Hate, 8, and the Golden State.

• Author: Sherman, Paul
• Position: Letters - Letter to the editor

In "Hate, 8, and the Golden State" (March),Tim Cavanaugh says that those who "use the power of the state to interfere with the domestic happiness of others ... had better be willing to pay the price in lost work opportunities." But while many libertarians disagreed with proponents of Proposition 8, all of us should be able to agree that the government has no business enabling retaliation--even legal forms of retaliation--against those who exercise their First Amendment rights.

Yet California's campaign finance disclosure laws compel people who give money to ballot issue campaigns to reveal their names, home addresses, and even employers on an Internet-searchable database. It was inevitable that some people would use this information to identify and harass their political opponents. Even more troubling, this database can create unexpected dangers, as was recently demonstrated when an animal-rights terrorist group published a list of "targets" that it compiled using federal campaign finance disclosure data to identify donors whose employers perform animal testing.

The...