Lawmakers push to hike funding for judicial anti-doxxing program

WASHINGTON (CN) — House lawmakers are renewing calls on congressional appropriators to fund a federal grants program aimed at giving state and local governments tools to shield the personal information of federal judges, citing increased security threats against the judiciary.

The move comes as top judicial officials say they are severely lacking the resources needed to protect judges and courthouses, even as some jurists face personal danger and others are targeted by President Donald Trump and his allies.

In a letter to the House Committee on Appropriations, sent earlier this month and obtained Tuesday by Courthouse News, a bipartisan group of lawmakers led by New York Representative Dan Goldman urged their colleagues to allocate $10 million for a grants program made law under the bipartisan Daniel Anderl Judiciary Security and Privacy Act.

The 2022 measure allowed the attorney general to issue grants to state and local governments to help scrub federal judges’ personal information, such as their home addresses, from online databases such as property tax records.

The bill also blocked third-party data brokers from reselling judges’ personal information and made it illegal to publish such data except in cases of “public interest” such as reporting the news.

“Time is of the essence in implementing the Anderl Act’s protections for our federal judges and their families, as members of the Federal judiciary have been exposed to an increased number of personal threats in connection to their role,” the House lawmakers told appropriators.

The federal judiciary has long sounded the alarm about threats against its judges. The Anderl Act itself is named for Daniel Anderl, the late son of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas. Anderl was killed at the judge’s home in a 2020 attack that also left her husband wounded. The assailant, an attorney who had appeared before the judge, found her address on the internet.

Officials have warned that those threats are only increasing. Dozens of federal judges have received unsolicited pizza orders at their home addresses in recent weeks — some with Anderl listed as the recipient. Other jurists have become victims of “swatting” attacks in which fake emergency calls brought police tactical teams to their homes.

The judiciary has also come under rhetorical assault from the Trump administration and some Republicans who are furious with rulings that have held up the White House’s ambitious executive agenda.

The president himself earlier this year called for the impeachment of U.S. District Judge James Boasberg after he temporarily halted mass deportations of Venezuelan migrants.

Some Republican lawmakers such as Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles have followed suit, filing impeachment articles against Boasberg and a handful of other judges they’ve deemed political activists. Others have suggested that the White House could ignore certain rulings it believes are illegal.

Writing in their letter to congressional appropriators, Goldman and the other House lawmakers pointed to the increased threat environment and the posture of the White House towards federal judges underwrites the need to fund the Anderl Act’s anti-doxxing provisions.

“It is critical that Congress take action to protect all our public servants on the federal bench and prevent this type of violence and threats in the future,” they said. “Our judiciary, and by extension, our democracy, cannot continue to bear this burden alone.”

In a statement to Courthouse News, Goldman said that it was “vital” that Congress fund the Anderl Act’s anti-doxxing program to ensure that federal judges’ sensitive information is kept private.

“As Donald Trump has escalated his attacks on federal judges, their safety and security are increasingly at risk,” the New York Democrat said. “If judges alter their decisions out of fear for the safety of themselves and their families, then we no longer live under the rule of law.”

Though they were made law years ago, the state and local grants approved under the 2022 Anderl Act have never been funded by Congress.

And it’s not the first time that lawmakers have implored their colleagues to help keep judges’ personal information off the internet. A bipartisan group of members of Congress made a similar request of appropriators in 2023, also citing the “increased number of personal threats” against the judiciary.

As lawmakers eye steps to shield federal judges from personal harm, judiciary officials have been on Capitol Hill urging appropriators to increase overall funding for security operations, which have remained relatively flat for years.

During a hearing in the Appropriations Committee earlier this month, U.S. Circuit Judge Amy St. Eve, chair of the U.S. Judicial Conference’s budget committee, said that current spending on judicial security is woefully lacking and that, among other things, it has forced the judiciary to divert funds designated for updating security systems at federal courthouses.

Without a cash injection, she warned, the equipment which protects courthouses will become even more obsolete.

Congress is in the early stages of preparing a federal budget for the 2026 fiscal year, a process in which Capitol Hill’s Republican majority hopes to slash billions or even trillions of dollars from government spending.

A budget blueprint passed earlier this year directs lawmakers to find $4 billion in budget cuts, but some spending hawks have backed a plan which would see Congress claw back as much as $2 trillion in spending.

The federal judiciary’s budget has also been directly threatened by some Republicans, including House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan, who last month urged congressional appropriators to include a provision in the courts’ 2026 funding bill that would block government cash for the issuing or enforcement of nationwide injunctions by federal judges.

Kelsey Reichmann contributed to this report.

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