A state representative in Florida has proposed legislation that would prevent any state agency from publicly releasing the names, addresses, birthdays and other personal information of service members and their families.

Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz said the measure is meant to protect troops and their families from the Islamic State group, which recently posted the names, pictures and addresses of 100 service members, whom it called on its supporters to kill.

While the bill only affects Florida, Gaetz hopes that other states and the federal government adopt the same public records exemptions that he has proposed.

Here are five things you need to know:

1 The legislation. Under Gaetz's bill, all personal information about service members would not be obtainable through a request for information from the general public — including Freedom of Information Act requests.

Right now, the public can obtain personal information about service members from voting rolls, the property appraiser's website, the tax collector's office and school districts, Gaetz told Military Times in an April 2 interview.

Gaetz's legislation applies to data that is maintained and managed by Florida, not the Defense Department and other federal agencies.

2 Special operators' concerns. When local members of special operations forces returned home, they asked to be taken off the voter rolls to prevent bad guys from finding out where they live, he said.

"Because if their choice was to put their family at risk or to not vote, they would prefer to not vote," Gaetz said. "That was very frustrating, as you can imagine."

3 First Amendment concerns. A government watchdog group argues that Gaetz's bill is too broad and would restrict public records on too many people.

"It encompasses hundreds of thousands of people," said Barbara Peterson, president of the First Amendment Foundation. "Sgt. Jones has been married three times: All of her ex-husbands would fall under this exemption."

"We have many elected and appointed officials who are former military," she said. "How will we know that our county commissioner is living in the district she represents, as is required by law, if we don't have access to a home address?"

4 Restrictions already in place. Gaetz responded to criticism that his bill is too broad by arguing that his legislation would extend existing protections currently provided to members of law enforcement.

"We provide public records exemptions for corrections officers, police officers, judges, prosecutors and public defenders, and I don't think it's overly broad to apply that same protection to our servicemen and women," Gaetz said.

5 The risk. "Right now, service members are at risk because ISIS and other terrorist groups recognize that they, at times, can use our freedom against us," Gatez said. "My hope is that by constraining access to records that identify military servicemen and women we make it that much harder for anyone to target them — in my state or any other."

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