Whistleblower » Blog Archive » City goes to extraordinary lengths to keep info on dog owners secret

City goes to extraordinary lengths to keep info on dog owners secret

Posted on April 14th, 2009 – 9:25 AM
By James Shiffer

For the past seven months, the city of Duluth has been fighting a request for what would appear to be warm and fuzzy data - information about city pet license holders. This month, it took the extraordinary step of asking the state for a “temporary classification” of the data - saying that allowing the data to become public “could adversely affect the public interest or the health, safety, well being or reputation of the data subject.” It would remain secret until the Legislature made it so permanently, or decided not to.

As regular readers know, Whistleblower’s whiskers always twitch whenever government tries to hide something. Especially in cases such as this one, in which the city’s first effort to deny the information on “security” grounds, as well as assign an unjustifiable $210 price for retrieving it, were slapped down by the state Department of Administration.

So why would shedding light on Duluth’s pet owners be such a menace?

It all started with a request from Brandon Stahl of the Duluth News Tribune. His blog indicates he had a breezy story in mind, an investigation of the most popular dog breeds in the steeply sloping port city of Lake Superior. Now it has turned into a test of Minnesota’s data practices law.

Only two temporary classifications currently exist - neither of them concerning pets, although one of them could include information about cow and pig owners.

The deputy city attorney, M. Alison Lutterman, laid out the rationale for the emergency secrecy measure in a seven-page filing. The pet license data includes the names and addresses of police officers, housing inspectors, and other officials who might possibly be the target of malicious people. Never mind that the same info is available in plenty of other public records.

Most amusing is the argument that that the data could provide a shopping list for dog thieves seeking valuable breeds. In the city of Duluth’s view, it’s a government duty to guard the whereabouts of purebred Portuguese Water Dogs. Other breeds with a bad reputation could be targeted for “hate crimes,” the city asserts.

“Any legitimate need to know what the government is doing does not include a need to have access to the name, address and phone numbers of persons who obtain pet licenses, nor does this need to know outweigh legitimate privacy concerns of pet owners,” Lutterman writes.

Of course, it need not be said, Duluth has to know who owns pets within its precincts, so it can collect its annual $8 fee for each pet.

I look forward to seeing whether the Legislature, struggling to downsize state government in an economic hurricane, finds time to safeguard the identities of pet owners from public scrutiny.

The Duluth News Tribune’s editorial about this squabble isn’t secret, but it isn’t free, either. I was told I would have to pay $2.95 to read it.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 14th, 2009 at 9:25 am and is filed under Public records. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

33 Responses to “City goes to extraordinary lengths to keep info on dog owners secret”

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heavylift Says:
April 14th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Any personal info given to a governmental agency
is in effect public.
Nate Says:
April 14th, 2009 at 11:34 am
If any info given to the government is public then nothing about anyone is private.

If you concede that there are people who should be protected.

Then there is reason to protect this info.
Nate Says:
April 14th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Police officers, employees of abortion clinics or controversial companies, domestic abuse victims…

The list goes on and on of people who’s info should be protected.
John Anderson Says:
April 14th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Then let the criminals go to the state and ask for the names of all of the people that have nice carsand let them get stolen.
Craig Says:
April 14th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Law-abiding dog owners are required to “give” their information to a government agency. If that makes the information “public” then the government is requiring citizens to give up their privacy in order to own a dog. The other option is the normally law-abiding citizen is forced into breaking the law because they want a dog and privacy.
Dave Houg Says:
April 14th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Does paying a fee release my name and address to all?
There are so many bad uses of data starting with spam
that I have to side with the city on this one. Would
you want all permits for remodeling to be given to
advertisers / spammers.
Sandy Says:
April 14th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
If “Any personal info given to a governmental agency
is in effect public” then we should be able to release your driving records, marriage and birth records, even social security records. Heavylift - want to go first?
Morgen Says:
April 14th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Does the media really think their right to information just for the sake of it really trump a law abiding citizens right to privacy just because they own a pet? To heavylift, I give personal information to the IRS, including my social security number, does that mean it should be public information? Some whistleblower story this is… when you come up with a reason better than “I want to know” then let’s take another look.
James Shiffer Says:
April 14th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
It’s not true that any information given to the
government is public. You’ve named several categories
that aren’t - Social Social and driving records among
them. So where should we draw the line between privacy
and open government? Should real estate records be
secret? Bankruptcies? Divorces? All of these are very
personal. At what point does it become impossible for
the public to know what its government is doing?
Amanda Says:
April 14th, 2009 at 2:01 pm
I’m a dog owner and have to license my dog with the city if I ever found out that my information was being given away you can bet I wouldn’t license my dog…odds are I’d move. There is no reason not to protect the owners privacy and an animals well-being. Giving away private information is opening up a can of worms…