" Lawmaker pushes for expansion of secret license plates "
SANTA ANA – Assemblyman Sandre
Swanson told the story earlier this month during a public radio show about
confidential license plates intended to protect government employees from
criminals.
Swanson wants to expand the
program, which already shields the home address on record for nearly 1 million
cars owned by public employees.
"We've had a code enforcement
officer who was killed and his family murdered as a result of his information
being obtained through DMV records," Swanson said on AirTalk on KPPC. "and so
we've already had tragic examples."
But the Register was unable to
find even a single example of a code enforcement officer killed because someone
accessed their drivers' records. And neither could the lobbyist supporting
Swanson's proposal. An aide to Swanson eventually acknowledged that the anecdote
wasn't accurate.
"Whether or not the person got
the information through the DMV, it was an avenue he could have used," Swanson's
communications director Douglas MacLean said. "We don't want to have that
possibility even on the table."
The confidential records
program was started in 1978 to protect law enforcement officers from criminals
who might find them through motor vehicles records. At that time anyone could
walk into a DMV office and get that information.
Since then lawmakers have
expanded the protection to two dozen types of employees, from meter maids to
museum guards—and to themselves. They've done so despite warnings that the
program is no longer needed because all DMV records are now off limits to the
public.
A Register investigation
published earlier this month found the secret plates were also giving people a
free pass to get out of traffic tickets. For instance, people with confidential
plates had run the 91 Toll Lanes without paying 14,535 times in the last five
years, public records show. The story stirred a lot of debate over the program,
including discussions on television and radio shows.
On AirTalk on April 9, Swanson
defended his proposal, Assembly Bill 1958, to add code enforcement officers,
firefighters and zoo veterinarians to the list of people who qualify for the
plates.
"I would of course on principal
agree … that if you break the law you ought to pay your fines," Swanson said. "I
would only caution that we do nothing to affect the system itself that protects
law enforcement officers from having their personal addresses exposed and
available to those who would want to do harm to the law enforcement officers or
to their families."
When pressed by a reporter for
examples of how code enforcement officer's DMV records make them vulnerable, the
assemblyman's staff referred questions to a lobbyist who represents code
enforcement officers.
That lobbyist, John Lovell,
said the code enforcement community widely believes that the man who killed Kern
County health inspector Cynthia Volpe, her husband and her mother in 1992 found
her home address through the DMV. He has no proof, but says that Lovell took
precautions, such as having an unlisted telephone number, to ensure she couldn't
be found.
Volpe's alleged killer died a
day after the slaying during a police shootout.
"We obviously don't have a
confession from him because he's dead," Lovell said. "By process of elimination,
I'm sure our people made the assumption. We do know this is one of the ways that
people trying to find other people use."
But police and lawyers who
worked the Volpe case 16 years ago were skeptical that the DMV played a role in
the slayings. Robert Courtney, the man accused of gunning down Volpe, was
already on trial for breaking her jaw after she cited apartments he owned for
sewage violations. Jurors were still deliberating on that case on the day she
was killed, according to news reports from 1992.The Kern County prosecutor said
Volpe and her husband also were suing Courtney in civil court for the attack.
"We always believed he had
accessed her information through the civil case," said Andrea Kohler, who
prosecuted the case.
The Volpe family's attorney,
John Hall, agrees.
"I think it's likely, but I
can't state for certain, that the information was disclosed though the course of
civil litigation," Hall said. "Just in deposition the first question is what's
your name and where do you live. I don't think it's necessary for someone to go
to the DMV."
An analysis for AB 1958, which
is scheduled for a committee hearing today, says that adding more groups to the
list of those eligible serves "no useful purpose and was simply another
administrative burden for state agencies." Staffers also wrote the high level of
confidentiality afforded to all motorists makes it unlikely criminals will use
the DMV to find home addresses, considering the availability of that information
on the Internet.
None of the lawmakers or
agencies interviewed by the Register was able to point to a case where a person
was harmed by information obtained through the DMV in the nearly 20 years since
all DMV information was made private.
Still, Swanson says the
protection should be expanded because criminals could breach records with help
from employees at agencies that still maintain legal access, and use the
information to seek retribution for enforcing city codes or reporting animal
cruelty.
Code inspectors have been
pushing for parity with other law enforcement officers for years. Officers cite
Volpe's death and a 2000 case in which a sausage factory owner gunned down three
meat inspectors during an inspection.
"It's been an uphill battle,"
said David Mason, a Del Norte code enforcement officer who says he wears a
bullet proof vest to work "You have to tell people that they can't do what they
want to do on their own land. That gets people irate. Even if it's just to tell
them they need to pick up their garbage."
UPDATE: The Assembly
Appropriations Committee on Wednesday moved the bill to the suspense file
because it carries a cost of more than $150,000. The committee is expected to
consider the bill in late May.
Source: [ ocregister ]
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