# Website lists policeman's home addresses, tel and SS #'s- Any legal way to stop him? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 13, 2003, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-lists-policemans-home-addresses-tel-and-ss-s-any-legal-way-to-stop-him/188112 "2003-07-13T05:12:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2003, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-lists-policemans-home-addresses-tel-and-ss-s-any-legal-way-to-stop-him/188112/1 "2003-07-13T05:12:48Z")
Why isn’t he crossing any legal lines with this? I thought the SCOTUS had ruled (at some point) that there was some sort of right to privacy embedded in the constitution. From the NY Times [A Web Site Causes Unease in Police](http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/12/national/12NET.html?ex=1058587200&en=f58b93fbf29e6015&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE) > [@](#): > > William Sheehan does not like the police. He expresses his views about what he calls police corruption in Washington State on his Web site, where he also posts lists of police officers’ addresses, home phone numbers and Social Security numbers. > > State officials say those postings expose officers and their families to danger and invite identity theft. But neither litigation nor legislation has stopped Mr. Sheehan, who promises to expand his site to include every police and corrections officer in the state by the end of the year. ---
**Author:** ![Phoenix\_Dragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Phoenix\_Dragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phoenix_Dragon)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2003, 7:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-lists-policemans-home-addresses-tel-and-ss-s-any-legal-way-to-stop-him/188112/2 "2003-07-13T07:52:00Z")
Probably because all of the information he’s posting up there is publicly availible data, and all he’s doing is organizing it into a form that is more easy to search through. Anyone who wanted to know the information could find out another way. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2003, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-lists-policemans-home-addresses-tel-and-ss-s-any-legal-way-to-stop-him/188112/3 "2003-07-13T08:17:18Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Phoenix Dragon \* > **Probably because all of the information he’s posting up there is publicly availible data** Address and telephone number are publicly available data. But Social Security number? I’m not so sure about that. ---
**Author:** ![Phoenix\_Dragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Phoenix\_Dragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phoenix_Dragon)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2003, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-lists-policemans-home-addresses-tel-and-ss-s-any-legal-way-to-stop-him/188112/4 "2003-07-13T13:05:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pkbites \* > \*\*Address and telephone number are publicly available data. > But Social Security number? I’m not so sure about that. \*\* I wasn’t so sure about it myself, but the article states that he obtained it from publicly-availible sources, and that fact was the reason he could not be charged with a crime. Apparently there is a way, even though I’m not exactly sure what it is… ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2003, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-lists-policemans-home-addresses-tel-and-ss-s-any-legal-way-to-stop-him/188112/5 "2003-07-13T13:51:50Z")
I’m just waiting for someone to publish William Sheehan’s SSN, and then for someone else to rack up credit-card charges against him. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2003, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-lists-policemans-home-addresses-tel-and-ss-s-any-legal-way-to-stop-him/188112/6 "2003-07-13T16:41:30Z")
Interestingly, there was a column in my local paper today talking about degradation of open public records through changes in state laws - and one of the laws cited closed off access to municipal lists of addresses of police officers and firemen, supposedly for security reasons. The columnist noted that in '89, the paper ran a story showing that some police officers owned homes used for prostitution and/or illegal drug activity, and that the research for the story would be much harder to do now. Listing SS#s is the mark of a jerk, definitely. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2003, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-lists-policemans-home-addresses-tel-and-ss-s-any-legal-way-to-stop-him/188112/7 "2003-07-13T17:12:24Z")
