Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified?

netbuzz writes "Absolutely, depending on the circumstances, yet a Florida newspaper's attempt to unmask 'a political group hiding behind the name of a fictitious person' has sparked outrage in some circles. Part of the reason for that outrage is that the paper posted to its Web site a surveillance video of the blogger visiting its advertising department, a tactic the editor says he now regrets. What's really at issue here is the right to publish anonymously vs. the right to remain anonymous. The former exists, the latter does not."

Comments

ya

[mastershake_phd]

Someone just lost a lot of credibility. (the paper) I hope it was worth it.

Re:ya

[SilentChris]

And?

Nothing what they did was illegal.

Further, any blogger (any internet user, and in particular any Slashdot user) should know that online anonymity is impossible. The best take their real names and run with it. The worst stand behind a glass wall and wonder how people figure out who they really are.

Re:ya

[mikael]

A more civilised approach would have been for the editors to have run an article on the issue and offered to invite both parties (the blogger and the political candidate) for interviews. The purpose of the CCTV system is to protect the staff of the advertising office, not to publicly expose people the editors have taken a dislike to.

Re:ya

[Anonymous Coward]

Figure out who I am.

Re:ya

[SilentChris]

"Figure out who I am."

I couldn't. CmdrTaco and friends could easily. Feel safe?

Re:ya

[kirun]

Nothing what they did was illegal.

I don't see what that has to do with anything. The law is not there to say what is right and wrong. The interaction between the ad department and the news department will cause a credibility hit, as it now seems somebody in news owes the ad people a favour.

Re:ya

[WED Fan]

Nothing what they did was illegal.

There is lot that is not illegal. But, the paper's ethics must be called into question. Aside from threats to national security made in a blog, or confession to a felony in a blog, I'm hard pressed to see why outing someone who has chosen to write pseudonymously would be considered ethical.

Further, any blogger (any internet user, and in particular any Slashdot user) should know that online anonymity is impossible. The best take their real names and run with it. The worst stand behind a glass wall and wonder how people figure out who they really are.

Without the ability to publish, blog, speak anonymously, many of the world's tyrannical governments would not have been challenged, taken down, or seceded from. We, the U.S., did it to King George III and much of the public was influenced to support the effort, in part, through the publishing of anonymous, or pseudonymous tracts.

Yes, there are those who tried to uncover the writers, publishers, and distributors. But, in the end, whose interests do they serve?

I will put this forward, a newspaper that denies another's freedom to speak politically under a cloak of anonymity, should lose its right to exist. In other words, they protect the rights of others so their right is protected.

Re:ya

[Ultra64]

I couldn't. CmdrTaco and friends could easily. Feel safe?

Sure, they might be able to go to that guy's ISP and ask for the name of whoever had that IP address at the time of the message. But what if the person with the IP address has a wireless router? What if the poster is just war-driving by?

Re:ya

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because nothing says credibility like some anonymous blogger spouting off on the internet as if the entire world is bowing before them and eagerly awaiting each and every snip of news from them.

Re:ya

[PhxBlue]

I'm hard pressed to see why outing someone who has chosen to write pseudonymously would be considered ethical.

Because it's a question of public interest: Is the person a single entity acting on his own or a front for a political group or "think tank"? In short, is it grass-roots or Astroturf?

Re:ya

[suggsjc]

Well, then they would still know the time and place. They could figure out a proximity from the router and begin the search from there. Posting "do you know who I am" won't warrant a full blown search just as blogging about what you and your friends did last night. But if you were leaking high profile information and the parties involved had the time and/or resources, then I'm sure there are ways to find this type of stuff out. For all you pointy tin foil hat people out there, you've only got as much anonymity as you want to believe that you have. If your not doing anything "wrong" (a subjective term) then you might actually have as much anonymity as you believe, but start messing with other people and you'll soon find out that there IS someone smarter than you out there and despite your best efforts, you *could* be found out.

Re:ya

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because nothing says credibility like some anonymous blogger spouting off on the internet as if the entire world is bowing before them and eagerly awaiting each and every snip of news from them.

Indeed Anonymous Coward, indeed.

Re:ya

[Shads]

The only problem I see is basically as far as most people are concerned they violated the blogger by disclosing who they were... which is a lot like naming a source, if I had a story that would be the flatout last newspaper I would ever consider going to. They can't be trusted basically.

Re:ya

[loganrapp]

Not to mention: How does a paper - its own privately-owned entity - deny a person the right to write just by figuring out who the writer is?

They were doing an expose - newspapers do this all the time. It just seems that because the person in question does something that perhaps you do as well, suddenly it's wrong.

Not to mention - this ain't the Revolution Era. Information flows a thousand different ways and exponentially faster. A person doesn't need to send their message out via courier, requiring the aid of others who may "vouch" for that person's content. Instead, a lone person can write their message and put it up all by themselves, without even so much as a credit card number.

Hell, I could do it right now, just start posting half-truths and spin to build myself a readership. It's just that Dvorak's already got that cornered.

