Oh Deval. A Privacy Misstep.

Today the political news was that the new devalpatrick.com website, recently launched, had been amended to contain only the streets, and not specific addresses, of supporters of the Deval Patrick campaign. Secretary of State William Galvin took issue with the listing of voter information on the website as a violation of privacy. The website registration method requires either a last name or phone number and then provides a list of registered voters with that last name or the voters registered with that phone number. The records are readily available from local town clerk or registrar offices, but the issue, as Galvin expresses, is that the information is not readily available on the internet. There's a reasonable expectation of privacy, or at least a reasonable "hardship" in obtaining the information by having to get down to the Clerk's office during business hours that is violated by the website.

Deval Patrick's website touts it's mission on the front page: "This new website is intended to help carry on that mission by giving you the tools to communicate with the Governor and to organize your own community around the issues that are important to you. So have a look around. We especially encourage you to check out myissue.devalpatrick.com and policy.devalpatrick.com. Or read on for an overview of the new site." A connection with the Governor through the campaign website rather than mass.gov, the official state website, has been focused on by some as notable perhaps even more importantly than the privacy issues. DevalPatrick.com has taken down the specific street address and apartment number information on advice from Galvin and the story may continue as the website is evaluated. Currently the new site is up and functioning.

Image taken from DevalPatrick.tv in a video where he discusses the changes to the DevalPatrick.com website and is inexplicably reading from a piece of paper rather than the slick laptop screen in front of him.