Washington DC
PUBLIC employees in Tennessee are being taken to court in an attempt to force
them into revealing the Internet sites they visit during working hours. A
newspaper publisher has filed a lawsuit鈥攂elieved to be the first of its
type鈥攃laiming that taxpayers should have access to computer files that
record the Net surfing habits of public servants.
The suit, brought by Geoffrey Davidian, publisher of The Putnam Pit in Putnam
County, will be heard next month. He claims that 鈥渃ookie鈥� and 鈥渃ache鈥� files held
on computers in the city offices of Cookesville should be classed as public
records under Tennessee law. Davidian says he wants to see if public employees
are looking at 鈥減ornography sites or ones advocating white supremacy or
厂补迟补苍颈蝉尘鈥�.
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Cookie files contain records placed there by some Web sites. They are used by
the sites involved to tell whether a surfer has visited before. An Internet
browser program鈥檚 cache stores recently accessed pages, allowing a surfer to
switch back to a page without having to download it again.
Cookesville city officials first refused to let Davidian inspect the files,
then later informed him that they had a policy of rejecting cookies from Web
sites and of purging cache files every day.
Michael O鈥橫ara, Cookesville鈥檚 city attorney, claims the files should not be
made public. As temporary records, he argues, they are more like handwritten
notes鈥攚hich don鈥檛 have to be disclosed 鈥攖han official documents.