Attorney General Herbert H. Slatery III on Monday joined a bipartisan group of 51 Attorneys General in a letter urging Congress to pass legislation aimed at protecting the safety of federal judges and their families.
Addressed to leaders of both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, the letter supports passage of the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act. The bill would protect the confidentiality of personal identifying information of members of the federal judiciary in public records and limit the distribution of that information online and by data brokers, said officials.
The letter calls passage of such legislation an “urgent” matter in light of attacks and increasing threats against members of the federal judiciary, and notes that the legislation has bipartisan support in both houses of Congress.
“Public servants should not have to grapple with a loss of privacy and personal safety for doing their job- upholding the Constitution,” said General Slatery. “This bill would protect federal judges and their families wherever they live with uniform enforcement.”
The Daniel Anderl Judicial Security Act is named for 20-year-old Daniel Anderl, the late son of Judge Esther Salas of the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
Daniel was killed on July 19, 2020, when an attorney who had appeared in a case before Judge Salas – a man described in today’s letter as “deranged” – appeared at her home and shot both Daniel and Judge Salas’ husband. The judge’s husband was critically wounded but survived the attack.
The letter notes that incidents, inappropriate communications and threats against federal judges and others protected by the U.S. Marshals Service have been steadily climbing in recent years, as evidenced by a spike in such incidents from 2,357 in 2016 to 4,449 in 2019.
The Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act would, among other initiatives:
Require federal agencies to maintain the confidentiality of judges’ personally identifiable information upon request;
Authorize funding for state and local governments to adopt similar measures;
Prohibit data brokers from selling, licensing, trading, purchasing, or otherwise providing or making available for consideration judges’ personally identifiable information;
Create an enforceable mechanism for judges and their immediate family members to secure removal of their personally identifiable information from the Internet.
Monday’s letter notes that the Judicial Conference of the United States and the American Bar Association, among others, also support such legislation.
To read the letter, click here: https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/attorneygeneral/documents/pr/2020/pr20-59-letter.pdf