Texas judge gets it right

[sauergeek]

Masked email activist can remain anonymous, judge rules

A judge has correctly refused to unmask a critic of a politician, even though the criticism apparently cost the politician his reelection. The judge ruled that because the criticisms were not defamatory as a matter of law, the politician had no right to know who the critic was. This is an excellent development -- anonymous critics should not be outed without some demonstration that they've done something wrong.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/_nicolai_/]

Well, doesn't anonymous pamphleteering (and its online analogues) have a long history and a lot of legal precedent to protect it in the USA, stemming from it being important in you giving George III the finger?

[sauergeek.livejournal.com]

The US history of anonymous pamphleteering is long and varied. Probably the most famous examples are the pre-Revolutionary tracts against George III, and the post-Revolutionary Federalist Papers in favor of adopting the Constitution. Unfortunately, with people shifting to anonymous Internet posting, and the relative ease of tracking "anonymous" speakers, there have been many attempts recently to unmask people who are simply anonymous. An example (that ultimately came out right) is in RIAA v. Verizon where the court reversed an order to unmask file sharers where the files shared were on the sharer's own computer, instead of on Verizon's computers. The key here is that the Verizon district court would have revealed the file sharer's identity before the allegations against him had been substantiated. Cases like the Texas one I mentioned work against this trend, by upholding the rights of anonymous pamphleteers, whether physical or bitwise, to remain anonymous so long as they do not violate laws. I read the Texas ruling to say that the judge wanted a demonstration that the critic violated law (in the Texas case defamation, but it can be read to include all legal violations) before he would issue any order to reveal who the critic was. Rulings like the one in Texas can only help in the face of cases like these