Re:ya

[Anonymous Coward]

Suppose I'm using tor?

Re:ya

[sm62704]

Hi, I'm Steve McGrew. Good luck finding me with a common name like that. On the internet, even using my real name Im anonymous.

Imagine if my name were John Smith?

Re:ya

[hysma]

Hmm, looks like you live in Quebec. Your "friend's" phone number ends 2866 (and yours 5458) with a house number of 398.

Am I close? :)

Re:ya

[sm62704]

Same continent. If I tell you what US state I live in you could probably find me.

Does not, eh?

[Qzukk]

What's really at issue here is the right to publish anonymously vs. the right to remain anonymous. The former exists, the latter does not.

Is that like how the Constitution provides specific grounds for revoking habeas corpus, but it's OK if the government ignores it because you don't have the right in the first place?

How can one claim that someone has the right to "publish anonymously" if a person cannot be anonymous?

Re:Does not, eh?

[dreamchaser]

Actually, neither 'right' with regards to anonymnity is enumerated in the Constitution, nor is any right to privacy outside of unlawful searches.

Re:Does not, eh?

[John Hasler]

> Is that like how the Constitution provides specific grounds for revoking habeas corpus,
> but it's OK if the government ignores it because you don't have the right in the first
> place?

No. Aside from the fact that you do have the right to habeas corpus, this has nothing to do with the government at all.

> How can one claim that someone has the right to "publish anonymously" if a person cannot
> be anonymous?

You have the right to "publish anonymously". You have the right to be anonymous. However, no one is obligated to help you be anonymous. It's up to you to keep your identity secret. If you screw up and your secret gets out, tough.

I wouldn't do business with a paper that publishes surveillance videos of its customers, though.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no requirement to identify yourself when you publish. That is "the right to publish anonymously". It is not a guarantee: You can't say "this is not to be linked to me" and expect someone else (like the government) to make sure that it isn't. If you want to stay anonymous, it is your responsibility, hence no right to remain anonymous.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

And they're not required to be!

* Ninth Amendment - Protection of rights not specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights.
        The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Re:Does not, eh?

[FutureDomain]

The Constitution protects the "Freedom of the Press", but not the "Freedom of Anonymity of the Press". There are steps you can take if you want to remain anonymous, but no laws preventing someone from outing a blogger who doesn't keep his identity a well-kept secret.

Re:Does not, eh?

[dreamchaser]

Non sequiter. What you quote means that other rights retained by the people cannot be trampled on inadvertently by the rights enumerated. In other words, you can't ues your right to bear arms to take my right to life (except in self defense).

Good try though.

Re:Does not, eh?

[$RANDOMLUSER]

And yet, at the time of the writing of the Constitution, publishing under psuedonyms was common practice, even by the Founding Fathers.

Re:Does not, eh?

[kclittle]

So? That doesn't mean they felt they had a "right" to remain anonymous, as is evidenced by the fact that those same Founding Fathers did not see it appropriate to include said "right" as an 11th Amendment in the Bill of Rights.

Re:Does not, eh?

[AlanS2002]

Actually, neither 'right' with regards to anonymnity is enumerated in the Constitution, nor is any right to privacy outside of unlawful searches.

The US constitution is neither the first nor the last word on what can be spoken of as rights, if you submit to being able to have a meaningful conversation of such things in the first place.

Re:Does not, eh?

[k_187]

No, I disagree. The constitution does not give us our rights. We, as humans, have natural rights endowed from wherever it is that we came from. The listing of specific rights in the Bill of Rights and elsewhere in the Constitution does not limit our natural rights to what is listed. Remember, the Bill of Rights was added because some states were not willing to sign on without explicit enumeration of some of those natural rights. Originally, Madison didn't believe the Bill of Rights necessary. Thus, the question really isn't "does the constitution grant us these rights?", but "is this a right that already existed, but has not yet been enumerated?"

Re:Does not, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

you can't ues your right to bear arms to take my right to life

Unless you mean that seeing someone with a gun causes you to keel over and die, I'd think it's you with the non sequitur here.

Good try though.

It is clear from the writings of the founding fathers that what he quoted does not mean "that other rights retained by the people cannot be trampled on inadvertently by the rights enumerated". It is clear that they wrote the Ninth and Tenth Amendments in order to indicate that A) the rights of people enumerated in the Constitution are not exhaustive and B) the powers of the government enumerated in the constitution are.

Re:Does not, eh?

[FooAtWFU]

It's still pretty rude (or worse) for the newspaper in question to do something like this, whether it's a violation of some sort of intrinsic civil liberty / constitutional right / etc or otherwise. Therein lies the rub. Not everything has to be some sort of civil liberties violation or against the law for it to be the Wrong Thing to Do.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Jackmn]

We, as humans, have natural rights endowed from wherever it is that we came from.

