My friend, Robert Wilson, came by and got my canoe last night to keep it until I get moved and situated. He’s running a fishing log called Fishingmatters that also acts as an anchor for his fishing mailing list. I think I need to get my fly rod out again and my license renewed.

Hmmm, It appears that the State of Washington believes that their officers of the court are entitled to more privacy than the rest of their citizenry.

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BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

     { NEW SECTION. } Sec. 1. A person or organization shall not,
with the intent to harm or intimidate, sell, trade, give, publish,
distribute, or otherwise release the residential address, residential
telephone number, birthdate, or social security number of any law
enforcement-related, corrections officer-related, or court-related
employee or volunteer, or someone with a similar name, and categorize
them as such, without the express written permission of the employee
or volunteer unless specifically exempted by law or court order.

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The bill goes on but more or less it is saying that while it will still be legal to print and publish names, addresses, phone numbers and other more personal but public information about the average Joe in Washington state, law enforcement officers’ personal but public information is protected.

It passed the state house and senate and is just waiting for the governor’s signature to become law. This is going to be interesting to see what constitutional arguments come out of this.

Shelley Powers tells us she’s being published by a non-tech publisher and also that she will be discontinuing her ‘blog while she searches for employment. Shelley, I’m really going to miss you but I understand the needs here. You have been the catalyst for a lot of conversations that needed to take place over the last few months that I’ve been reading your ‘blog. I can’t express how much I’m going to miss it. I’m not going to say I’m going to miss you because I hope this isn’t going to mean that your occassional comments disappear from mine and other’s ‘blogs.

Get yourself well, get yourself working and come back to us. Okay?