Hunting records exemption passes House
Legislation to make all hunting and fishing licenses and tags secret has passed the House on a 55-14 vote, after much debate. Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, lead sponsor of HB 531a, said it was prompted by "incredible harassment" of successful hunters during Idaho's current wolf hunt. "We need to remember that these citizens who chose to hunt wolves and were successful were doing it legally," she told the House. "What this bill will do is keep that information private unless the individual decides on their own that they want that released. This privacy is important to prevent that kind of harassment."
Hunting and fishing licenses and tags have long been public record in Idaho, and routinely are accessed by everyone from outdoors reporters checking to see if a feature story subject caught his trophy fish with the appropriate licenses and tags, to national hunting record tabulators who independently verify each record catch. "I think this one is kind of like the proverbial sledgehammer hitting the proverbial fly," said Rep. Bill Killen, D-Boise. Rep. Steve Hartgen, R-Twin Falls, said, it makes sense to beef up the state's laws against harassing hunters, which also is in the bill. "But I think in this particular case this exemption goes further than it needs to go," he said.
Rep. JoAn Wood, R-Rigby, said, protecting citizens' privacy is "even more important than openness in government. The newspapers would like to have all the information they can get. ... There's such a thing as slander, there's such a thing as when you go too far, and in our mind this goes too far to allow this kind of freedom that results in harassment." Rep. Lenore Barrett, R-Challis, told the House, "Just let the bill go through, protect those people that have a legal right to do what they're doing. ... Forget the stalking, forget the media. ... Government's first mandate is to protect the rights and the property of individuals." Said Boyle, "When our citizens must live in fear, it is the duty of government to step in." The bill now moves to the Senate.
Full disclosure here: I'm the president of the Idaho Press Club, an association of working reporters around the state, which opposes the new records exemption, as do other media groups, including the Allied Daily Newspaper Publishers Association, which includes the publisher of my newspaper.
