Judge Allows Privacy Advocate to Post Social Security Numbers
A federal judge has ruled the state of Virginia cannot force a woman to remove Social Security numbers of high-profile individuals from her website that she legally obtained from public records.
The woman, Betty “BJ” Ostergren, is a privacy advocate who is posting public property records to show how easy it is to obtain personal information, Computerworld reports. Officials whose Social Security numbers ended up on Ostergren’s website include former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
U.S. District Judge Robert Payne of Richmond, Va., struck down a law that barred the publication of Social Security numbers in an Aug. 22 opinion (PDF posted by the ACLU). Payne said a bar on publication of information in the public domain violates the First Amendment as applied to Ostergren’s website.
He said his ruling would have been “very different” if Ostergren had listed only the Social Security numbers rather than posting the records themselves.
Ostergren is represented by the ACLU of Virginia, the group said in a press release.
