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...always trying to preserve the safety of hunters." The bill that recently passed both houses in Idaho - and was then signed by Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter on April 8 - extends hunter protections in two ways: by taking state-issued hunting permits, licenses and tags out of the public domain, and by making it illegal to "harass, intimidate or threaten" hunters via telephone, e-mail or website posting. (Proponents, wise to the past, added the caveat that unlawful conduct does not include constitutionally protected activity.) (See the top 10 everything...
Debate about whether to remove hunting permits from the public record is reminiscent of the battle over making concealed-carry permits private, an effort that has been increasingly successful in the past few years. Supporters of such a public-records exemption say there's no reason the general public needs access to information about citizens who are simply exercising legal rights. "There are no downsides," says Idaho state representative Judy Boyle, a Republican who proposed the measure. If a hunter seems to be doing something wrong, she says, let the police investigate: "We're not vigilante people," she says. Millage...
...dangerous precedent. "We're taking another piece [of information] in order to stroke and soothe one small segment of society," says Charles Davis, executive director for the National Freedom of Information Coalition. "And if you do that over and over again, guess what's going to happen to public information at the end of the day? There's not going...
...conflict in Idaho escalated in January, when Rick Hobson, a local activist, made a public-records request for the names of hunters who had killed wolves during the season, then posted all 122 on a website and took out an ad in the Idaho Statesman directing people to the list. "There's a small local group of hunters who feel that they and only they have a right to decide what happens to wildlife on state and federal land," he says. "I posted the list to remind them that it's a public process, that hunting is not a right...
...case, that fear has been compounded by years of tension over wolf reintroduction, as the unpopular animals were placed in Idaho by the federal government against the state's will, and by uncertainty about what it could mean to start shrouding hunters in anonymity. "Licensure has always been public, with good reason," Davis says. "Because it's a privilege you're asking the state for, and privileges can be used for all sorts of nefarious purposes...