What evidence or reasoning supports this? Rights as they exist is modern countries are entirely a human construct.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Gorobei]

That is not what the ninth amendment says, nor does it reflect the intent of the writers.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Pretty simple: sounds like unnamed rights are not to denied or weakened because other rights were explicitly enumerated in the Constitution.

Lets see if that was the intent of the writers. Madison:

It has been objected also against a Bill of Rights, that, by enumerating particular exceptions to the grant of power, it would disparage those rights which were not placed in that enumeration; and it might follow by implication, that those rights which were not singled out, were intended to be assigned into the hands of the General Government, and were consequently insecure. This is one of the most plausible arguments I have ever heard against the admission of a bill of rights into this system; but, I conceive, that it may be guarded against. I have attempted it, as gentlemen may see by turning to the last clause of the fourth resolution.

Hmm, he agrees with the orignal poster, not you.

Hamilton?

The exceptions here or elsewhere in the constitution, made in favor of particular rights, shall not be so construed as to diminish the just importance of other rights retained by the people; or as to enlarge the powers delegated by the constitution; but either as actual limitations of such powers, or as inserted merely for greater caution.

Wow, he agrees with the original poster too.

Re:Does not, eh?

[kclittle]

You have a right to obey causality. You have a right to obey gravity. You have a right to keep your velocity under the speed of light at all times. You have a right to conserve energy/mass.

These and their like are the only "natural" rights "endowed" upon you by the universe -- in fact, they are *forced* upon you.

Any other supposed rights (freedom of speech, freedom to vote, freedom to chase girls, a.k.a. freedom to pursue happiness) are fictions created by the mind of man as he negotiates his way in the company of other humans.

Now, I certainly enjoy having these rights (especially the one about chasing girls), but I'm under no illusion that they exist in nature external to homo sap.

Re:Does not, eh?

[ronanbear]

And yet the paper would argue that it's allowed to protect its sources. You can't have it both ways privacy is not a privilege that may be conferred by a newspapers whim.

Either the press has the freedom that allows it to publish anonymous sources or it doesn't. If they have the right they should have respected the bloggers rights.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Dun Malg]

Non sequiter. What you quote means that other rights retained by the people cannot be trampled on inadvertently by the rights enumerated. In other words, you can't ues your right to bear arms to take my right to life (except in self defense).

Good try though. No, you're an idiot. If you actually knew anything about the history of the bill of rights, you'd know that the 9th was a concession to Hamilton and others, who believed that a bill of rights was unwise:

"I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and in the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers which are not granted; and on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?" -Hamilton, Alexander. The Federalist Papers, #84. "On opposition to a Bill of Rights."

The 9th (and 10th, for that matter) was included to address Hamilton's specific issues. But let us read the 9th amendment itself, and deduce its meaning based on what it actually says:

"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

See, I don't know where you get the hare-brained idea that the 9th has something to do with enumerated rights trumping one another. It very fucking clearly says what it means. Allow me to paraphrase:

"The fact that we chose to write down a Top Ten List of rights does not in any way imply that the people do not retain a multitude of other rights"

I'd sure love to see you cite a source for your laughable interpretation of the 9th Amendment. The 9th has been routinely ignored by many, but no sane person has ever claimed it meant other than what it says.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, cause the only rights we have are the ones specifically enumerated in the constitution, right?

I usually don't post Anon, but I'll do it this time.

Re:Does not, eh?

[sugapablo]

Plenty of places where people can post anonymously. Lots of Anonymous Cowards here. :)

Plenty of public machines and IP addresses where you can post to anonymous message boards and editable pages like http://subuse.net/ and http://subuse.net/level2

Re:Does not, eh?

[kclittle]

The right of a journalist to protect his/her sources has no bearing on the right of a source to expect/demand protection, either from the journalist or a third party. There is *no* right to remain anonymous.

Re:Does not, eh?

[C0R1D4N]

I would, publishing a video in a newspaper must be an incredible feat!

Re:Does not, eh?

[kclittle]

Yeah, cause the only rights we have are the ones specifically enumerated in the constitution, right?

Nope, not at all. But such "other" rights, if claimed, have to be proven through the legal system (this thread is about legal rights). IANAL, but no U.S. court that I know of has ever ruled that a writer/blogger/pundit has the right to remain anonymous.

Re:Does not, eh?

[FLEB]

First off, I think your fundamental argument (some things aren't illegal, but just a lousy thing to do) is true, and something a lot of people forget about.

However, unless this person is in identified real danger, there's a case to be made that there's a public service in exposing an anonymous editorializer. On one hand, absolute freedom of speech may be chilled or curtailed by required identification. On the other hand, though, people with bad or incorrect ideas can avoid necessary criticism, scrutiny, and feedback by sniping from the shadows.

Re:Does not, eh?

[epee1221]

as is evidenced by the fact that those same Founding Fathers did not see it appropriate to include said "right" as an 11th Amendment

No, they didn't need to include an eleventh -- they had the ninth.

Re:Does not, eh?

