1,000 federal judges seek to remove personal info from internet as threats skyrocket
Three months before Kavanaugh was targeted, the U.S. Courts system’s Threat Management Branch began helping judges remove or redact their personally identifiable information from internet sites.
More than 600 judges participated in the program by November, and nearly 400 more have done so since then, a spokesman said.
The information targeted for removal includes home addresses, Social Security numbers, bank account numbers, and the addresses of children’s schools and daycare centers, according to the spokesman.
The National Law Journal first reported that 1,000 judges so far had opted into the program, which began with congressional authorization in anticipation of a recently enacted law addressing redaction of judges’ personal information.
About 3,330 judges are eligible for the program, and around 2,300 of them are actively working.
The Supreme Court conducts its own program removing personally identifiable information for that court’s nine justices.
In December, President Joe Biden signed into law the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act, which limits how much personally identifiable information about federal judges can be seen in federal databases. It also restricts the reselling of such information by data aggregators.
The law is named after the late son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas.
In July 2020, a lawyer who described himself as “anti-feminist” posed as a deliveryman when he went to the New Jersey home of Salas, and fatally shot Daniel, who was celebrating his 20th birthday.
The gunman, Roy Den Hollander, shot Salas’s husband several times, seriously injuring him. The judge, who was in the basement of the home at the time, was not injured.
Hollander, who had compiled personal information about Salas from the internet after appearing before her in a case, died by suicide later that day.
Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/17/federal-judges-remove-personal-information-from-internet.html