The Ripon Commonwealth Press reports …

Traffic and incident records from Green Lake County and the city of Ripon are becoming tougher to obtain.

In recent weeks, Ripon police and also the Green Lake County Sheriff’s Department have begun witholding (redacting) certain information that was previously available publicly.

Specifically, it’s information such as names of individuals cited with municipal offenses, or drivers’ information from local crashes.

“I do expect complaints; I would not be surprised if I’m hit with an open-records violation [allegation],” Ripon Police Chief Dave Lukoski said. “… I haven’t gotten any so far, but I certainly expect them.”

It’s a growing tug-of-war between individual privacy protection and open-records laws.

But Green Lake County and Ripon aren’t alone.

Information obtained through Department of Motor Vehicle records is now being blacked-out from police reports in more than 50 departments around the state, according to one of the loudest critics, the Wisconsin Newspaper Association.

… and further editorializes:

If you’re bothered that this newspaper ran a story last month that didn’t give the name of the motorcyclist severely injured after hitting a deer along Highway 23, you can blame the killer of actress Rebecca Schaefer.

A stalker in 1989 shot the 21-year-old in the doorway of her Los Angeles apartment building; he located the address after hiring someone to search California Department of Motor Vehicle (DMV) records.

This led to passage in 1994 of the federal Drivers Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits disclosure of personal records from DMV files.

Now fast forward to April 2012. After getting a $20 parking ticket, motorist Jason Senne in Palatine, Ill., used the law to sue the village, claiming the listing of his name and other personal information on the ticket placed on his windshield violated his right to privacy. After two lower courts dismissed his case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit found in the driver’s favor in August 2012.

This caused insurance companies and government attorneys to warn law-enforcement authorities to be careful how they disseminate DMV information, even though the court’s ruling is not binding in Wisconsin and clearly violates the state’s open records law.

Wisconsin Attorney Gen. J.B. Van Hollen issued an opinion in 2008 that said police don’t violate the Drivers Privacy Protection Act when they release records that reveal drivers’ personal identification. But some agencies, such as the Green Lake County Sheriff’s Department and as of last week, the Ripon Police Department, no longer heed Van Hollen’s opinion. …

In refusing to reveal names, ages and addresses of individuals involved in crashes that have caused injury, yielded citations or in other ways been deemed newsworthy — information they used to routinely make available — the Green Lake County Sheriff’s Department, Ripon Police and other agencies are turning their backs on the long-standing assumption imbedded in Wisconsin’s public records law that requires officials to err on the side of openness.

Privacy is a legitimate concern; the Commonwealth doesn’t report on a motorist’s weight, drivers license number, date-of-birth, phone number and other extraneous, personal information. But rare should be the instance when someone’s privacy trumps your right to open records and accountability by their creators and custodians. These are public officials who wield a tremendous amount of power over our lives. We give them the authority to do so with the understanding that their work products are open and accessible to the public.

When they start deciding that the people who pay their salaries are not able to view information that they legally have a right to access, they impede public oversight of law-enforcement investigations and compromise the public’s confidence in law-enforcement activities. …

When Wisconsin Newspaper Association Executive Director Beth Bennett asked her Illinois counterpart how that state’s media were dealing with the Senne case, she was told it was a non-issue there.

“For whatever reason, the authorities here in Wisconsin are seeing dangers in this case when other states aren’t,” Bennett told a Milwaukee Journal reporter. “It all seems to have started through local associations that represent municipal governments by sending out advisories … That’s how things start, and it’s not uncommon.”

A federal judge or the Supreme Court should further flesh out the Senne decision, the sooner the better, as its misapplication — and Van Hollen’s timidity — are increasingly impeding the people’s right to know.

Interesting, isn’t it, that law enforcement is violating the law. Apparently what must be required is for someone to sue one of those 50 law enforcement agencies for their illegally keeping open records closed from the public, the people who pay for everything they have, including their salaries.