[maxume]

The newspaper's ethics here are poor. They didn't break the law, and what they did should not be made illegal. The Constitution mostly exists to enjoin the government, so it isn't hugely relevant to the behavior of the newspaper towards a private citizen. So in fact, we do have it both ways; the government can't(broadly) restrict the newspaper, but the newspaper can screw over anybody it wants.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Oonushi]

You have the ability to say "No" (or to silently resists if you happen to be mute) to anyone who tries to deny you those rights that you claim are "created in the mind of man". The Constitution and the Bill of Rights simply tell the government where they do and don't have authority over its citizens, who in turn agree to submit themselves to that authority.

Your ability to resist imposed authority is as natural as the law of gravity, therefore the only time your rights don't naturally exist, is when you don't defend them.

Re:Does not, eh?

[penix1]

I'd sure love to see you cite a source for your laughable interpretation of the 9th Amendment. The 9th has been routinely ignored by many, but no sane person has ever claimed it meant other than what it says.

There is a source for that interpretation. The sad fact is it comes from the lead attorney for the United States.

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/19/gonzales-habea s/

Of course, it isn't correct but shows that the man should never have been confirmed.

B.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Short Circuit]

One could argue that the lack of anonymity places a burdon on the press by exposing the speaker to burdons which should not be associated with speech. For example, someone who says something controversial on a hot-button topic can be subsequently exposed to death threats, financial ruin, etc.

Speech should not be associated with reputation, and credentials only serve to build the reputation of a speaker. If you want me to believe something, give me logic I can judge for myself, based on facts which may be verified.

The only current down-side of anonymity is the necessity that an accused individual needs to be able to face his attackers. Our courts and culture are structured (and being further restructured) with the assumption of guilt, with the accused required to support his own position. This is true both in law (with the government paying a salaried lawyer to put you in jail) and in society (where 90% of communication is gossip).

Re:Does not, eh?

[osu-neko]

What evidence or reasoning supports this?

The framers of the constitution believed that this was a "self-evident" fact -- something that would be understood to be true by any reasonable person upon considered reflection, requiring no evidence beyond that.

Now, that's a rather controversial idea. But, whether we accept the existence of self-evident facts or not, it remains true that the U.S. Constitution was written by people who specifically did believe that rights were not granted by government. Rather, that rights are inherent in persons by their very nature. A government can, in this view, protect your rights, ignore your rights, or even infringe upon your rights. But it can't possibly grant you any rights nor remove any rights from you, since that's not something within the power of government. Government is just a collection of people, with no ability to make fundamental changes to human nature by fiat. To assume otherwise is to assume collections of people are somehow able to wield god-like powers simply by virtue of acting collectively, and that's absurd.

So, whether one accepts this premise or not, one needs to read the Constitution with the understand that it was written with this point of view in mind, and needs to be interpreted accordingly.

Re:Does not, eh?

[MasterGwaha]

Well, at least we know how Aaron Burr responded to that...

Re:Does not, eh?

[Trailer Trash]

Note, too, that the Bill of Rights is really only a list of individual rights in a roundabout way. In reality, it's a list of limitations on government; first a list of limitations on what laws can even be created in this land later clarified to state that this list of limitations is on the entire federal government (all three branches) as well as all other governments within the US. This is how it should be.

In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson states "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men..." Those words probably have the highest truth:word-count ratio possible.

Anyway, you are very right. And I would submit that one of the biggest problems that we have in modern politics is getting people and government to understand the concept that government doesn't give people rights. Even if that were the idea (and it's not supposed to be in the US), it demonstrably never works.

Re:Does not, eh?

[DRJlaw]

You can't have it both ways privacy is not a privilege that may be conferred by a newspapers whim.

Either the press has the freedom that allows it to publish anonymous sources or it doesn't. If they have the right they should have respected the bloggers rights.

You've misconstrued the ability of a newspaper to protect its sources. Most states prevent their prosecutors from compelling a newspaper to reveal its sources to the government because permitting such a power would chill free speech. Note that the federal government doesn't believe this, and the Supreme Court doesn't believe this either.

Yet nothing prevents the government or others from hunting down the anonymous source in a way that bypasses the newspaper.

Similarly, the blogger does not have to reveal himself. But the government and others, and yes even a newspaper, are free to hunt down the blogger's identity.

For some reason you appear to believe that someone's decision to protect a source means that everyone, or at least other newspapers, should also protect that source. Vegans believe that people shouldn't eat animals or animal byproducts. Both beliefs have about the same likelihood of becoming universally observed.

Re:Does not, eh?

[TubeSteak]

And yet the paper would argue that it's allowed to protect its sources.

Most States have laws that allow journalists to protect their anonymous sources.
Note: There is no similar Federal Law.

You can't have it both ways privacy is not a privilege that may be conferred by a newspapers whim

I'm not sure what you mean by that. If the newspapers find out your secret... then you're subject to their whim.

Either the press has the freedom that allows it to publish anonymous sources or it doesn't.

