VA-ALERT 03/17/07 - FOIA Council to look at CHP database

It's very unfortunate for gun owners that the Roanoke Times (RT) has acted so irresponsibly with respect to the CHP holder list.

The RT's reckless actions have endangered lives, as there are people on that CHP list who are under threat from violent ex-spouses or from criminals they have helped put in jail.

I have been returning calls from concerned gun owners and the stories are heartbreaking and intense. One woman's mother wakens at the slightest sound in the middle of the night and she calls the police and her daughter. She is living in constant fear that the person who has threatened to kill her has now found her address complements of the Roanoke Times.

Fortunately, your combined efforts shutdown the database within one day, hopefully before too many bad guys had a chance to use it.

I called the Fredericksburg Freelance-Press and the King George Journal-Press on Friday. Both papers are still printing the names and other information on local CHP holders.

I explained the seriousness of what they are doing. I said that there is nothing to be gained by printing permit holder information, but a lot to be lost.

I am going to give them a few days to consider their future actions. Hopefully they will agree that the practice should stop in consideration of the safety of permit holders.

What those two papers decide will determine VCDL's future actions. VCDL will not tolerate the status quo. I will keep you posted as things evolve. Hopefully both papers will be reasonable about this.

The Roanoke Times has not apologized to gun owners yet for what they did. Blaming the Virginia State Police isn't going to cut it. Some people need to lose their jobs at RT over this. Barring those things happening, we will have a course of action in dealing with RT next week - we are in the preparatory stages currently.

VCDL has been getting copies of the CHP list for ten years now. So have other gun organizations. For VCDL and the VCDL-PAC that list has been important in our fight for the rights of all gun owners.

We have been good stewards of that information. It has never been released outside of VCDL's leadership and it has always been used judiciously by the group.

VCDL has 3,300 members. There are 140,000 CHP holders. That means that VCDL has about 3% of the CHP holders as members. The good news there is that most of those 3% are strong activists, the bad news is that 3% is a small number nonetheless.

VCDL and the VCDL-PAC have never used the list primarily for recruitment. Sometimes we include in a membership brochure to introduce the group, answer questions about us, and give the permit holder the ability to join if they so choose.

The list is used whenever we needed a lot of gun owners in a specific area to take some action:

* VCDL has used the list to alert permit holders on critical issues requiring them to contact their legislators and urge the legislators to take certain actions. The list allows lots of mail from **constituents** in a given district, magnifying our strength since the reality is that 3,300 members are very diluted in any given legislative district. It's easy to see that 140,000 gun owners are a whole lot less diluted. To give you an idea, there are three times as many permit holders in Chesterfield County alone as there are VCDL members in the entire organization.

* VCDL has used the list to notify local permit holders of situations where we need them to turn out. We mailed 400 Manassas permit holders and asked them to show up at the recent Manassas City Council meeting. No doubt that many gun owners at that meeting were their because of that mailing. We did a mailing to Norfolk permit holders when we were trying to get Norfolk to let us carry in their parks (before we had full preemption laws in place). Staunton, Newport News, Smithfield - the examples go on and on.

* The VCDL-PAC has used that list to turn out CHP holders in important districts to vote in a primary and/or an election. Who has benefited from that? Jeff Frederick, Ken Cuccinelli, and Jackson Miller are three examples. This year is going to be critical to cleaning up the Senate and getting new pro-gun Delegates in some specific House seats - the CHP list will help the VCDL-PAC reach a lot of gun owners in the targeted districts. Electing pro-gun legislators is critical to our continued success in the General Assembly. We don't want to go back to the bad old days when the vast majority of gun bills introduced in the General Assembly were anti-gun and pro-gun bills never saw the light of day.

It is extremely unlikely that any action on the CHP list will occur before next year, when the General Assembly meets again. However, I have been in touch with various pro-gun Delegates, Senators, and with Lt. Governor Bill Bolling's office on this matter, so far. I plan on attending the FOIA Council meeting discussed below to represent VCDL on Monday.

In the meantime, VCDL is extremely concerned about the situation and the Board is deciding on the best way to proceed. Since we have time, we want to take careful, measured steps and not rush into a solution that might not be effective or unnecessarily hurt gun owners or diminish VCDL's effectiveness.

Regardless of the CHP list's future we have an immediate need to stop the Freelance-Star and the Journal-Press from printing any more CHP holder information and we will be concentrating on that in the short run.

Taking Delegate Morgan Griffith's lead, next year might be the time to push even harder for Alaska Carry, where a permit is not needed to carry concealed, but is available for reciprocity reasons should someone want one. With Alaska Carry you can carry concealed and not be on anybody's list!

On a final note, this whole situation should serve as a reminder to all of us to reevaluate our personal security. Simply having a gun doesn't guarantee security, it just gives you additional options. If you are concerned about your privacy, go online and do a search for your name and carefully examine the information that appears. You might be unpleasantly surprised at what's already available.

The panel is expected to form a work group to examine whether the General Assembly should restrict public access to concealed handgun information.

A state senator who heads an open records council is calling for a study of whether the identities of Virginians who have permits to carry concealed handguns should remain public.

