"An Illinois federal judge Thursday ruled that the Chicago Sun-Times violated federal law by publishing personal details of five police officers"

Law360:

An Illinois federal judge Thursday ruled that the Chicago Sun-Times violated federal law by publishing personal details of five police officers in a story about the alleged cover-up of a murder committed by the mayor’s nephew.

U.S. District Judge Harry D. Leinenweber stripped the newspaper of most of the defenses it planned to assert in a 4-year-old suit brought by five officers whose height, weight, eye color and other identifying features were published in a 2011 article about the death of David Koschman.

Leinenweber said that the Sun-Times violated the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act when it published the information, which was obtained from state driver’s license records that are supposed to be private.