They do, at the state level.

If they have the right they should have respected the bloggers rights.

What right did he have? The right to publish anonymously?
He used it.

You seem to be fundamentally misunderstanding the right to publish anonymously. All it means is that the Government can't make anonymous publishing a crime. What it doesn't mean is that no one is allowed to figure out who you are and tell the world.

Staying anonymous was the bloggers job.
What legal obligation did the newspaper have to keep his identity a secret?

Re:Does not, eh?

[pallmall1]

...but I'm under no illusion that they exist in nature external to homo sap.

Only if nature does not include self-aware intelligence.

Re:Does not, eh?

[k_187]

What does it mean to be human? I would argue that our natural rights to expression are an integral part of being human.

Re:Does not, eh?

[PopeRatzo]

Rights as they exist is modern countries are entirely a human construct.

So? I'm not sure what point you were trying to make with this inane comment, but everything which has to do with humans and societies are "human constructs". Does that make them less important, or more?

The greatest advance brought by the enlightenment is the idea and recognition that ALL rights flow from the people. Governments don't give us rights, they can only try to take them away. It is we that give the government rights, not the other way around. This basic fact gets lost in an age where scared, ignorant people are manipulated by government and industry, using a lazy, captive media.

But the desire for liberty is remarkably robust in people. It emerges even in the most beaten down, the most unlikely. And the pendulum is swinging back in this country (US). Despite a hard core 30% of dead-enders who just don't care about their own freedom, rule of law or right and wrong, a strong sense of anger and outrage is starting to be felt. It's long overdue, and feels really good.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Esteanil]

You have a right to obey causality. You have a right to obey gravity. You have a right to keep your velocity under the speed of light at all times. You have a right to conserve energy/mass.

That's what it must be like to be arrested by the Physics Police :p

Re:Does not, eh?

[inviolet]

We, as humans, have natural rights endowed from wherever it is that we came from.

What evidence or reasoning supports this? Rights as they exist is modern countries are entirely a human construct.

Rights are a human construct, yes, because doesn't put up little signs that say "Here is how to run a society." Rights are, nevertheless, essential and inherent.

They are essential in the sense that they represent the requirements of human survival in societies. Not just any society will do; the way that humans function requires that their society follows certain patterns. A society which allowed murder would run contrary to humans' essential requirement that violence be restrained (so as to allow survival by thought and long-term productivity).

They are inherent in the sense that they are dictated by our nature, not from our desires or political expediency. Wherever humans are, if they are to live together, they cannot escape their need for property recognition, restraint of coercion, and so on. (Humans can exist for a limited period of time without these, of course, but that existence will be "nasty, brutish, and short" -- as an animal's.)

To put this another way: rights are the conditions necessary for humans to operate rationally in a society. Whatever restraints we mutually require upon each other, in order to live as rational, conceptual, long-ranged, technological creatures, are our rights. To the extent that our government recognizes these rights, and defends them, our society will prosper; to the extent that they are ignored (as they often are), our society withers.

Having said all this, it's not obvious to me that privacy is a right. Privacy these days has come to mean the ability to constrain the gathering and use of information about ourselves. That's a reasonable desire given that it is our nature to feel physical pain at others' disapproval (we are tribal animals after all), but it's also our nature to gather maximum information about our environment in order to optimize our choices... hmmm...

Re:Does not, eh?

[kenwd0elq]

The "right to privacy" doesn't NEED to be enumerated: Amendment IX The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Amendment X The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. The text of the Constitution http://constitution.org/cons/constitu.htm is pretty clear; the Federal government has only the 19 enumerated powers of Article I, Section 8, and the States (or the people) have all the other rights and powers. The People have a right to privacy; the Federal government has no authority to ban it. Just as, absent the 18th Amendment, the government had no authority to ban alcohol, and the government has NEVER had the authority to ban drugs. (The STATES do, but that's another story.)

Re:Does not, eh?

[teh kurisu]

Thus, the question really isn't "does the constitution grant us these rights?", but "is this a right that already existed, but has not yet been enumerated?"

Rather, it denies me the right to deny you these rights. Before annoying things like laws, I would be within my rights if I sewed your mouth shut for saying something I didn't like.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

"How can one claim that someone has the right to "publish anonymously" if a person cannot be anonymous?"

That was not the claim. The claim was about the right to *remain* anonymous.

Rights are not static absolutes existing in perpetuity. Rights extend only so far as they do not cross other rights or laws. You have the right to publish/speak anonymously, which carries a dynamic right to *be* anonymous. But if your anonymously published/spoken piece violates a law or someone else's rights, then the dynamics have changed and your right to *remain* anonymous is cancelled.

Of course the point of violation is a matter of neverending debate providing immense job security for vast quantities of lawyers, but that's another issue.

Re:Does not, eh?

[suggsjc]

Just wanted to say that was a very well written post with an insightful counter to the parent's argument. Don't you know that all /. arguments have to overly biased rants with no substantial evidence to support any of their points???

