The Civil Liability for Doxing Act, which takes effect on January 1, 2024, passed after a unanimous vote. It allows victims to recover damages and to request “a temporary restraining order, emergency order of protection, or preliminary or permanent injunction to restrain and prevent the disclosure or continued disclosure of a person’s personally identifiable information or sensitive personal information.”
It’s the first law of its kind in the Midwest, the Daily Herald reported, and is part of a push by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) to pass similar laws at the state and federal levels. ADL’s Midwest regional director, David Goldenberg, told the Daily Herald that ADL has seen doxxing become “over the past few years” an effective way of “weaponizing” the Internet. ADL has helped similar laws pass in Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington.
Hmm, this makes me think of the tradition on certain parts of the internet where people publicly announce the name and crime of this convicted rapist. They’ll explain where he’s currently living, the name he’s trying to go by, and bars he was seen at. This activity seems to stem from the outrage at the excessive leniency he was shown by the judge, although could also be protecting other potential victims.
I wonder if this kind of vigilante doxxing would fall under the scope of such a law, especially when his name is already in so many publications.
The things you described are, under any interpretation, PII, and the
restreason they are being posted falls within the scope of the law.Even for convicted rapist Brock Turner.
– edit: mobile keyboards stink
Since that information is supposed to be public knowledge and easily accessible, I don’t think it would fall under the law.
That being said, I don’t exactly expect certain parts of the US to actually apply laws correctly.
It’s probably good that people know where that particular rapist is hanging out.
That was an interesting article. Thanks for sharing it.
That judge was trash. Although it turned out that recalling him had consequences, I don’t think those consequences are reason to tolerate unjust judges like him.
Cool, now let’s do it federally, and make it an actual crime and not just civil liability.
This is fantastic.
According to my reading I believe it will make third party licence plate camera collection more limited. It should hopefully prevent states with abortion bans from accessing information about license plates that come into Illinois for the purpose of prosecution since that information would cause those people harm and they have a right to abortion in Illinois.
The law states “individual” not sure if this applies to the government disseminating personally identifying information to other governments.
Ah, you see, in order to get around the 4th amendment there are companies that lease license plate cameras to the government, the government then pays a subscription to that company in order to access the collected data.
Any other subscribing agency can look at the data, including local police in Texas.
It wouldn’t be legal for the government to track you like that without a warrant.
The law states that it’s not illegal for one to give information to any law enforcement agency, however what people do in Illinois is their own business.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that it’s overreach for the government to collect and distribute people’s data like that. I’m just not sure the law, in its wording, actually provisions the protection you are hoping it does.
Agreed.
It wasn’t that long ago that Spike Lee tweeted out the address of the wrong George Zimmerman and sent an elderly couple fleeing for their lives from their home. There need to be real consequences for this.
Section 10. Doxing. (a) An individual engages in the act of doxing when that individual intentionally publishes another person’s personally identifiable information without the consent of the person whose information is published and: (1) the information is published with the intent that it be used to harm or harass the person whose information is published and with knowledge or reckless disregard that the person whose information is published would be reasonably likely to suffer death, bodily injury, or stalking; and (2) the publishing of the information: (i) causes the person whose information is published to suffer significant economic injury or emotional distress or to fear serious bodily injury or death of the person or a family or household member of the person; or (ii) causes the person whose information is published to suffer a substantial life disruption; and (3) the person whose information is published is identifiable from the published personally identifiable information itself. (b) It is not an offense under this Act for an individual to: (1) provide another person’s personally identifiable information or sensitive personal information in connection with the reporting of criminal activity to an employee of a law enforcement agency or in connection with any lawfully authorized investigative, protective, or intelligence activity of any law enforcement agency or of an intelligence agency of the United States and the person making the report reasonably believes the alleged criminal activity occurred or the existing investigative, protective, or intelligence activity is legitimate; (2) disseminate the personally identifiable information for the purpose of, or in connection with, the reporting of conduct reasonably believed to be unlawful; or (3) provide a person’s personally identifiable information in connection with activity protected under the United States Constitution or the Illinois Constitution pertaining to speech, press, assembly, protest, and petition, as well as the provision of personally identifiable information to the press. © Nothing in this Act shall be construed in any manner to: (1) conflict with Section 230 of Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 230); (2) conflict with 42 U.S.C. 1983; or (3) prohibit any activity protected under the Constitution of the United States or the Illinois Constitution.
https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/fulltext.asp?Name=103-0439
…passed after a unanimous vote.
Lol I can imagine a LOT of legislators not wanting people to know that they’re kinkyboi69.
This is incredible and I hope they are successful!
However I am expecting this to become targeted towards marginalized groups posting, say, judge alito’s address for writing to him because he fights so hard against civil rights for favors
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Illinois state representative Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz told the Daily Herald that she introduced the anti-doxxing law as “a way to hold accountable those who perpetuate hate online.”
The ADL’s ultimate goal is to see a federal anti-doxxing law passed, but right now, Congress is only taking small steps in that direction by mulling the Doxing Threat Assessment Act introduced in May.
ACLU of Illinois’ director of communications and public policy, Ed Yohnka, told the Daily Herald that his organization remained opposed because the law could infringe on free speech rights.
“Arming our national security officials and law enforcement with knowledge of how these groups operate and for identifying vulnerabilities and preventing attacks is a first step to protect our communities from harm.”
Since the Doxing Threat Assessment Act was introduced, the number of co-sponsors has doubled, suggesting the bipartisan bill is gaining popular support and has a decent chance of passing.
), said that persecuted religious groups and businesses appeared most vulnerable and "with more information, our law enforcement will be able to develop a more robust approach to the protections of Americans and their data.”
