Associated Press Says Public Has Right to Blacked Out Names in Search Warrant

This post essentially continues the debate within the comments to Michael's excellent post yesterday regarding the disclosure of the Diamondbacks scouting report. I had to beat Howard to it.

This week, the Associated Press asked a federal judge to make public the names of baseball players a government agent said were implicated in drug use by former major league pitcher Jason Grimsley. When the affidavit signed by the government agent to obtain a search warrant on Grimsley's home was made public in June 2006, the names of the players the agent said Grimsley accused of using performance-enhancing drugs were blacked out. The AP now says it has a right to the blacked out names.

According to the AP, "Any privacy interests of individuals named in the affidavit are insufficient to overcome the public's right to access." The AP also said that if prosecutors provided the complete affidavit to baseball steroids investigator George Mitchell, "then they should not be allowed to invoke the privacy interests of third parties as a shield to prevent disclosure to others."

So let's continue the debate. Does the public have a "right" to the names of players who were blacked out by federal prosecutors? After all, the very reason the prosecutors blacked out the names to begin with was to maintain the players' confidentiality and privacy interests. Thus, the privacy interests of the players whose names were blacked out should definitely be taken into consideration. However, as Jimmy H. mentioned in the comments section to Michael's post, the public interest in steroids usage is definitely much greater than a scouting report found on a dugout floor. So the blacked out names of the players would most likely be considered "newsworthy". But there is an "entertainment" aspect working here as well. Let's face it, this would be a great sell for the AP if they could just get their hands on these names. The public loves to read about steroids in baseball. You can bet the AP wouldn't be in court this week if these players played professional football.

What I find most interesting though, is that the AP assumes it has a legal right of access to the names if prosecutors gave George Mitchell access. What law says that? So now the press can go to court and demand legal access to any information it wants whenever that information has previously been disclosed in confidence to a third party? That's a scary thought.....

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