You must be new here...2604??? Nevermind.

Joking aside, again great post.

Re:Does not, eh?

[DeadChobi]

I agree with you.

I would like to add that it was probably unethical to use a video surveillance tape to attempt to out the blogger when that was not the purpose of the tape. There's a difference between setting up a camera for the express purpose of identifying your customers and setting up a camera to keep your advertising department safe. He wasn't informed that he was being taped for the purpose of outing him. It's reasonable for me to assume that unless there's some pressing criminal investigation that video surveillance tapes will not be used to out me in any way.

To clarify, it would've been okay to identify the blogger if he had made threats or attempted to assault the advertising people. The purpose of the surveillance camera is to identify people who are obviously engaged in criminal activity. I admit that there's a case to be made for it being ethical as a case of public interest, though. Feel free to argue.

Re:Does not, eh?

[realcoolguy425]

You have ALL rights. That is until there is a law that limits a specific right.

Re:Does not, eh?

[cheebie]

And they then have the ability to throw you into a prison for life.
No right exists unless you have the means to defend it, or someone
else is willing to defend that right in your name.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Khaed]

Not everything has to be some sort of civil liberties violation or against the law for it to be the Wrong Thing to Do.

And that's something 90% of the people responding to this are missing.

It might be legal to expose an anonymous blogger, but that doesn't necessarily make it right. Some anonymous bloggers may need to be exposed. I sure as hell don't think we need a law against exposing them. Newspapers should be responsible, not act like a bunch of children.

Re:Does not, eh?

[k_187]

No, before laws there weren't institutional protections for my rights of expression. Just because you can sew my mouth shut doesn't make it a right.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Raptoer]

Guys... the constitution only applies to the government, it has nothing to do with some paper exposing someone's identity. The bill of rights controls the government, it does not in any way control a private company or a person. (the exception here are the parts about treason and counter fitting, those both apply to non-governmental bodies)

Re:Does not, eh?

[teh kurisu]

Doesn't this fly in the face of your original argument?

The constitution does not give us our rights. We, as humans, have natural rights endowed from wherever it is that we came from.

I could argue that my right to sew your mouth shut is a natural right endowed from wherever it is that I came from.

Re:Does not, eh?

[AJWM]

We, as humans, have natural rights endowed from wherever it is that we came from.

What evidence or reasoning supports this?

Read the Declaration of Independence, note the beginning of the second paragraph. Here I'll quote it for you:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, -- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

[emphasis added]

Note that the rights are not granted by governments, but rather that governments are instituted by the governed to secure (ie, protect from others) those rights. Further, the people have a right to alter or abolish any government not protective of those rights.

Is that evidence? No, it's a postulate; but it is the fundamental principal on which this country was founded.

Re:Does not, eh?

[TubeSteak]

It's reasonable for me to assume that unless there's some pressing criminal investigation that video surveillance tapes will not be used to out me in any way.

That is not a reasonable expectation.
It strikes me as a bit naive.

Those tapes belong to the business.
They can do whatever they want with them.

To be perfectly clear: If the newspaper wanted to stream their surveillance footage on homepage 24/7, nobody could stop them.

The law mostly limits when the Government (in the form of Law Enforcement or the legal system) can get their hands on it. The only other general limitations I'm aware of are where the video cameras can be placed (not in a bathroom or bedroom) and whether the camera has audio (depending on the State).

Re:Does not, eh?

[k_187]

Yes you could argue that, but then you'd be wrong.;)

The existence of a right is separate from the ability to express it. The constitution prevents the government from preventing us from expressing those rights. The problem with this is that no one (other than God, if you so believe) knows the full extent of our natural rights. One can argue that anything is in that realm of rights beyond those easily agreed upon, that doesn't mean that just because a right can be argued for, it is a natural right.

The closest allegory I can think of is Plato's idea of the forms. Just as the form of something exists separate from our perception of that thing, so do our natural rights exist separate from our ability to perceive and therefore express them. We can argue until we're blue that any given right is "natural", a convincing argument won't make it so.

Re:Does not, eh?

[John Newman]

>> Is that like how the Constitution provides specific grounds for revoking habeas corpus,
>> but it's OK if the government ignores it because you don't have the right in the first
>> place?

>No. Aside from the fact that you do have the right to habeas corpus, this has nothing to do with the government at all.

You may not be keeping up with politics, but the GPP's allusion is to the current AG's (and President's) latest argument for why they're Constiutionally permitted to imprison American citizens indefinitely without charge. It goes like this: the Constiution doesn't explicitly mention the right to habeas corpus, except to say when the government can revoke it. Therefore, you remain within the bounds of the Constiution by saying a citizen simply never had the right in the first place, and therefore the government isn't illegally revoking anything. As the Constiution is silent on which citizens actually have this right, it's clearly left to the executive to make the determination.