Sen. Edd Houck, a Spotsylvania County Democrat who chairs the state's Freedom of Information Council, made the request in the wake of controversy generated by The Roanoke Times.

Earlier this week, the newspaper published and then pulled from its Web site a database containing the names and addresses of about 135,000 state residents who have obtained court permission to carry concealed handguns.

Although the information is public record, hundreds of readers and permit holders have complained that making the data so easily accessible on the Internet invaded their privacy and could make them targets of crime.

House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, who is the vice chairman of the FOI council, said other people -- himself included -- who don't carry concealed handguns could also be put at risk.

"Maybe I need to be on that list," Griffith said. "I'm such a strong gun advocate that I thought I was safe because people just assumed that I had one. Now they know that I don't."

The council is expected to form a work group when it meets Monday in Richmond. After researching the issue and holding public hearings, the group will make recommendations that could lead next year's General Assembly to restrict or eliminate access to concealed handgun information.

One proposal is that Virginia follow the lead of Vermont, the only state that does not require its residents to obtain a permit to carry a concealed handgun. "There are people advocating that," Griffith said, adding that he was not sure how far that idea might go. [Again VCDL would prefer Alaska Carry over Vermont Carry as it leaves the permit as an option for reciprocity reasons - PVC]

The issue hit a flash point Sunday, when the database was posted on roanoke.com to supplement an opinion piece about open government by editorial writer Christian Trejbal.

As angry reaction flooded the newspaper's phone lines and Web site, president and publisher Debbie Meade announced Monday that the database was being taken down out of concerns that Virginia State Police, who released the information at the paper's request, might have included the names of crime victims in violation of state law.

The next day, state police said that was not the case. In fact, the state Freedom of Information Advisory Council issued an opinion in 2001 that found police are within their legal rights to release such data.

Houck said he decided to ask for the study after citizens called his office to complain about the newspaper. While it was not a great number of calls, "the intensity was pretty strong," he said.

"This is one of those classic issues where you've got personal privacy rights bumping up against the public's right to know."

The Roanoke Times' decision to post the names and addresses of registered gun owners in Virginia online has received criticism from Virginians, as they feel it unnecessarily exploits those with a permit. The column, published in the Sunday's edition of "The Roanoke Times," was written by editorial writer Christian Trejbal, and included an accompanying online list indicating Virginia gun owners. The column was written in celebration of Sunshine Week, a time where we reflect on the importance of open government and public records. While the column was intended to celebrate open public records, it was poorly written, even alluding that gun owners are comparable to sexual offenders, saying, "A state that eagerly puts sex offender data online complete with an interactive map could easily do the same with gun permits, but it does not."

While it is the right of "The Roanoke Times" to post the information they received, as it is open record, whenever a news organization puts open record information out to the public, they should be cautious of what the ramifications could be. "The Roanoke Times" was hasty in the way they put their information online. Recent questions regarding the validity of the list has led to the editors' recent decision to remove the online database of registered concealed handgun permit holders from its website.

"Out of a sense of caution and concern for the public we have decided to take the database off our website," said Debbie Meade, president and publisher of "The Roanoke Times," in a statement published in the online edition of the paper.

Media outlets have a responsibility to their readers to not do something for shock value. Gun registry information could be beneficial to people, as there are advantages to knowing the information, however, they should have been more cautious before putting information up and standing behind it. Putting the information online and then taking it down shows they did not put enough planning or time into ensuring the validity of the data.

Tejbal should not have been the one write the column in the first place. It is open government week, not bash gun owner week; a news writer should have written the column.

While we are completely for open government, exposing the public to information should be a conscious decision. While "The Roanoke Times" definitely had a right to publish the information, they should be willing to stand behind it. Journalists need to know their readers and realize they cannot alienate them simply on the basis of open government.

VA-ALERT is a project of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, Inc. (VCDL). VCDL is an all-volunteer, non-partisan grassroots organization dedicated to defending the human rights of all Virginians. The membership considers the Right to Keep and Bear Arms to be an essential human right.

1 posted on 03/18/2007 1:25:29 PM PDT by Perseverando

2 posted on 03/18/2007 1:35:13 PM PDT by Calpernia (Breederville.com)

3 posted on 03/18/2007 1:46:42 PM PDT by Gabz (I like mine with lettuce and tomato, heinz57 and french-fried potatoes)

BUMP!

4 posted on 03/18/2007 2:35:57 PM PDT by Publius6961 (MSM: Israelis are killed by rockets; Lebanese are killed by Israelis.)

I've said before that this reporter may have actually done us a favor. This may be the impetus required to secure this information.

On the flip side I sincerely hope that no one is harmed by someone maliciously using it either.

5 posted on 03/18/2007 4:29:30 PM PDT by P8riot (I carry a gun because I can't carry a cop.)

Both are valid points.

6 posted on 03/18/2007 5:23:39 PM PDT by Gabz (I like mine with lettuce and tomato, heinz57 and french-fried potatoes)

Go VCDL, I am proud to be a member of this fine group of people. Together we can do anything.

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