Oh, give me a break.
Fla. sheriff used records to find critic
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Orange County's sheriff used driver's license records to contact a woman who wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper citicizing his staff's use of Taser stun guns and describing him as fat.
Some say Orange County Sheriff Kevin Beary violated federal privacy law when he had his aides use the records to get the address of Alice Gawronski. He sent her a letter accusing her of slander.
It is illegal to access a driver's license database to obtain personal information, except for clear law-enforcement purposes, under the U.S. Driver's Privacy Protection Act of 1994.
"I recently read your slanderous remarks about the Orange County Sheriff's Office in the Orlando Sentinel," Beary wrote Gawronski on March 23. "It is unfortunate that people ridicule others without arming themselves with the facts before they slander a law enforcement agency or individual."
Gawronski said, "I thought I was exercising my First Amendment right of free speech — expressing an opinion in an open forum about a paid public official." She considered Beary's letter a form of intimidation.
"If I were her, I'd sue and get him in front of a jury. He'd probably get laughed out of the courtroom," said Chris Hoofnagle, the senior counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
But sheriff's spokesman Jim Solomons said using a database to respond to a resident's concern is well within Beary's official duties.
Surely to goodness, Jim, you don't think this little response is the type of response this resident was seeking, do you? I mean, no one can be that dense. The issue arose when Gawronski's letter appeared in the Sentinel on March 10, expressing concerns about Taser stun guns.
In her letter, she referred to a news conference when Beary allowed himself to be zapped with one to demonstrate its safety. Seeing Beary "in an obvious state of duress" convinced her the stun guns should not be used, she wrote.
Gawronski also wrote that Beary appeared overweight and suggested that if deputies were more fit, they might not need to resort to zapping suspects.
Hey, it's fine if you don't think they should be used, but there aren't a lot of alternatives that work as well. Which is what She'ff Heavybottom should have dashed off to the newpaper letters to the editor column--NOT to the letter writer.
Beary said he was a victim of slander.
I think we have establishacated that by now."During my Taser incident, I was never under any duress," he wrote Gawronski, adding that his heart activity was monitored by a doctor. Before the test, the 5-foot, 10-inch Beary estimated his weight at 290 pounds.
I'd say he was a victim of too much gravy and biscuits, and this is said as someone who has been very close to that level of undertallness.Anyway, end result--Tasers aren't the worst thing in the world--they are much less deadly than a 230 grain slug in the center of mass.
Using a license database to hassle a citizen who disagrees with you isn't part of a policeman's job.
Slander is not the same as libel.
Fat cops who get offended by being called a fat cop shouldn't be either.
Posted by Terry Oglesby at April 6, 2005 12:34 PMBesides, it isn't slander, defamation or libel if it's true.
Posted by: Jordana at April 6, 2005 12:54 PMIt is certainly a defense; BUT, from what little I know, if the truth is told with malicious intent and causes damage, there could be something a court would take issue with.
BUT, this is a public official, and I don't think there is any way under the sun that this fine upstanding law-enforcement officer could ever in a million years find a court who would side with him.
Posted by: Terry O at April 6, 2005 01:11 PMI do wonder about a guy who volunteers to be tasered. Maybe he knew the difference between libel and slander before the 50,000 volts.
Reminds me (for no reason) of my favorite line to ever come out of a hockey game:
NJ Devils Coach Jim Schonfeld to Referee Don Koharski:
HAVE ANOTHER DONUT, YOU FAT PIG!
Why would I think of that in the context of a fat cop?
Posted by: skinnydan at April 6, 2005 01:48 PM"... truth is told with malicious intent and causes damage..." - I'm going to have to chew on that one for awhile.
...
Hmmm. We do have "civil nice-ities" that we (try to) follow each day, like not pointing out defects on someone else's face, halitosis or other body odors. Those are typically on a personal level.
This whole taser thing is on a law-enforcement level, so the lady's comments are in the spirit of seeking a good policy. Her comment about the sheriff being overweight was out of bounds. She's probably anti-NRA as well, but should we hold that against her?
Maybe we (is it still the Axis of Weevil or Weemunu?) could start a public information campaign for undertallness: People of Undertallness Defended (PUD).
Posted by: MarcV at April 6, 2005 02:53 PMThat might be OK Mark, but it does raise some nomenclature concerns.
When describing what I think might be the gerundive adjective, we would describe PUD members as "PUDingy"; after a long tanning session, the gerund turns into Chocolate PUDing; Terry's children will have to refer to him as the PUDing Pop; small French planes the group rides in will probably have to referred to as PUD Le Jumpers.
I'm not really sure this is a direction we want to go.
Posted by: skinnydan at April 6, 2005 03:16 PMDan, I think all cops have to submit to being blasted with a taser as part of the orientation training so they will understand how it feels. Kinda like soldiers doing gas mask training.
I don't know anything about the defamation thing, Marc, but between private citizens, I think you have to go out with the express intent of committing harm to the person with what you know, and the person has to actually suffer some harm because of it. But public officials pretty much have to take their lumps. I read the lady's comments in the Orlando paper, and they were very mild. I really don't think she is a loon or anything else, although possibly misguided when it comes to the occasional necessity by the police of employing restraint against violent suspects. If I ever do go nuts--I'd rather they taser me first than come out blazing with a shotgun.
And while her comment about the sheriff's weight was illogical on the face of it, it wasn't something I would think would provoke such a bitter, petty response from someone who should know better.
The best response, if the sheriff wanted to demonstrate his still-sharply-honed perpetrator-capturing skill, would be to run a quarter-mile in uniform, duty shoes, body armor, and gunbelt, and show everyone what great shape he's in.
Posted by: Terry O. at April 6, 2005 03:24 PMCome to think of it, our sheriff could lose a few pounds, too.
Posted by: Janis at April 6, 2005 04:47 PM