Kind of a Schrodinger's cat approach to rights. You never know whether you had them or not, until the executive retroactively decides. It's as harebrained as it is hairsplitting (Steven Colbert is surely jealous he didn't think of it first), but it's the official policy of the United States Government.

Re:Does not, eh?

[DeadChobi]

I was talking about ethics, not laws. What is legal and what is ethical are somewhat distant subsets, and what is legal and ethical is a small union of those two subsets. It would be unethical, for example, to show all my friends surveillance pictures of me in the newspaper office taking out a personal ad for a gay lover because I may not want my friends to know that. If they discover it in the newspaper then it's my own damn fault and a completely different story.

It's kind of a grey area in the interface between public services and private life. It's perfectly legal for credit card companies to sell your information to other companies for advertising, but it's not entirely ethical.

Re:Does not, eh?

[teh kurisu]

The problem with this is that no one (other than God, if you so believe) knows the full extent of our natural rights.

How can you even propose the idea of natural rights if you can't properly define it?

We can argue until we're blue that any given right is "natural", a convincing argument won't make it so.

I would argue (until I give up due to colour change, probably) that there are no natural rights, only what one can do and what one is prevented from doing. The issue of rights is one that is sociological in nature, and did not exist prior to the formation of society, making it decidedly artificial.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a right to obey causality. You have a right to obey gravity. You have a right to keep your velocity under the speed of light at all times. You have a right to conserve energy/mass.

Not so:

• Declaration of Independence
• Bill of Rights

Re:Does not, eh?

[Omnifarious]

Wow, that's an impressively insane interpretation of that amnedment.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Omnifarious]

You take the phrase 'natural rights' out of the intellectual context in which it was used. This is specifically a reference to some ideas tossed around by various enlightenment thinkers. Your opinion is a valid criticism of these ideas, but it is a horrible way to interpret a legal document since the basic premise of the document is that the concept of 'natural rights' has meaning.

You might want to read this reasonably well written Wikipedia entry on Natural rights.

Re:Does not, eh?

[WalksOnDirt]

Yes, this administration's reinterpretation of the constitution feels like Animal Farm come to life. And they represent the party that claims to want 'strict constructionists' on the Supreme Court!

Re:Does not, eh?

[k_187]

What it means to be human has been debated for centuries. I doubt that will be settled anytime soon.

I would argue the opposite, that in the state of nature, rights exist. Again, just because the ability to express a right does not exist (e.g. freedom of the press, which is really just a superset of freedom of speech), does not mean it does not exist.

Either way, the rights that we as people have are not bound by the words that are written in the constitution. EIther they are discovered in the course of human interaction, as I would say or society changes to the extent that the right is needed, as I would gather you would. With all that being said, the original post to which I replied is still wrong :)

Re:Does not, eh?

[rtechie]

Any other supposed rights (freedom of speech, freedom to vote, freedom to chase girls, a.k.a. freedom to pursue happiness) are fictions created by the mind of man as he negotiates his way in the company of other humans.

That's a pretty atheistic perspective. From a religious perspective the universe was created ultimately to serve the interests of man and/or God. Remember that the Declaration of Independence states that we "endowed by our Creator" with certain rights. This is a religious perspective. That's why the term "God-given rights" is probably more accurate than "natural rights".

Re:Does not, eh?

[sumdumass]

Habeas corpus has long been determined not to apply to foreigners unless some law made it do so. As for the american citizens, if they are acting in terrorism against our contry, I would hope that insurection and rebelion does kick in.

For the government to ignore something, it would need to be in place in the first place. I don't think this is happening at all here.

And as far as publish anonymously, there is no real protection for that. There is a freedom of speech and we have traditionaly taken that to mean someone could be anonymouse in this process. But if that speech is made public, then it is fair game for anyone to speek out against too. Even if that means resolving you animynity. You cannot have a right that precludes me from having a right. See were this si going?

Re:Does not, eh?

[teh kurisu]

Okay, in a previous post, you said:

The existence of a right is separate from the ability to express it.

Originally I took this to mean that just because I can express a right, doesn't mean that it is a right, which makes a certain amount of sense dependant on context. However, in this comment you seem to be arguing the diametrically opposite (but not inconsistent) - that just because I can't express a right doesn't mean that it's not a right. First of all, I have trouble understanding what an unexpressible right might be, but furthermore, it leads me to ask an uncomfortable question - do you believe that these 'natural rights' have been handed down by a god? I ask this because you've already mentioned 'God' in a previous post, but also because the statement:

Again, just because the ability to express a right does not exist (e.g. freedom of the press, which is really just a superset of freedom of speech), does not mean it does not exist.

...sounds a lot like, "Just because you can't prove that god does not exist does not mean that he does not exist."

In any case, I have trouble accepting your arguments as anything other than philosophical claptrap because you have still failed to define what exactly a 'natural right' is, and ultimately your whole argument is predicated on this definition. Also, you have failed to expand on just how rights could possibly exist before the formation of societies (i.e., what effect did/do these rights have on nature? How do you go about 'discovering' a right rather than simply creating one?).

