PARKLAND, Wash. – As Thomas Hobbes once observed, it is not wisdom, but authority that makes a law.
Given Hobbes’ general rationalist bent, he may well have meant that axiom as an endorsement of government as the proper source of law and order within a society, but read as a cautionary note, it’s squarely applicable to a legal dispute currently playing out in Washington State.
According to media reports, managers and dancers from the club Dream Girls in Parkland, Wash., have filed a lawsuit seeking to prevent Pierce County officials from releasing their business licenses pursuant to a recent public records request. The business licenses in question include the names, dates of birth, photos and other identifying information—information that could prove mighty handy to would-be stalkers—and the plaintiffs claim no legitimate purpose will be served by the disclosure.
While an attorney for the plaintiffs reportedly conceded it is lawful to release the licenses under Washington’s Public Records Act, he also asserted that disclosing the information contained in the licenses threatens the club workers’ safety and would violate both rights to privacy and free speech rights.
The point concerning the dancers’ safety clearly isn’t lost on Pierce County Auditor Julie Anderson, who said that her office notified 125 license holders at Fox—everyone from dancers and managers to the owner/operators—that a records request had been received and that the licenses would be released unless a court order was issued to block the release.
“Given the nature of the work performed by these people, I opted to give them a heads-up,” Anderson said.
The request was filed by a fellow named David Van Vleet, about whom the Associated Press reported nothing except that his mailing address is a post office box in Auburn, Wash. It’s not necessarily the case that Van Vleet wants the information for any nefarious purpose, but the potential is certainly there and it’s definitely on the mind of the plaintiffs in the case.
In the complaint, plaintiffs identified as Jane Roe 1 and 2 reportedly expressed concerns about their safety if the licenses are released. One of them, a manager, noted that she has a “no-contact” order in place protecting her from a former partner who abused her in the past. The manager worries that if Van Vleet the license information online, her current whereabouts would be revealed to her former partner.
The other unidentified plaintiff, a dancer, says she has a distinctive name, and that armed with just her name, a person could easily find out about her other job, the identity of her young daughter, her address, phone number and other information that could be used to harass or threaten her.
This isn’t the first time a Washington court has wrestled with issues of privacy surrounding such records, but in a previous instance, the known identity of the person who filed the request was more than sufficient to persuade the court to leave the identities of the workers unknown to the requester. That’s because the requester in that case was Robert Hill, an inmate in the Pierce County Jail, and a guy with three felony convictions on his record.
In that case, Superior Court Judge Ronald Culpepper found the the dancers had a “very reasonable fear” that releasing their license applications could put them at risk of harassment or other abuse at Hill’s hands. While Culpepper acknowledged the public had a “legitimate interest” in knowing the identities and backgrounds of strip club employees, the privacy concerns in the Hill case outweighed the right to know, at least as that right pertained to a convicted felon like Hill.
Will the concerns of the dancers in the new case be found to outweigh Van Vleet’s right to know? It’s hard to say. Attorneys appear to agree, generally, that the Public Records Act gives the state the right to release the information, but they also agree that a decision like Judge Culpepper’s wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility.
Regardless how the Dream Girls case plays out, Washington lawmakers could do a lot to ease the concerns of the plaintiffs and others like them, if they wished. There are reasonable limitations that could be placed on the data made available under the Public Records Act—limitations that would enable the state to comply with the spirit of the PRA without needlessly exposing dancers and strip club managers to potential harassment.
The legislature could allow the licenses to be released in redacted form, or limit their release to requests of a specific kind, or establish a statutory definition of “reasonable” unique to the PRA in order to prevent just any old Joe Schmoe from finding out the real name (and address) of a dancer who refused to give him that information directly, for example.
Will the Washington legislature do something along those lines? Probably not. Such an act would rely on legislators having the wisdom to do so. While it’s clear they have the authority, as ol’ Tom Hobbes would caution, the twain of wisdom and authority might never meet in Olympia.
