April 11, 2007
FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT:
media@aclu.org NEW YORK - In
testimony before the New York City Council today, the New York Civil Liberties
Union condemned proposed amendments to the city's lobbying law that would
require the disclosure of personal information about lobbyists and their
families.
"The right to petition the government for a redress of
grievances should not come at the price of endangering oneself and one's
family," said Donna Lieberman, NYCLU Executive Director. "Publishing personal
information about lobbyists and their partners would endanger the First
Amendment and chill free speech."
The proposed legislation would
add to the city's Administrative Code a requirement that organizations annually
disclose the home addresses of every employee who engages in lobbying or who is
employed in a "division" of the organization that engages in lobbying, as well
as the names and home and business addresses of those individuals' spouses or
domestic partners. This requirement, the NYCLU argued, intrudes on the privacy
of lobbyists and their family members and could expose people who work for
controversial organizations - such as the NYCLU and Planned Parenthood - to
harassment, threats and possible physical violence.
The NYCLU has
proposed additions to the bill that would protect the rights of lobbyists and
their families.
"We urge the Council to adopt our proposed addition
to the legislation, which would exempt lobbyists associated with controversial
organizations from disclosing their home addresses and the identities and home
addresses of their spouses or domestic partners, if there is a reasonable
probability that the public disclosure of that information could subject them to
threats or harm," said NYCLU Legislative Counsel Irum Taqi, who co-presented the
testimony with Lieberman.
The NYCLU's testimony is available
online at:
www.nyclu.org/nyc_lobbying_law_tstmny_041107.html
