Such sites have increasingly been used to post the personal information of individuals who raise the ire of online activists, a practice known as "doxing."

Last week, the Los Angeles Police Department opened an investigation into who listed officers' property records, campaign contributions, biographical information and, in a few cases, the names of children and other family members on sites that allow users to anonymously input data.

Anonymous postings of personal information on more than two dozen L.A. police commanders prompted a councilman to propose supporting legislation that would keep such records confidential, officials said Monday.

On Friday, Councilman Dennis P. Zine, a former LAPD officer, introduced a motion calling on the state to mandate that county assessors keep law enforcement officials' records confidential, similar to protections offered by the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

He argued that police could become targets in the course of doing their jobs.

By adopting the resolution, "the city of Los Angeles hereby includes in its 2011-2012 State Legislative Program support of legislation that would clarify and authorize the ability of County Assessors to follow the same guidlines as the California DMV for maintaining confidentiality of records pertaining to law enforcement officials," according to the draft ordinance.

More broadly, the resolution calls on the LAPD, the city's chief legislative analyst and the city attorney to review "other types of public records that should be kept confidential for law enforcement officials" but does not specify what other kind of information should be kept out of the public domain.

Last week, several postings were linked to from a publicly available Twitter account, where unnamed activists claimed responsibility for the document dump. Some of the posts referred to the computer hacking group Anonymous, as well as Occupy L.A.

"We stand with OccupyLA," one of the postings reads.

Another message refers to posted documents related to the Denver and Philadelphia police departments.

Los Angeles police say there has been a recent uptick in attempts to hack into the department's computers and website. None has been successful.

LAPD Cmdr. Andy Smith said the department could not move to shut the documents site down because officials could not prove the data was illegally obtained.

Still, the LAPD is examining whether some of the actions of those behind the posts could have included illegal acts, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation.

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-- Andrew Blankstein

twitter.com/anblanx