A Model Anti-Doxing Law: Free Speech, Press Freedom Groups Oppose Effort

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A coalition of free speech and press freedom organizations warns that model legislation intended to fight “doxing” could have “devastating consequences" for newsgathering and dissent.

“Journalists already face escalating threats for doing their jobs. A vague anti-doxing law could be used to criminalize the truth,” declared Society of Professional Journalists Executive Director Caroline Hendrie. 

The Uniform Law Commission (ULC), established in 1892, is comprised of “more than 300 lawyers, judges, and law professors, appointed by the states as well as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands,” according to the ULC. The group disseminates “uniform state laws” where such “uniformity is desirable and practical.” 

In July 2024, the executive committee of the ULC authorized a year-long study committee to review the need and “feasibility” for a law that addresses doxing. (Doxing typically involves the spread of personal and private information for the purpose of intimidation or harassment.) 

But with the study committee nearing the end of its appointment, SPJ, the American Governance Institute, the Association of Foreign Press Correspondents, the Coalition for Women in Journalism, the First Amendment Coalition, the Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), the Radio Television Digital News Association, and the Society of Environmental Journalists (SEJ) oppose the drafting of any “overbroad doxing statute” that would be “weaponized to silence the disclosure of newsworthy information of public concern."

The organizations state in a letter [PDF] to the ULC Doxing Study Committee that “one man’s ‘dox’ is another man’s call to accountability.” 

“Because of this malleability, there is every risk that an imprecisely drafted statute could become a politicized instrument to shut down commentary or criticism on the behavior of government officials – the speech that has always been understood to lie at the heart of the First Amendment,” the organizations further contend. “Particularly in these fraught times – when journalists are facing regular threats of government investigation or jailing in response to routine news coverage – the Committee should proceed with great caution and consider whether it is even possible to craft a meaningful statute that does more good than harm."

Referencing threats by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate media organizations and news programs like CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” the coalition insists that proves this is “not an abstract concern.” 

Laws already exist to deal with conduct that is typically associated with doxing. There are statutes for prosecuting threats, incitement, and harassment.  

“The understandable frustration felt by many people – that unwelcome speech short of threats, incitement or harassment goes unpunished – is less about a lack of statutory remedies than about the reality that the First Amendment vigorously protects speech short of threats, incitement or harassment. In other words, existing law largely penalizes as much speech as is constitutionally permissible,” the coalition argues. 

In March 2025, the state senate in Georgia passed the “Georgia Anti-Doxing Act.” The law aimed to create two new offenses for doxing and “aggravated doxing.” But it has stalled in the Georgia legislature.

The proposed bill had all the problems that have led First Amendment advocacy groups to oppose similar legislation advanced in states throughout the country. As the Georgia First Amendment Coalition pointed out, the Georgia Anti-Doxing Act would have made it a crime to share identifying information that was already public (like employment history on LinkedIn). It required a person to consider whether a third party may use certain information for harassment before they shared the information, and it did not require proof an actual injury from the posting of information, making the “reasonable fear” of stalking or physical harm subjective. 

Just like the coalition emphasized to the UFC, there was no need to consider the anti-doxing law because Georgia already criminalized conduct related to doxing. The “tort of publication of private facts” addresses harassment through “any form of electronic communication” that may be used to harm others. The state criminal code also punishes a “threat of violent crime toward others.” 

Illinois is one of the few states with a law that allows a person to sue another individual for doxing. Ed Yohnka, the director of communications and public policy for the ACLU of Illinois, said the organization opposed the law because it is "overly broad and inclusive of protected speech—namely, the inclusion of both truly publicly available information as well as private conversations between more than two people."

Finally, the coalition highlighted The Plain View Project as an example of an advocacy and research project that would be endangered if anti-doxing laws were misused: 

…[W]e would point you to the  acclaimed work of The Plain View Project (https://www.plainviewproject.org/), in which researchers scoured the public Facebook profile pages of law enforcement officers throughout the country, discovering hundreds of posts in which officers glorified violence or expressed racial bias. Drawing on the Plain View database, journalists with the nonprofit news site Injustice Watch published a series of news stories recognized with the national Ancil Payne Award for Ethics in Journalism, among other honors. The Plain View project is credited with bringing to light questionable behavior that resulted in some 230 officers being fired or facing other disciplinary sanctions. 

“An officer whose name and Facebook profile information is disseminated by an organization like Plain View may well be able to prove that the information about his misconduct was published with knowledge, reckless disregard, or even intent that the officer suffer adverse employment consequences,” warned the coalition. That is because some “third party” might target a “rogue police officer” with “threats or harassment on social media.”

This is not a figurative example. In 2021, Oklahoma enacted a law against doxing “law enforcement and county officials online.” One attorney worried the law could be wielded to punish individuals for sharing “videos of officers on duty” or even “filming police”—both protected under the First Amendment.

United States Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee has already proposed a federal law, the Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act, to criminalize the release of names of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. 

Given how the bill was put forward by Blackburn to stop “blue city mayors” like Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, who have challenged ICE operations, it is virtually guaranteed this anti-doxing law would be utilized to suppress advocacy and journalism. 

“A wave of state doxing statutes has been enacted in recent years, with others anticipated during the 2025-26 legislative cycle. Invariably, those recent enactments will be subjected to vigorous constitutional overbreadth challenges in court,” the coalition concludes. “In light of the unsettled and evolving state of the law, we strongly encourage the ULC to adopt a wait-and-see approach, putting this drafting initiative aside until the courts have furnished clearer guidance about what, if any, anti-doxing measure is constitutionally permissible.”

“The risks of over-punishing civically valuable speech are too great to proceed with anything less than complete information.”