We receive takedown notices regularly. They come from individuals, lawyers, companies, and governments. This post is part of a series where we document how we handle them, both the routine cases and those that reveal something worth discussing publicly.
This request, to take down icepi.cx (now online again at http://icepicx.is/ ) arrived from a company we have no relationship with, acting for a government agency in a country where we do not operate.
Doxxing publishes private details about private people so that others can find them at home. Icepick publishes work identities of government employees. Who they work for. What their role is. How they can be reached in that role. The information describes people in the exercise of public authority, not in their private lives. Federal officers carrying out an enforcement programme are not private individuals while they are carrying it out. The public has a legitimate interest in knowing who is doing that work, under whose authority, and in which office. Journalists cannot report on an agency whose personnel are structurally unknowable.
