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

Contrast NY with TX

[ari_j]

Compare this story to this recent gem about the NY court ruling that the police attaching a GPS tracking device to your car without a warrant is just fine and dandy. It's no coincidence that NY is (for America) extremely liberal and TX is fairly conservative.

Re:Service of process online

[techno-vampire]

Truth is an absolute defense to libel and slander and so forth.

That's true in the USofA, but not in Great Britian. Truth isn't a defense there, and the wealthy use that to punish the tabloids for printing things all the time.

Re:Service of process online

[techno-vampire]

Yes, I'm sure. The truth has never been a defense against libel or slander in Great Britian. In the Colonial period, a governer sued a newspaper publisher for libel, heard the case himself and rejected the defense plea that the article was true.