Straus News wins subpoena case

Bloggers will remain anonymous: Judge calls their comments offensive, not criminal, By Becca Tucker GOSHEN, N.Y. — Two people who posted comments on a Straus News Web site will keep their anonymity, according to a decision last Tuesday by an Orange County, N.Y., judge. Judge Nicholas De Rosa sided with the newspaper group, which publishes The Pike County Courier, in deciding that the district attorney was not entitled to know who had been posting comments on the Straus News site. He denied the grand jury subpoena seeking the identities of two posters. “The grand jury inquiry was based solely on speech made in that blog,” De Rosa said. That speech, although offensive, is not criminal, nor does it show evidence of a further crime, like stalking or harassment, the judge said. Assuming you can translate the posts “from whatever language the moron who wrote it was speaking,” said De Rosa, “it’s still only speech.” The comments were posted in the online edition of The Chronicle, a sister paper to the Courier that covers Goshen and Chester in Orange County. The Chronicle considered the subpoena the latest effort in a long campaign to “out” anonymous posters who use the Internet to criticize people in positions of authority. The paper moved to quash the subpoena because it believed that complying would have had a chilling effect on public discourse. All newspapers in the Straus group allow readers to comment under articles posted online. Posters may provide their true names if they wish, but the vast majority use pseudonyms. Why it matters The tradition of anonymous speech is older than the United States. Founders Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym “Publius.” The Republic’s earliest newspapers and journals found fit to print all manner of unattributed allegations and aspersions on character and conduct. The U.S. Supreme Court has consistently backed them up, finding anonymous speech vital to vigorous political discussion. There is an equally old tradition in which the object of anonymous speech wants very badly to know — sometimes to the point of obsession — who has been making unfriendly comments about them. But unless those comments are defamatory, contain what’s called “true threats,” harassment, fighting words, or solicitations to lawlessness, or fall into a few other categories, the target has no legal help unearthing his critic. The Internet has complicated matters. It has given the opinionated, pajama-clad coach potato an international forum. And it has provided law enforcement with an electronic trail. Every computer has an Internet protocol address, called an IP address, that may be tracked. “This is not a new circumstance,” said Gene Policinski, vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, an education group. “The fight [to unmask one’s critics] has been fought and lost, for the most part. But this is new technology, so people are making another run at it.”