Peninsula Daily News news services
OLYMPIA — The state House has approved a measure that exempts some information on criminal justice employees from the state’s public records law.
The House unanimously passed the measure late Saturday night and it now heads to the Senate for further consideration.
House Bill 1317, sponsored by Rep. Lynn Kessler, D-Hoquiam, exempts from disclosure the photographs and month and year of birth information in personnel files of criminal justice employees.
Under an amendment that passed, the news media would have still have access to the information.
Supporters say they want to ensure that criminals or inmates do not use the information to target officers or other criminal justice employees.
The bill was not an attempt to block the public’s access to information, but to protect employees and their families whose safety is compromised when their personal information gets into the wrong hands, Kessler said.
In a public hearing on the bill, staff from the state Department of Corrections testified that public records requests are often used by inmates to get personal information about corrections officers, causing great stress to the officers and tension within the correctional facility, Kessler said.
