Williams: State must stop fighting privacy activist

Stop the fight.

The commonwealth of Virginia should end this foolishness and concede the point to Hanover County activist B.J. Ostergren.

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Ostergren may resume posting the Social Security numbers of Virginia legislators, court clerks and other officials on her Web site, as part of her protest that government sites make such numbers publicly available.

"I've had it in my hand since 5:30," Ostergren said Tuesday night of Judge Robert E. Payne's ruling. "And I immediately went about updating my Web site."

TheVirginiaWatchdog.com has featured the Social Security numbers of former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former CIA Director Porter Goss, as part of Ostergren's effort to warn folks in Virginia and beyond that their identities and privacy are being placed at risk by government Web sites.

She said she has downloaded close to 22,000 Social Security numbers from deeds, mortgages, tax liens and other documents obtained from the Web sites of circuit courts, registers of deeds and secretaries of state.

Some states sought to fix the problem by redacting the Social Security numbers, but not Virginia. The state decided that the person who brought the problem to their attention was the problem.

Last year, legislators passed a bill barring private citizens from disseminating Social Security numbers found in public records. The law was clearly aimed at Ostergren, who sued then-Attorney General Bob McDonnell.

After Tuesday's ruling, ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis said: "The government can't make these records available to the public then restrict what the public does with them. That violates free speech."

"Instead of trying to kill the messenger, the Virginia General Assembly simply needs to make sure that Social Security numbers and other private information are removed from our publicly available records," said ACLU of Virginia Legal Director Rebecca K. Glenberg.

Perhaps the state wants a monopoly on privacy invasion, but the law is on Ostergren's side. She says she'll keep posting legislators' Social Security numbers until they pass a bill mandating 100 percent removal of the numbers from all government Web sites.

"I want people protected," she said. "And if they don't want to protect the citizens of this state, then I'm not protecting them."

Her fight began Aug. 27, 2002, when she learned that a Hanover courts Web site did not contain her Social Security number but something just as personal -- her signature.

"I said, 'Wait a minute. I don't want my signature on the Internet,'" she recalled

Since that day, "from 8:30 in the morning to 8:30 at night," she has been working the phones, alerting strangers that their private information was online. Her mission garnered national publicity for the voluble Ostergren. But a prophet is without honor in his own country -- or in this case, her own state.

"I'm out here for the little guy," she said. "Once they dug in their heels and I dug in mine, I wasn't quitting."

The attorney general's office is reviewing its options. But it's time state officials stopped feuding with Ostergren and fought to protect the privacy of Virginia's citizens.

Contact Michael Paul Williams at (804) 649-6815 or .