The ACLU is watching YOU
No freedom of information for you, terf.
A woman was interested to know how many inmates in Washington state identify as transgender, and how many of those transgender identified inmates have been given transfers to go from men’s prison to women’s prison, and the reverse. To get this information, she filed a Freedom of Information Act request. Instead of getting the information she requested, she got sued by the ACLU.
I’ll wait while you stare in disbelief. It took me quite some time.
To be clear, at no point had this woman contacted the ACLU to tell them she was filing a FOIA. She had used ACLU resources to figure out how to file a FOIA, but that was freely available on their website. The state of Washington is under no obligation to let the ACLU know about every FOIA request they receive, so it remains entirely unclear as to how the ACLU became aware of this woman’s FOIA in the first place.
And as for what business it is of theirs…
Nonetheless, instead of receiving the information she requested, she received an injunction. The ACLU has filed a lawsuit against a private citizen for requesting public records from the Washington State Department of Corrections on the number of inmates in state custody who identify as transgender and the number of male inmates who are housed in women’s facilities.
So private citizens don’t get to have civil liberties? Or freedom of information?
The citizen sent her request on March 18.
The Washington Public Records Act guarantees that citizens have the right to access public records, and requires the government to respond to requests within five days. Only personal student or patient information, employee files, and some investigative records are exempt.
Yet by April 8, instead of the information she requested, she received an email that the ACLU of Washington Foundation and Disability Rights Washington, along with their clients “who are current and former transgender, non-binary, and intersex inmates and in the custody of Washington Department of Corrections,” had personally named her in a lawsuit to prevent the information she requested from being released.
So not only are women in prison forced to have men locked up with them, women in general are not allowed to ask questions about it.
Washington state radio host Dori Monson has detailed several accounts of women who are housed in women’s prisons in the state and have been raped by gender non-conforming males who identify as transgender and have successfully been transferred into women’s prisons. Monson writes that there were “two inmates moved from male to female prison. One is a serial killer who admitted to killing prostitutes and hating women, another is a sex offender charged with having sex with a 12 year old.”
But we can’t ask questions about it. If we try we’ll be sued.
PM is a sewer, and I hate giving them clicks.
same story from a neutral source
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aclu-sues-private-citizen-to-suppress-public-records-request-in-washington-state-301268835.html
Would the original complainant have grounds to sue the relevent Washington state office for divulging her request to the ACLU? That’s not something that civil servants are supposed to do, is it? Someone inside the system has decided to inject their personal activism into the relationship between a citizen and their elected government. Someone with access to presumably confidential, privileged knowlege of that FOI request has decided to step into the process and derail it, and to divulge that request to a third party who have no legitimate right to such access. It is using the tools and power of the state to harass and intimidate a citizen. I would think that violating SOP like this would be considered highly unprofessional, if not illegal, and shoud merit its own investigation. Somewhere in the machinery of the civil service is a smug TIM, or beardy wokebro, who has decided to mount a personal crusade and to SWAT a citizen’s perfectly legitimate request for information. They might not “like” the questions being asked, it might offend their sensibilities, or even hurt their feelings. Too fucking bad. They are no longer competent or worthy to handle confidential, private information or communications. This is not “whistleblowing.” That person needs to be fired.
I was curious what arguments the ACLU is bringing here, and found that the case documents can be downloaded on the WOLF site takshak links to.
Basically, it has to do with privacy. According to the Preliminary Injunction, giving out the information violates the 8th Amendment (when inmates find out who’s transgender they’ll beat them up); the Fourteenth Amendment (excruciatingly private with no compelling reason for govt to release it); and then privacy, health care privacy, the inmates disclosed information expecting it to be private, and more handwringing. I didn’t read it all, I got the gist.Documents can be downloaded at the bottom of the page here:
https://www.womensliberationfront.org/aclu-lawsuit-public-records
If the names aren’t released, I don’t see the privacy case. The particular citizen who asked to access the public records wanted statistics. I’m guessing the ACLUs long game is to erase all distinction between transwomen and women. There can be no such statistics.
Yet another dangerous situation. The underlying principle violated here is the old one: if you are identified as male at birth, and then have to serve a prison term, it is to a male prison you go. Same for females.
As Hamlet said: “The rest is bullshit.”
I may have to go back and re-read Hamlet. ;-)
Sorry Omar, but life isn’t that simple.