Attorney General Tong wants to make secret the addresses of 200 CT lawyers
The addresses of about 200 lawyers in state Attorney General William Tong’s office would be kept secret and exempt from Connecticut’s public records laws under a bill that he pursued Friday before a key legislative committee.
But the head of the state Freedom of Information Commission says that in the internet age, it’s very easy for anyone to track the information, whether or not the state expands identity protections already offered to law enforcement, judges, prosecutors and prison guards.
Tong, during a virtual public hearing before the Government Administration & Elections Commission, said he is concerned that the couple hundred assistant attorneys general deserve the protections at a time when harassment, intimidation and threats to those them and their families are on the rise.
“Many of our assistant attorneys general work side-by-side with the people exempted,” Tong said, adding that his lawyers represent the Department of Correction, the Department of Children and Families, the Judicial Branch, State Police officers and others. “We are literally sitting side-by-side with them and in many ways in the same line of fire, but we are not included in this list of exempted employees. Many of our employees are subject to threats and harassment and threats against their lives.”
Tong said that he has been “routinely threatened” on a website called Family Court Circus, which also targets assistant attorneys general and their families. He said the issue of threats and harassment has increased over the last five years.
Appearing with Tong was Bob Fiske, an assistant attorney general who has been with the agency for 25 years and specializes in public safety issues including prison guards, state police and other law enforcement personnel, who said many of the people suing the state — including convicted felons with violent records — are “angry because they feel that their rights were violated.”
While Fiske is unaware of any violence against assistant attorneys general, there have been multiple cases, including a threat he received, where State Police were contacted to investigate.
“At our offices we have security, we have the pictures of a lot of these people who have made threats or have attempted to come into the office to confront our attorneys, and their pictures are up there with their information, so they’re blocked at the door,” Fiske said. “But unfortunately, our families, the most-vulnerable, are at home and so those people could go right to their homes, and we’re not even there to provide protection for them.”
Colleen Murphy, executive director and general counsel for the Freedom of Information Commission, noted that every year, more state employees want their information added to the list of exempt employees that dates back 25 years, and there is much information available that would require erasure in local grand lists, land records and voter lists, which is not possible.
“Finally the reality is that times have changed since the initial enactment,” Murphy said in written testimony to the committee. “For better or worse, the fact is that the residential addresses of most people are now readily available for free, or for a nominal charge, on the Internet and through other commercial services.”
Fiske said that he and his co-workers simply want the same protections as other front line, at-risk state employees. “I think everybody understands that in today’s society there has been a lessening of norms of physical confrontations of that sort,” he said. “This is a very minimal protection that our families and ourselves need.”
State Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, a top Republican on the committee who was a target of a threat in 2019, said that as the list of exempt addresses has expanded over the years, “Where do we draw the line?” He blamed the division among elected officials themselves for helping fuel the emotions of taxpayers.
“Sen. Sampson, you’re absolutely right,” Tong replied. “We have to pick a point. And I think that’s what we’re doing right here.
We’re picking a point and the point today is assistant attorneys general because we can demonstrate the obvious threats to the people that work at the office of the Attorney General and how it’s tied to the discharge of their duties. We have many of these stories.”