> an overworked air traffic controller in Germany

Actually the air traffic controller in question was Swiss not German.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_%C3%9Cberlingen_mid-air_c...

You left out - was a foreigner, managed to escape, faced zero consequences at home (AFAIK).

The last check on power is murdering politicians in their homes? I beg to differ. If the situation is so bad that violence is truly necessary, the last check is an organized revolution, not an assassination. If the figure is a genuine dictator and important enough to have real power, they would have extensive security surrounding their home anyways. This fantasy of assassinating a would-be Putin or whatever does not justify exposing the addresses of city councilmen or judges or whatever random public servant somebody wants to kill over their grievances.

I'd argue that employers shouldn't have access to employee's home addresses either, outside of situations where it's needed (e.g., employee chooses to get paycheck by mail instead of direct deposit). Most employers keep access to personal employee information (PII) restricted to HR/timekeeping/payroll departments anyway.

Why would my direct supervisor need my home address?

> Government employees, including and especially elected officials, are employees of the people and the people have a right to the same information any employer has about their employees.

I don't think any employer has any right to know their employee's home address, to be honest.

> Is political violence inherently worse? I think it is, but there's at least an argument to be made that it isn't.

I think this question is rather besides the point. Random acts of violence are bad, so let's not make anybody's home address public information. In the age of the internet, we routinely observe millions of people fixating on one person for some perceived grievance or another, wherein it only takes one lunatic among those millions having access to private information to result in a tragedy. We don't have to make it so easy for these tragedies to happen.