because Texas does not serve up their peace officers’ personally identifying information on a silver platter (the way Washington State does), the Brotherhood had to expend a great deal of personnel, time, and effort to try to gather the information the old fashion way. Because of this, the FBI found out about these efforts before the database could be created and before such a database could be used to harm the citizens of Texas.

If Texas had the same public policy of Washington State, the Aryan Brotherhood could have simply paid a random person (with no connection to the Brotherhood) $5,000 to submit a public disclosure request. Then, the Brotherhood would have received the full legal names, the dates of birth and the photographs of every commissioned member of the Texas Highway Patrol and the Dallas Police Department and this request would not have attracted any attention and would not have resulted in an FBI alert.

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Is it really necessary to prevent all photographs from being disseminated?

Yes. Photographs of all of an agency’s commissioned officers would be a valuable tool in the hands of criminals. Facial recognition systems are computer-based security systems that are able to automatically detect and identify human faces and are becoming increasingly available. Organized crime entities would merely have to take a photograph of a new associate and run it against a facial recognition program to identify undercover operatives. Additionally, photographs would allow criminals to visually identify officers when they are off-duty and in their own neighborhoods. This places officers and their families at elevated risk.

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When officers are commissioned aren’t their names read during a public ceremony? Couldn’t a database be developed this way?

It is very unlikely that a criminal organization would have a representative at every single commissioning and/or graduation ceremony throughout the State of Washington for the sole purpose of recording the names of every newly made officer. This is an activity that would put those with criminal intent in very close contact with hundreds of law enforcement professionals – and is generally something most criminals would prefer to avoid.

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The media claims that full names and DOBs in databases are “critical components” for investigations of public employees. Doesn’t this include commissioned officers?

No. DOBs, combined with full, legal names are only important to accurately identify, track and run criminal background checks on specific individuals. Time after time, investigative reporters have uncovered instances where public agencies across this country have hired individuals with criminal records. (See, e.g. Educators’ past crimes uncovered by Dianna Hunt of the Fort Worth Star Telegram, Sep. 9, 2001, in which 200 public school employees were discovered to have convictions that included rape and drug use.) Other public employees are not screened as thoroughly as law enforcement applicants. The process of becoming commissioned as peace officers for the State of Washington necessarily means that a successful applicant has gone through interviews, oral boards, an FBI fingerprint check, a psychological profile, an academy (like the WSP academy) AND a polygraph examination. See, RCW 43.101.095). At the time of hire, no commis sioned employee will have a criminal history or a background that should have precluded their hiring.

Further, law enforcement agencies police and monitor their own employees in a way that is not duplicated by other public agencies. In addition to being able to easily conduct criminal records and driving records checks of its employees, law enforcement agencies require their employees to notify their supervisors if they are arrested on any charge. (See, e.g. pages 131 and 132 of the 2007 WSP Regulation Manual.) Officers who are arrested or have engaged or are alleged to have engaged in misconduct are the subject of internal investigations. Individuals and media entities can and do regularly request the internal investigation records for police agencies and Bill 2490 will not prevent that in any way.

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What if a police agency refuses to release internal investigation records or redacts the names of the officers in those records?

We don’t know of any police agency that refuses to release their internal investigation records and we’ve only heard of one department that redacted the names of the officers who were investigated. (See, e.g. Part 1 of the Undue Influence series written by Eric Nalder and Lewis Kamb of the Seattle Post Intelligencer: A broken system works in favor of cops busted for DUI, dated August 6, 2007 that described “stack[s] of internal investigative records” that were requested, received and reviewed by the reporters.

Should an agency refuse to release the requested information, the person or entity can file suit under the Public Records Act as was done in City of Seattle v. KIRO-TV, (2006) Cause No. 06-2-26197-6-SEA and KIRO-TV v. City of Tacoma, (2003) Cause No. 03-2-10567-3. In both of those cases, KIRO-TV prevailed and the two cities were ordered release the requested informatio n, to pay a fine for every day the requested information was wrongfully withheld, and to pay the attorney fees incurred by KIRO-TV.

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Isn’t the threat that a criminal organization will use a public records request to establish a database of law enforcement too far-fetched to be reasonable?

Perhaps in the days before 9/11 this would have been the case, but not any more. We simply cannot afford to underestimate criminal organizations. Washington is a terrorist target. Seattle is one of the major West Coast cities; Spokane has an international airport; a nuclear reservation, and the Washington ferry system is the largest in the country.

The FBI has investigated more than 150 incidents involving possible terrorist surveillance of the ferry systems as recently as summer 2007. ("Our conclusion was that there was an extremely high likelihood . . . there was pre-operation planning" for a terrorist attack on the ferry system, said supervisory intelligence analyst Ted Turner of Seattle's FBI office.) And there was an attempt to build a terrorist training camp in Bly, Oregon (located approximately 500 miles from Seattle).

Washington State is not just vulnerable to foreign terrorists. We also have to contend with entities like the Aryan Brotherhood, the Hell’s Angels, MS-13, and Russian and Mexican organized crime outfits. The Aryan Brotherhood was identified trying to compile a database of Texas law enforcement officers on October 9, 2007. Had they been successful, they could have used such a database to locate, kill and/or injure law enforcement officers and their families. Such a database would have a chilling effect on the ability of law enforcement professionals to protect and serve because these officers would be deterred from investigating members of that group for fear that they or their families would be the target of retaliation.

So much legislative effort is reactive. Bills are passed into law in response to some event or some tragedy. On a matter as serious as this, it is critical to be proactive. We don’t need a tragedy to recognize that general rosters of law enforcement in the hands of criminals is something that must be prevented.

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