By: News-media outlets removed an online story yesterday after an angry prosecutor publicly denounced its inclusion of links to Web-posted public records as endangering his family by making it too easy to learn his home address.
Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas told a news conference that he'd been the subject of past threats and that the Oct. 22 story published online by The Arizona Republic and KPNX-TV on their joint Web site put his four young children at risk.
The story itself didn't specify actual addresses but provided links to county elections department Web pages that display financial-disclosure statements submitted by Thomas and Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Thomas said he wanted to "shame" the media outlets into removing the story from their Web site and deter others from making similar disclosures.
"I am asking as a husband and a father," Thomas said. "This is not a game to me."
It's one thing to have information on public records somewhere in the Internet but quite another to flag that information in a story posted on a popular Web site, Thomas said. "It's an abuse of media power."
The story remained online as originally published for more than an hour after the news conference but later yesterday was altered to delete the links and then withdrawn entirely.
Ward Bushee, Republic executive editor and vice president, said the story was intended to show how easy it is to access personal addresses on the World Wide Web.
It was removed after Thomas voiced his objections about his family's safety, Bushee said. "We take seriously Andrew Thomas' concerns."
The Republic and KPNX are both owned by Gannett Co. Inc.
Arizona law prohibits online publication of law enforcement officers' personal information, including home addresses.
"I am not threatening to prosecute anyone," Thomas said.
The story, which carried a KPNX reporter-anchor's byline, was headlined: "Arpaio's address is widely available."
It was published as a follow-up to Thomas' Oct. 19 announcement that he was dropping an investigation of the weekly newspaper Phoenix New Times for its 2004 online publication of Arpaio's home address in a story on the sheriff's real estate holdings.
Because of the story, Thomas' three school-age children are being escorted to and from school and law enforcement officers from his office are providing security for his family, Thomas said. "It will cost the taxpayers something. I regret that."
Arpaio later yesterday echoed Thomas' criticism, calling the online story an outrage. "Perhaps the public should bring our local media to its collective senses," Arpaio said in a statement.
Thomas said on Oct. 19 that the New Times investigation by a special prosecutor appointed by Thomas was mishandled, resulting in a sweeping grand jury subpoena for information on New Times' preparation of numerous articles on Arpaio and on the alternative newspaper?s online readers.
Two New Times executives were arrested and jailed briefly by sheriff's deputies after they published a story on Oct. 18 disclosing the subpoena, in apparent violation of a state law that requires secrecy of grand jury matters.
The former special prosecutor, Phoenix attorney Dennis Wilenchik, has defended his handling of the matter and said the subpoena was intended to find out whether information published by New Times posed a threat to Arpaio's safety.
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