FOI alert - birth and death records

The SPJ newsletter points to an important FOI alert about federal efforts under way to further restrict access to birth and death records (which, in some states, already are darn hard to get).

Let's hope we can get enough moxie behind the effort to stop this so that we don't let ourselves get in the same position as we have with "who is" records of who owns Web sites or driver's license information. I'm all for protecting identities, but you have to have some basic identifying information available to conduct accurate public discourse.

Permit me my skepticism, however. Sometimes getting journalists together on issues like this is like herding cats, until it's too late.