LexisNexis spokesman Paul Ekloff disputed that the freezing was an exaggeration. The company deemed that move necessary to honor Atlas users' requests not to disclose their data. “This company couldn't be more dedicated to supporting law enforcement,” he says. “We will support common sense protections.” But he described Daniel's law as overly punitive.
To Adkisson, the The people being punished were policemen, judges and other government employees whom he met during his jeep tour in New Jersey. They included police officer Justina Maloney, 38, and her husband, Sergeant Scott Maloney, 46, who work in Rahway, a small town on the border with New York City.
In April 2023, Justina was filmed by a YouTuber who runs the Long Island Audit channel, which has over 842,000 subscribers. He often films himself trying to instigate police misconduct, and Justina He is being asked to leave a government office His latest became a viral hit. Followers flooded the Rahway police Facebook page with nearly 6,500 comments, including death threats, abuse and links to the Maloneys' addresses and phone numbers on SearchPeopleFREE.com and Whitepages. Scott says Facebook will not remove comments associated with contact information. The police department also won't do so, citing First Amendment concerns. The tension boiled over.
In August 2023, Scott received messages demanding $3,000 or “your family will be responsible for giving me blood”. The texts listed his sister's name and address. An hour later, the same number sent a video of two ski-masked men carrying guns at an undisclosed location. Atlas was not yet operational, so Scott, determined to delete all of his family's contact data online, sat on his lagoonside deck every evening for weeks, crushing Michelob Ultras to stay cool while navigating takedown forms. Gave. He made so many requests for his family on WhitePages that it stopped him from making more requests.
The Facebook comments linked to the Maloneys' address came to light only after Daniels sued his bosses for violating the law last November. Last January, a state judge ruled that the risk to the couple from censorship complaints outweighed the potential harm to the police department.
As Adkisson looked to sue non-compliant data websites, he had no trouble signing the Maloneys as plaintiffs. And because Daniel's Law now made it possible, thanks to Atlas and police union lobbying, to collect guaranteed penalties from data websites, Adkisson was able to secure five law firms, including the major national firm Boies Schiller. Flexner and Morgan & Morgan and some more. Lawyer who knew Daniel personally of “Daniel's Law”.