Ciolli_Final_V4

The murder of Daniel Anderl, the son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, exposed the ease with which publicly available personal data can be weaponized against members of the judiciary. In response, Congress enacted the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act, and several states adopted analogous statutes—commonly known as “Daniel’s Laws”—to restrict the dissemination of judges’ home addresses and other sensitive personal information. Critics have argued that these laws violate the First Amendment by restricting the publication of truthful information, and at least one federal court has invalidated portions of a state statute on that basis. This Article contends that such criticisms rest on a fundamental misunderstanding of what these statutes regulate. Properly understood, the federal and state Anderl Acts do not restrict speech on matters of public concern but instead regulate the commercial dissemination of highly sensitive personal data—an area long subject to legislative regulation. By examining the structure of the federal statute and key state analogues, as well as the recent judicial decisions evaluating them, this Article argues that these laws should be upheld under rational basis or, at most, intermediate scrutiny. Far from threatening press freedom, judicial privacy legislation represents a narrowly tailored response to a modern threat to judicial independence in the data economy.

PDF: https://journals.law.unc.edu/ncjolt/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2026/04/Ciolli_Final_V4.pdf

Author: Anthony M. Ciolli

Volume 27, Issue 3