Media organizations seek to join day labor employer suit

By: CRAIG TENBROECK - Staff Writer

VISTA ---- Several press organizations have asked to join a legal fight over whether the city of Vista should release the names of private individuals who have registered to hire day laborers.

The media groups ---- including the North County Times, Copley Press, the Los Angeles Times and the California Newspaper Publishers Association ---- are opposing a lawsuit filed last week by the American Civil Liberties Union of San Diego and Imperial counties that seeks to keep the employers' information out of the public record.

Los Angeles-based attorney Alonzo Wickers said he filed a joint application in Superior Court on Friday on behalf of three of the news agencies. The North County Times will add its name to the application Monday, according to Dan McSwain, the paper's acting editor.


Wickers said the lawsuit threatens to erode the public's right to government records.

"While the ACLU may have good intentions here, I believe the way they chosen to pursue them is antithetical to the public's right to access," he said.

The ACLU, representing four anonymous employers, filed its lawsuit against the city after the leader of a local anti-illegal immigration group requested employer information under the California Public Records Act. The ACLU's legal director, David Blair-Loy, has said private employers could be discouraged from hiring if their personal information was posted on the Internet or used for harassment.

Anti-illegal immigration activists sometimes protest against the hiring of day laborers at a shopping center in central Vista where several men gather waiting for work. They have alleged that many of the mostly Latino workers are in the country illegally.

On Monday, Superior Court Judge Michael Orfield issued a restraining order to temporarily prevent the city from releasing the information. He said the court would have to sort out a conflict between the right to privacy and the public's right to know.

City Attorney Darold Pieper has said Vista will take its direction from the court.

The next hearing in the case is set for July 26.

Vista adopted its controversial hiring law last summer, requiring people who hire temporary workers off the street to register with the city, display permits in their car windows and present workers with written terms of employment.

More than 110 individuals have registered since then, officials have said.

Blair-Loy, the ACLU attorney, said Friday that he would take no pleasure in opposing the press if the judge grants their request to join the lawsuit. However, he added, "if the constitutional right to privacy means anything, then it applies here."

"I have spent much of my career litigating for the right of open government and public disclosure, and I think that, most of the time, the ACLU does line up with the press on public disclosure issues," Blair-Loy said. "But on occasion, we believe that the public interest in upholding the constitutional right to privacy clearly outweighs the public's interest in getting the private, personal information of private individuals."

Wickers said he doesn't believe the privacy argument is valid.

"The city has licensed certain people to employ day laborers," Wickers said. "The public has a right to know who those individuals are."

The mere fact that it may cause somebody embarrassment is not enough to defeat the public's right of access, he added.

Media organizations are not the only parties that have expressed interest in joining the lawsuit.

Joseph Turner, a representative for the Washington, D.C.-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, said in an e-mail to the North County Times on Friday afternoon that his organization would file an application next week to intervene on behalf of Michael Spencer, the activist who filed the records request.

Over the last year, the city has received ---- and granted ---- five formal public records requests for the employer information, Pieper has said. They were submitted by media organizations, as well as Spencer and the ACLU.

Vista officials have also granted informal requests for the information by the North County Times.

Contact staff writer Craig TenBroeck at (760) 631-6621 or ctenbroeck@nctimes.com.

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