This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Friday, October 28, 2022.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Should judges be protected from having their biographical facts posted online? And if you wanted to protect judges from that kind of information being presented in public,

is there a way to do it constitutionally?

Cato's Tommy Berry discusses legislation now buried within the National Defense Authorization Act

and why it would represent a clear violation of the First Amendment.

This law was prompted by an indisputably tragic event.

A deranged former litigant came to a federal judge's house in 2020 during the lockdown,

pretending to be a delivery driver and shot

her husband shot and killed her son horrific events and the question that the

federal government is considering is how to deal with this issue but in my view they've taken an approach that raises serious First Amendment concerns.

They've drafted a bill named after that judge's son that would allow federal judges

to send takedown notices if any American posts basic biographical facts about a federal judge anywhere online.

That includes basic facts like their date of birth,

where their family members work,

where their children go to college,

the type of facts you'd expect to find on Wikipedia

and that are compiled in various online databases for people to look up facts about

federal judges. And the problem with this law is that the Supreme Court has said in multiple cases

that if the government is going to suppress truthful personal facts about

individuals it has to have an exceedingly compelling reason to do so and it has to be on a case-by-case basis

Not a blanket authorization to suppress information even if it does not pose any threat. This law does not have that

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