For decades, the Supreme Court has broadly held that “[p]ublic records by their very nature are of interest to those connected with the administration of government, and a public benefit is performed by the reporting of the true contents of the records by the media.” Thus, several cases demonstrate that the First Amendment protects the right to publish highly personal information of private individuals, such as the names of rape victims and juveniles involved in legal proceedings, when they relate to matters of public concern. [Footnote: See, e.g., Florida Star B.J.F. (1989).]

Viewed in isolation, the legislators’ home address and phone numbers may not, in and of themselves, constitute “a matter of public significance.” But when considered in the specific context of Plaintiffs’ speech — political protest, which is “core political speech,” with First Amendment protection “at its zenith” — the information takes on new meaning.

Publius searched publicly available documents and compiled, and headednorth reposted, the legislators’ personal information specifically in response to legislation that required the government to maintain a database with the personal information of individuals who buy firearms and ammunition in California. When viewed in that context of political speech, the legislators’ personal information becomes a matter of public concern…. “Speech deals with matters of public concern when it can be fairly considered as relating to any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community[.]” … [S]ee also Org. for a Better Austin v. Keefe (1971) (holding injunction on dispersing pamphlets with realtor’s home phone number and urging recipients to call him to urge certain political stance was prior restraint that violated First Amendment).

Four cases on which Plaintiffs primarily rely support this proposition well: Florida Star; Brayshaw v. City of Tallahassee (N.D. Fla. 2010); Sheehan v. Gregoire (W.D. Wash. 2003); and Ostergren v. Cuccinelli (4th Cir. 2010).

Florida Star involved a challenge to a Florida statute (“§ 794.03”) that made “it unlawful to ‘print, publish, or broadcast … in any instrument of mass communication’ the name of the victim of a sexual offense.” A sheriff’s department investigating a reported rape “prepared a report, which identified [the victim] by her full name, and placed it in the Department’s press room,” which was open to the public. A reporter for The Florida Star “copied the press report verbatim, including [the victim’s] full name,” and subsequently published her full name in an article about the reported crime and the department’s investigation of it….

The Supreme Court … held the First Amendment prohibited imposing liability on The Florida Star for publishing the victim’s name under the circumstances of the case. The Court held that “the article generally, as opposed to the specific identity contained within it, involved a matter of paramount public import: the commission, and investigation, of a violent crime which had been reported to authorities.” The Court therefore concluded that, under its precedent, the article concerned “a matter of public significance.”

In Brayshaw, the plaintiff truthfully posted the personal information of a peace officer, including her personal address, phone number, and email, all of which was publicly available. The plaintiff was charged with a misdemeanor for violating a Florida statute that provided:

The court rather summarily rejected the government’s argument that the plaintiff’s speech was unprotected because it was not a matter of public significance. The court found that the issue of police accountability was “of legitimate public interest,” and the “publication of truthful personal information about police officers is linked” to that interest “through aiding in achieving service of process, researching criminal history of officers, organizing lawful pickets, and other peaceful and lawful forms of civic involvement that publicize the issue.”

Sheehan involved an overbreadth challenge to a Washington statute that provided:

The plaintiff removed from his website the personal information of numerous officials covered by the statute, then challenged it as overbroad. As in Brayshaw, the court found the officials’ personal information to be a matter of public concern because it was related to the issue of police accountability and could be relevant “to achieve service of process, research criminal history, and to ‘organize an informational picket [at individual officers’ homes] or other lawful forms of civic involvement to force accountability.’”

Ostergren, a case Plaintiffs characterize as “closely analogous” to this one, is particularly illustrative here. In that case, the plaintiff brought an as-applied challenge to a Virginia statute that prohibited “[i]ntentionally communicat[ing] another individual’s social security number (‘SSN’) to the general public.” “Calling attention to Virginia’s practice of placing land records on the Internet without first redacting SSNs, [the plaintiff] displayed copies of Virginia land records containing unredacted SSNs on her website.” By doing so, she sought “to publicize her message that governments are mishandling SSNs and generate pressure for reform.” The information the plaintiff posted on her website was publicly available for a nominal fee, but her website made the public records “more accessible to the public than they [we]re through Virginia’s [records] system.”

Before she could be prosecuted for posting the SSNs on her website, the plaintiff challenged the Virginia statute as applied to her website on First Amendment grounds. As a threshold matter, the Fourth Circuit rejected the government’s position that unredacted SSNs are entirely unprotected speech under the First Amendment. The court reasoned that, in the plaintiff’s case, the unredacted SSNs “are integral to her message,” and, in fact, “they are her message” because her “[d]isplaying them proves Virginia’s failure to safeguard private information and powerfully demonstrates why Virginia citizens should be concerned.” Although the plaintiff could have redacted the SSNs, the First Amendment protected the plaintiff’s “freedom to decide how her message should be communicated.” The Fourth Circuit therefore concluded that the plaintiff’s speech “plainly concern[ed] a matter of public significance … because displaying the contents of public records and criticizing Virginia’s release of private information convey political messages that concern the public.

Florida Star, Brayshaw, Sheehan, and Ostergren thus show that highly personal information has public significance when inextricably associated with political speech. That principle applies here.

Plaintiffs oppose, among other things, California legislation that requires the creation and maintenance of a database run by the California Department of Justice that compiles the residential address and telephone number of anyone who purchases or transfers firearms ammunition in California. Plaintiffs’ means of protesting the legislation is by compiling their own “database” of the legislators’ residential addresses and phone numbers. Like the plaintiff in Ostergren, that information is not just “integral to [Plaintiffs’] message,” it is their message.

At its core, Plaintiffs’ speech is a form of political protest. The Court therefore finds that the legislators’ home address and telephone number touch on matters of public concern in the context of Plaintiffs’ speech.