In 2022, Idaho activists shared photos, home addresses, and phone numbers of judges, prosecutors, a deputy prosecutor, police officers, and health workers online to interfere with court and child-protection cases. Reporting named a magistrate judge and a deputy prosecuting attorney among the targets.
What happened
On April 15, 2022, the Idaho Capital Sun reported that activists in the state were sharing the personal information of public officials and public employees to interfere with court and child-protection cases. The reporting described photos, home addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses being circulated online.
The reporting named a flier that listed 4th District Magistrate Judge Annie McDevitt and Ada County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Whitney Welsh. It also described materials aimed at police officers, a social worker, a pediatrician, and a nurse practitioner tied to child-welfare work. Some of the fliers labeled their targets as perpetrators.
In March 2022, followers of Ammon Bundy were urged to appear at St. Luke's hospital in Boise over a child-protection case. The facility went on lockdown and diverted patients for a period.
How the information gets assembled
A doxxing campaign needs a name and then a set of details attached to it: a home address, phone numbers, relatives, and prior addresses. People-search and data-broker sites are a common place those details come from, because they compile them from public records and sell them to anyone. Idaho has no law that specifically outlaws doxxing, so the pressure on a target often comes down to what information is already easy to find.
What this means for your own exposure
Idaho gives public employees a way to keep a home address out of records released under the Public Records Act (Idaho Code §74-106). It also lets peace officers, prosecutors, and corrections, probation, and parole officers file with a public agency to list a substitute Idaho mailing address instead of their home address on the records that agency issues (Idaho Code Chapter 58, §19-5803). That program does not cover judges, who hold elected office. You apply to each agency that holds your information.
Both steps keep the state from publishing your address. Neither reaches Whitepages, Spokeo, or BeenVerified. Idaho also has no Daniel's Law analog, meaning no statute that requires data brokers to take an officer's address down on request.
Removing your home address from data brokers closes off the source these campaigns pull addresses from. Frontline Privacy files those removals for you and keeps checking, because brokers often repost the same records later.
What reduces this risk
Idaho lets public employees keep a home address out of records released under the Public Records Act (Idaho Code §74-106), and it lets peace officers, prosecutors, and corrections, probation, and parole officers ask each public agency to list a substitute mailing address instead of their home address (Idaho Code Chapter 58, §19-5803). That address-confidentiality program does not cover judges, who hold elected office. Both steps keep the state from publishing your address. Neither reaches a data broker like Whitepages, Spokeo, or BeenVerified. People-search sites are a common place a home address gets pulled from, so removing it there closes off one easy source for a future target list.
Public sources
- Idaho extremists target judges, prosecutors, health workers in doxxing campaigns — Idaho Capital Sun, 2022-04-15