Anonymity

acomj writes: "In a blow to "anonymous cowards" everywhere the NYTimes has a story on a court ruling anonymous speech is not a protected right. I'm a big proponent of the "consider the source" when reading anonymous posts..." The Times story covers several related cases. The typical procedure for these cases seems to be to file a suit alleging defamation, use the legal powers granted by the court to discover the identity of the speaker, then simply drop the suit and fire the speaker - the lawsuit is only a pretense. This seems like an abuse of the judicial system to me.

Comments

Is some anonymous coward really that credible?

[ttyRazor]

All this boils down to a simple bit of advise that people seem to forget every time they look at a computer: "don't believe everything you read". The flood of lawsuits like this all work under the assumption that anything joe-schmoe AOL user says is as authoritative as if Alan Greenspan himself decreed that so-and-so company "sucks ass". Guess what lawyers, people have these conversations privately all the time, and not all of them are professional stock analysts. The reason why you have the option to sue in the first place is because someone with credibility might say something false against you and others might actually believe it in a way that measurably hurts your reputation and your ability to do whatever you do.

Re:Throw-away accounts won't save you

[Cire LePueh]

While this is definately true, throw aways can provide anywhere from a small to large layer of protection. While there is an electronic trail with any account system, the tail becomes harder to follow by intelligently using accounts (both net access and email) to cover your true identity. The trail does exist, but each layer makes it a bit harder to track if done well. If nothing else simply from the coordination of access and amount of technical info/support needed. Add offshore telnet accounts and the trail can deadend depending on the level of cooperation the foreign access point is willing to provide, in a civil situation it may very well be none. (or if pockets get lined...complete.) Historically this method has been one of the many used successfully by black hats for years. It has bitten those that relied solely on this method and did enough damage, or ticked the wrong person off enough to go after it tenaciously.

Either way it does not invalidate the value of the internet cafe/public library/school computer lab/etc/etc. Either as a sole device, or a step in the anomymizing chain. To combat this would take actual physical surveilance at some point by someone involved.

Another question that comes to mind is the time frames we are talking about here. Even if a university lab keeps records of traffic of the network, they tend to look for certain flags...not the type of activity we are talking about. I know of two locations near me that regularly dump to /dev/null their general access logs and traffic logs. Not the best policy maybe but one their admins have in place.

Not a First Amendment Issue!

[IntelliTubbie]

The statement that the court ruled that "anonymous speech is not a protected right" is false. Anonymous speech enjoys the same protections under the First Amendment as any other speech (see this post).

However, some speech is not covered under the First Amendment: libel, obscenity, fraud, shouting "fire" in a crowded theater, etc. This ruling says that the right to the anonymity of speakers does not extend to non-protected speech. So, while I can criticize Microsoft's policies anonymously with impunity, I can't slander Bill Gates and hide from prosecution behind a shield of anonymity.

Interesting

[rackrent]

Does anyone else find it ironic that the NYT link to a story regarding anonymity requires registration to view the document??

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Excite news's article

[Anne Marie]

Excite News has an article on one of the cases discussed by the NYT.

Supreme Court Precedent

[Effugas]

Actually, I'm curious how this court reconciles their decision with the Supreme Court's relatively recent rulings directly supporting the right to speak anonymously. To quote Justice Stevens:

"quite apart from any threat of persecution, an advocate may believe her
ideas will be more persuasive if her readers are unaware of her
identity. Anonymity thereby provides a way for a writer who may be
personally unpopular to ensure that readers will not prejudge her
message simply because they do not like its proponent." Stevens
concluded "Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a
pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of
advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of
the majority. "

See the above link for further details; essentially, it's rather difficult for the courts to ban anonymous speech when some of the founding papers of this country(the Federalist Papers) were released anonymously, in an environment that was intensely harsh against such speech. To wit:

The obnoxious press licensing law of England, which was also
enforced on the Colonies was due in part to the knowledge that
exposure of the names of printers, writers and distributors would
lessen the circulation of literature critical of the government. The
old seditious libel cases in England show the lengths to which
government had to go to find out who was responsible for books that
were obnoxious to the rulers. John Lilburne was whipped, pilloried
and fined for refusing to answer questions designed to get evidence
to convict him or someone else for the secret distribution of books
in England. Two Puritan Ministers, John Penry and John Udal, were
sentenced to death on charges that they were responsible for writing,
printing or publishing books.

(If you haven't noticed--England has retained some of the more brutally harsh and heavily enforced Libel laws in the industrialized world. Tradition.)

I'm actually pretty intensely interested in what the appeals court had to say that would appear to contravene established precedent. Is the court saying it's OK to call the government inept, but not a corporation? Consider what that implies.

Yours Truly,

Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Reseach
http://www.doxpara.com

The key problem with this ruling...

[isaac]

...is that it orders the message board operator to reveal the identity of an anonymous poster *before* it has ruled whether the remarks were in legal fact defamatory. This is the dangerous precedent. Even if the statements in this case are defamatory and not protected under the First Amendment, future plaintiffs will be able to point to this court and say "Look! You have to reveal the identity of this Anonymous Coward first, then rule on my claims of libel/defamation", then single out this individual for retaliation once his/her identity is revealed, even if the anonymous posts are protected speech. (This is one of the favored legal tactics of Scientologists seeking to squash critics, in case you've been under a rock.)

Hopefully, this decision won't stand; it only serves to legitimize the nasty practice of identifying anonymous critics and whistleblowers via subpoena, for the sole purpose of seeking retribution.

-Isaac

Hacking the Legal System

[Dr. Tom]

Yea, the 9th amendment gives you the right, but what most people fail to realize is that rights do not exist in vacuo. Rights are irreducibly tied to responsibilities -- you cannot have rights without responsibilities. It works the other way around, too -- you cannot have responsibilities without rights. You want one without the other? Tough! It doesn't work that way. You want to slander me and hide? Fine, but I have the right to look for you, within the bounds of the legal system, and you are responsible for what you say, whether you do it in the clear or not.

Naturally, some people are better at hacking the legal system than others.

This does NOT mean that you don't have the right to post anonymously -- you do -- and a clever person would leverage this to get such cases thrown out of court (any system can be hacked, even the legal system). But you cannot relinquish the responsibilities that go with anonymity!