I have mixed feelings about William Sheehan III. You have to admire him as a small guy seemingly fighting against big government. And, so far, the courts side with HIM. He seems to do this legally. But the side of him that shows he’s an egomaniacal gadfly, trying to punish the good along with the bad, is disconcerting. This isn’t his first foray into this kind of adventure. [http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:\_PEfSPaaGLcJ:www.phillipsnizer.com/library/cases/lib\_case78.cfm+“WILLIAM+SHEEHAN”+telephone&hl=en&ie=UTF-8](http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache:_PEfSPaaGLcJ:www.phillipsnizer.com/library/cases/lib_case78.cfm+%22WILLIAM+SHEEHAN%22+telephone&hl=en&ie=UTF-8) > [@](#): > > William Sheehan III v. King County, et al Plaintiff operated a website on which he criticized credit reporting agencies and debt collection services. The site also contained what the court characterized as “scurrilous expressions of opinion,” which labeled various agents and employees of the entities plaintiff was attacking as “assholes” and “jerkoffs.” In addition, plaintiff published the home addresses and telephone numbers of some of these individuals… this was a court victory he won in 1998 against a credit reporting agency. I don’t mean to say that he wasn’t correct, in that most of us view credit reporting agencies with much skepticism, but it indicates a pattern of a guy who is truly obsessed. He even posted _maps_ to the homes of attorneys and officials of Experian. ---
**Author:** ![buttonjockey308](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bcef8e/32.png) [@buttonjockey308](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buttonjockey308)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2003, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-lists-policemans-home-addresses-tel-and-ss-s-any-legal-way-to-stop-him/188112/8 "2003-07-13T17:37:37Z")
OK, the problem is… 1. Listing the SSN of another isn’t illegal per se, unless someone uses it for fraudulent activity, then both the poster and the person illegally using said info could, in some jurisdictions at least, be charged with fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud and possibly theft of interstate commerce among other things. 2. Yes in most states you can get the name and address of nearly anyone. What you cannot gather from a state owned database is where they work. Sheehan is a first class cocksucker for gathering and placing the information together. He puts countless cops, their SO’s and children at risk by doing so. I hope he needs the cops in WA state some day, and they come just a second too late. 3. Hopefully, Washington state allows it’s LEO’s and Firefighters to address their DL’s and vehicles to the municipality where they work (like illinois does). So one day on this filthy, rotten, two-bit, addle-brained, hotheaded, sub-moronic, asshats’ website, all the addresses will be the same. 4. Barring that, perhaps some criminal that the cops couldn’t catch because they were busy defending their families from people who sought revenge for previous arrests, will encounter him, carjack him, stuff him in the trunk, and leave him to rot in the heat on a deserted mountain road, not before pulling off all of his toe and fingernails with rusty pliers and sprinkling powdered salt in the 500 two inch long 1/4 inch deep razor cuts they leave all over his body. Bastard. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2003, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-lists-policemans-home-addresses-tel-and-ss-s-any-legal-way-to-stop-him/188112/9 "2003-07-13T18:17:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Barring that, perhaps some criminal that the cops couldn’t catch because they were busy defending their families from people who sought revenge for previous arrests, will encounter him, carjack him, stuff him in the trunk, and leave him to rot in the heat on a deserted mountain road, not before pulling off all of his toe and fingernails with rusty pliers and sprinkling powdered salt in the 500 two inch long 1/4 inch deep razor cuts they leave all over his body. By writing this kind of thing in a Great Debate, it makes you seem about as obsessed as Mr. Sheehan. Now if it were the Pit, then I might actually add to your post. ---
**Author:** ![j.c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/73ab20/32.png) [@j.c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j.c)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2003, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/website-lists-policemans-home-addresses-tel-and-ss-s-any-legal-way-to-stop-him/188112/10 "2003-07-14T06:52:28Z")
I think he’s okay as long as he doesn’t suggest he’s posting the info to help people hurt the cop. How could one determine that he was suggesting people use this info to hurt the cop? Well, that’s for the legal system to decide. You’ll be glad to know that if you chose to give your SS# to someone other than the gov. agencies which can legally require it, then that someone can do anything they like with it. Anything. This is what the gov says: > [@](#): > > We can’t prevent others from asking for your number. And we can’t control what uses are made of your number once you give it to someone. [http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10002.html#privacy](http://www.ssa.gov/pubs/10002.html#privacy) Privacy experts advocate a variety of strategies for keeping your SS# out of circulation. But that’s for another thread.