The Boxer bill limits the public's access to Department of Motor Vehicles information, but it has loopholes that allow mass marketers, tow truck companies, insurance companies and private detectives access. Originally meant to preven incidents like the one in which actress Rebecca Shaffer got followed and killed, the Boxer Bill does not do that. If one wanted to find out where someone lived, all one would have to do is hire a private detective to get the address, just like Shaffer's assailant did.
However, journalists will not be able to identify commercial airline pilots who had their driver's licenses suspended for drunk driving or auto chop-shop operators who glue wrecked cars together and resell them as new, creating unsafe vehicles, Stuart said.
Boxer's bill is not the only door closer. Stuart pointed to the Department of Education's ruling that if a crime happens on campus and it's reported to a school official, even a teacher, it becomes part of the student's academic record.
Stuart asked "where were you" when the department held hearings on the proposal? No one in the press wrote letters or called up officials protesting the proposal, he said.
This is just the start of "the coming news blackout," Stuart said. "Government is trying to close off access. Government and people who want to hide information are closing the door."
Stuart believes these laws are getting passed because 75 percent of the American public believes the media is part of the problem, not the solution.
"It's not just what we're doing, it's what others are doing, too," Stuart said. Journalists are being lumped with tabloid shows such as Hard Copy, Inside Edition and American Journal, Stuart believes.
"Boxer kept checking to see if any editorials were written about the bill and couldn't find any," Stuart said.
One bill mentioned by an audience member has a loophole for press access.
"Once they give us a loophole, watch out," Stuart said. "That implies licensing. We're just agents of the public."
Besides the fight to keep informational doors open, Stuart sees lots of issues that the media should be on guard for.
"The Contract with America is the political game in America today," Stuart said. "It affects every student and professional in this room. It will affect every policy decision for the next decade."
Stuart commended the student chapter of SPJ at the University of Hawaii for their efforts to access public disciplinary records. A Hawaiian law states that public agencies must disclose disciplinary action reports, which university students asked for. The police department attorney and administrators authorized the release of information, but the police union stopped the release of records. The university SPJ chapter called up the legal defense fund and with SPJ's help, challenged the union. The court upheld the student's access rights, and the police union appealed.
The police union is now trying to get an exclusion to the disclosure law passed.