But yes, the sad fact is that there are whole swaths of government that are basically exempt from public scrutiny.

Another notable exemption to the federal FOIA is White House records.

There are mechanisms in place, but they are time-consuming and expensive, and few news organizations really have the will to pursue these cases frequently. Legislators could certainly act to put more teeth into these laws, but the political will just doesn't seem to be there, sadly.

It probably doesn't help that even the U.S. Supreme Court "continues to look at public records as commodities, like lumber or turnips," per their decision—this past Monday, no less—in McBurney v. Young:

http://www.ire.org/blog/transpare...

And shout-out to Elizabeth Wolstein and Raffi Melkonian, of Schlam Stone & Dolan, the lawyers who supervised the original lawsuit and litigated the appeals.

Many of these companies also collect this data and resell it to clients, so it's certainly already "out there" for anyone who wants (or can afford) to obtain it. The other big concern is that a swift legislative backlash can have long-lasting consequences that may not be fully considered. New York, for instance, passed its law in a matter of days. Maine did it on an "emergency basis." One source expressed concern that these states were not taking the time to have a true dialogue on this issue, and once legislation is passed and enacted, it can be extremely difficult to repeal or amend.

I'm curious about what your thoughts were on the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press attorney's statements:

Aaron Mackey, an attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the group estimates almost a dozen states that have introduced or passed some legislation to restrict access since the Journal News published its gun permit data.

He says the backlash is "confusing" two separate issues.

"The first is the right to access information," Mackey said. "The second is editorial propriety—whether it's proper to publish information in the way the Journal News did and whether that's responsible. Perhaps we should have a conversation about whether it's responsible, but that's a different question."

Well, fine, so then maybe lawyers and certain groups should have special exemptions carved out for them. But why, for example, lawyers and not journalists? What makes journalists, in particular, a suspect group?

And, for the sake of argument, what if someone who applied for a gun permit felt they were unjustly denied but couldn't afford to hire a lawyer to investigate or bring a lawsuit? They wouldn't be able to seek help from the media, because in your paradigm, journalists would not have access to the information.

And you may, indeed, have a point non-gun owners should be concerned, but I haven't seen that position put forth by the NRA or any other gun groups so far. Nor have I seen any empirical evidence cited to support that knowing who has firearms correlates to more crime against gun owners or non-gun owners.

Regarding the quote, It's at the end of the article:

"Aaron Mackey, an attorney with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the group estimates almost a dozen states that have introduced or passed some legislation to restrict access since the Journal News published its gun permit data.

He says the backlash is "confusing" two separate issues.

"The first is the right to access information," Mackey said. "The second is editorial propriety—whether it's proper to publish information in the way the Journal News did and whether that's responsible. Perhaps we should have a conversation about whether it's responsible, but that's a different question."

Transparency advocates say publicly accessible gun permit records allow the public to identify and correct patterns of discrimination in gun licensing by law enforcement.

Several of the news reporters who requested this information appeared to be looking into whether and how specific criminals in their communities had obtained firearms.

One source told me this kind of information can be useful for parents, whose kids could be spending time with friends whose parents keep a gun in the house.

The Journal News' "data dump" approach hasn't been without controversy, even among fellow journalists, but it seems to mainly be an outlier in how this information, when public, is actually put to use.

I contacted the NRA, the VCDL, and the vast majority of the other groups on this list. If they had replied or answered my questions, they would have been in the story.

I found, for instance, several requesters who appeared to be doing academic research (presumably on gun ownership and criminal justice trends); requests from reporters who appeared to be looking for information on whether and how criminals in their communities obtained firearm permits; and there's the widely floated argument that, in places where there are allegations of favoritism or discrimination in the permit issuing process, making this information public ensures that every gun permit applicant is considered fairly. What's your take on arguments like those? How would those goals be feasible if this was all confidential?

Why do you think private attorneys should have greater privileges than, for example, reporters? And what do you make of the RCFP attorney's quote—that the propriety of publishing a list of names is fundamentally a different question than whether the information should be available to the public?

The law came about after an actress named Rebecca Shaeffer was murdered in 1989. Her stalker had hired a private investigator, who obtained Shaeffer's address from DMV records. Congress carved out exemptions in DPPA for several groups—including insurance companies, direct marketers, and, ironically, even private investigators—but not journos.

And FYI, marriage licenses are rarely public records.

For instance, some parents might not feel comfortable with their kids being around guns, so having this information would let them know if their kids' friends' parents have firearms in the household.

One private investigator who also serves legal paperwork for attorneys told me he used to rely on this data so his employees would know when to exercise caution if they had to approach someone that might be carrying a concealed weapon.

And there's the argument I mentioned in the piece, that claims making this information public serves as a check on law enforcement to make sure they're issuing permits fairly.