Masked Email Activist Can Stay Anonymous

Mitchell writes "The NewStandard is reporting that a Texas judge ruled in favor of an anonymous political activist who used a Yahoo! email account to notify the press and to potential voters about the wasteful spending practices of Texas politician Jimmy Cokinos. Cokinos lost relection, and tried to nail "recall_carl01" with a defamation lawsuit, but a judge threw out the bid since the emailed critiques weren't defamatory."

Comments

Interesting

[CypherXero]

I found something interesting on this topic.

Corrupt

[mboverload]

The judicial branch is currently the only part of the US government not to be corrupted in general.

It is the ONLY branch we can remotely count on, a small glimmer of hope swimming in a sea of darkness.

Clarification

[antifoidulus]

It's been a while since I took civics class, but can a politician really claim defemation? I thought libel and slander suits only applied to non-famous people. If you go in the limelight, then you give up a lot of those rights(but then you are filthy rich, so who cares).
For example:
Saying Daryll Q. Handtro of 123 South Berry Street, Polandville, AL loves hot monkey sex, then I could be sued for libel(provided he does not in fact, partake in said monkey sex of course). But if I said that Micheal Jordan and Uma Thurman are secretly funeeling their money to build a lab that will clone Cowboy Neal, I cannot be sued.

Not Quite Open Season On Celebs

[cmholm]

It's not true that it's open season on public personalities, just that said personalities have a much higher burden of proof than - say - me.

Depending on the jurisdiction, it often appears that the BS threshold is so high as to make defemation of public figures outright legal. The reason is that courts feel that the right to openly discuss those in power outweighs the powerfuls' right to slap folks talking stink about them. Movie, tv, and recording stars are for the most part collateral victims.

Re:The lawsuit was pointless anyway

[ari_j]

I know many people who have, and it's hardly indicative of stupidity. In your 40 years of life, free e-mail accounts have existed for about 1/4 of the time, so your 40 years of life have absolutely no relevance to this discussion. The only evidence that supports your claim arises solely out of your own ignorance.

I agree that it's almost a given that the person in question did not give his real name and address when he applied for that Yahoo account, but that does not mean that everyone who has ever applied for one lied in their application.

Re:Hopefully

[maxpublic]

Hopefully the government will recognize a right to anonyminity.

You do have this right. It's been recognized for some time that citizens can't truly have free speech without the ability to be anonymous. A simple fact even the brain-dead should be able to wrap their tiny minds around.

Aside from which, the Constitution doesn't define your rights; it defines the rights of the government. Anything else belongs to the states, or the people. If you're dubious, check out the 9th and 10th amendments.

Max