Brickbat: Too Much Information

Teresa Kenney / Dreamstime.com

The California Department of Justice gave a Southern California Public Radio reporter the personal information of 3,424 firearms instructors, including their dates of birth and driver's license numbers. The information was supposed to be redacted when the department responded to an open records request from the reporter. The department discovered the error two months later.

Comments

[esteve7]

lolol.

There's a reason the only unionized IT workers are in the gov't sector...

[Suthenboy]

Watching in real time it always seems to me that it takes too long for places like California to finish circling the drain and finally go down. Looking back I am always amazed at how fast it happens.

Isnt their state board of equalization working on an aggressive scheme to end income inequality? I can only hope that as the wealthy flee the state in droves they will be turned back at the border.

[Libertarian]

Why would they turn back the wealthy? They're just doing their part to accelerate the equalization. They should be subsidized!

[Suthenboy]

Wealthy or not, who wants those retards in their state? They will just turn your state into California. They are mostly responsible for what is happening in CA, let them sleep in the bed they made.

[Colonel Slanders]

^^^This

[The Hyperbole]

"This privacy breach is just another example of the California Department of Justice's disregard for the rights of gun owners," Jennifer Baker, director of public affairs for the NRA

Meh, incompetence seems more likely than malice.

[Ted S.]

If they were dealing with anybody but gun owners, I'd agree with you.

[SomeGuy]

yea i hae to agree on ted on this one...i am calling bullshit

when ever do we get extra information in FOIAs? Never? Hell half the time they try to deny them.

[straffinrun]

Yep. Ever notice how when you get the wrong change it's usually a shortchange?

[Rat's instance]

It could be a bit of each.

[Deep Lurker]

That's the most likely scenario: That leaving the information unredacted was initially a mistake, but that at least one person noticed and instead of correcting the mistake like they were supposed to, they let the unredacted version go out due to malice against gun owners.

[RaymondhW]

I'm not so sure it's anything but a mistake. Confidentiality breaches is one of the few ways you can get fired as a California government employee. You usually don't risk pension based jobs out of malice. Especially on things that don't advance your political agenda. They may hate guns but releasing this information to a reporter has about as much impact as releasing a redacted version for your cause. Their drivers licenses, dates of birth etc might help identify thieves but it's not really helping the reporter much.

[Deep Lurker]

Yes, but just how likely is this particular confidentiality breach to get anyone fired? Especially someone who merely failed to speak up when they noticed it?

[Jerryskids]

"But I'd imagine that NPR would never publish this info and would likely just rip it up."

The reporter, who the NRA-ILA identifies as Aaron Mendelson, acknowledged in his FOIA request that part of his request would be redacted.

"?Please inform me of the redaction and the legal justification for it," said the request, which was obtained by FoxNews.com.

An NPR reporter in California trying to get as much information on firearms instructors as he can. I wonder if he was doing some sort of Consumer Reports-type story trying to find the best firearms instructors in the state. I suppose there's some slight possibility he's anti-Second Amendment and was digging for a negative angle to some story he was working on, but it would be premature to speculate as to what sort of reporting he was doing if this news article didn't bother mentioning it.

[Jerryskids]

Do licensed instructors in Cali get some sort of exemption from limitations on the amounts of ammo or number of guns they can buy in a certain time period maybe? I know there are gun collectors who get their FFL just to make it easier to buy and sell and ship their own guns even though they're not actually in the business - was this guy working on some "alarming" story on the numbers of "phony" instructors who get licensed just so they can secretly stockpile guns and ammo in amounts no reasonable person could possibly need?

[thrakkorzog]

So what would you consider a reasonable amount of ammo?

[Suthenboy]

I recall Jerry Miculek telling the story of his first surplus Mauser K98, or maybe it was a Yugo M48, and his purchase of 36,000 rounds of surplus 8x57 he purchased dirt cheap after the fall of the USSR. He said he learned more about how to shoot a rifle accurately burning through that than anything else he has done.

Seems reasonable to me.

[SomeGuy]

Any amount of ammo is reasonable...fuck off slaver!!!!!!!

[SomeGuy]

I explicitly mail my ammo to UPS in Gary IN so i don't have to deal with FOID card bullshit, which is unconstitutional. I drive from Chicago suburbs to Gary to pick up my ammo to give the finger to IL taxes and FOID law.

I still have a FOID card but i am not faxing that shit to have ammo mailed to my house. I rather just drive to Gary and say fuck IL.

[Radioactive]

it's not over kill if you have enough ammo...

[Radioactive]

but as a lower estimate I'll go with Avogadro's number in various calibers

[Mr Lizard]

Overkill is underrated!

*puffs cigar while trying to look smug, then violently coughs*

[Radioactive]

roger, over...what's the vector Victor?

[AlmightyJB]

Anyone who shoots as a hobby will have several thousand rounds at any given time. Buying bulk in lots of 500 to 1000 saves money and if you have several different caliber guns, well you do the math. Most probably keep more now, after all of the price instability of the last administration. Incentives, how do they work.

[SomeGuy]

The law actually requires you to be FFL certified if you buy or sell a lot even if you dont intend to be in the business of selling. The feds assume its a business if you sell whatever amount they deem at a whim to be a dealer. If you dont get FFL cert the feds will imprison you.

This has happened in the past and why many collectors actually just get certified to cover their ass but at the same time they are more liable too because of records laws.

The whole thing is made to trip people up so they can charge you with a crime.

[Brendan]

Federally, no license is required for ammunition dealers.

[dantheserene]

I agree, certainly can't go jumping to conclusions about an NPR reporter's motives now, can we? Stout fellows, all of them. It wouldn't be cricket to assume.

[Radioactive]

chirp, chirp, chirp....

[straffinrun]

And nothing will be done to effectively make sure this never happens again.

[Longtobefree]

WOW!! California government employees found an error in only two months? And Admitted it?
Maybe we should rethink forcing them to secede.

[Radioactive]

I concur...well re-thought the proposition and still think they should secede...or we could wait for the "big one" to scrape the coast line clear and start over a few miles inland...

[buddhastalin]

If a private entity committed this breach, it would be getting a call from the attorney general and face a possible civil class action. But since the government committed this breach, no one gives a shit, it's just another day, another government fuck up. The state constantly enacts rules and statutes that impose requirements that the state itself couldn't even comply with. States need to be subject to the same penalties and liabilities that private citizens are at risk of suffering. Maybe that would get the state to think twice before it inundates us with its rules.

[Fileorg]

Thanks.

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