Re:Does not, eh?

[k_187]

Yes, the existence of a natural right is separate from the ability to (or to not) express it. I would argue that natural rights are those rights that are an integral part of being human. It is possible to frame that in the context between God and man, but where they originate is tangental to their existance/expression.

The short argument for natural rights is that in a state of nature, these rights would define the interactions between people. E.g. within the state of nature, one has the right to do what they want to preserve their own liberty. Your example of sewing my mouth shut is then valid only to the extent that my words impeded on your liberty and more so on my ability to stop you.

I'm going to link Wikipedia now , because I'm lazy and these explain things about as well as I could. Well, that and its been a while since I read Locke.

State of Nature
Natural Rights

Practically, there is very little between creating a new right and discovering one. That's where the arguments on right to privacy originate. In other words I don't have a good answer. A fair bit of this is perspective. But if our rights are not granted by the government ( as I would say), they would have to be "discovered", as the Supreme Court cannot create what is already there. If rights do come from the government (as you would), they are created (that gets into a whole other matter of who can create those rights, the judiciary or the legislature)

Oh, and thanks for showing me that slashdot hasn't completely gone to shit.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Qzukk]

Habeas corpus has long been determined not to apply to foreigners

That's funny, the federal Attorney General representing the federal government told Congress that habeas corpus doesn't apply to anyone. It's not in the Constitution, he insists: "the Constitution doesn't say, 'Every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas.'"

You cannot have a right that precludes me from having a right.

All rights are restrictions on the behavior of others. As such, society determines that some rights are more important than others. I can carry a gun, but I had better have a good reason if I shoot you with it, and "because he hurt my feelings" isn't.

then it is fair game for anyone to speek out against too. Even if that means resolving you animynity.

Just because someone is incapable of coping with an anonymous critic doesn't mean that their right to not have their feelings hurt trumps a person's right to criticize anonymously. Speaking out against a critic doesn't "mean resolving their anonymity" unless the only thing you've got are ad hominem attacks.

Re:Does not, eh?

[sumdumass]

lol.. the constitution that is. Habeas corpus was what the guy was saying was in the constitution. And I switched the two. But it still remains the same if habeas corpus is in the constitution.

All rights are restrictions on the behavior of others. As such, society determines that some rights are more important than others. I can carry a gun, but I had better have a good reason if I shoot you with it, and "because he hurt my feelings" isn't.

A right to carry a gun isn't a right to shoot someone. Sounds reasonable to me seeing they are two seperate things. But yes, shooting someone isn't preventing them from any of their rights. And I see were your going with this. So let me restate it. You cannot have a restriction concerning something thatis considered a right, that guarentees it to you by precluding the same from me. It is eaither a right everyone has or it isn't.

Just because someone is incapable of coping with an anonymous critic doesn't mean that their right to not have their feelings hurt trumps a person's right to criticize anonymously. Speaking out against a critic doesn't "mean resolving their anonymity" unless the only thing you've got are ad hominem attacks.

I'm not sure some one has a specific right to do something anonymously. It is the speech they have the right to. And my feelings aside, I have the same rights you do and if i learn your identity, i should be able to speak it by exercisinng that right to speech. It is free speech. Not free speech unless someone is hiding their identity.

Now, Personal feelings hurt and all, I still have a right to out whoever is hiding. It is in the publics interest and if what is being said is false, it becomes a possible criminal/liable act. If you want the right to hide when speaking, then hide good enough that you won't become discovered.

Re:Does not, eh?

[wyohman]

It's nice to see someone else has read the Constitution. I only ever get blank stares when I mention the 9th!

Cheers.

Re:Does not, eh?

[DoctorMO]

Privacy in this case must be squared with the detachment of a single person and the top echelons of the control on the society. And unfortunate as this is the natural right is for the responsibility for everything you do in social context to be publicly available. but only so far as it effects the public action that you've taken.

So knowing _who_ posted a comment is required because everyone should take responsibility for what they say, after all it is in the public.

On the one hand knowing that a person is gay when they are owner of a razor company or talking about vegetables has nothing to do with their public relations and is private to them.

Ah a balance, but it's not difficult in hindsight to know what is private and what is not.

On the other hand you have the problem that any member of the public or government will misuse the information in a way to hurt the person or their privacies but that really should be a problem with the miss-use not the authorship being known; prevention of misuse though is difficult the large the society get.

Re:Does not, eh?

[dhalgren]

You have all rights, when you are alone. Introduce another human into the equation, and the discussion gets more complex.

Torben

Re:Does not, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

holy *whoosh*, batman.

You missed that one by a mile.

Re:Does not, eh?

[John Hasler]

> You may not be keeping up with politics...

Padilla was charged. They were not willing to take their theory before the Supreme Court.

Re:Does not, eh?

[taskiss]

It can't be much clearer. You have the right to hide and other people have the right to try to find you. Think about the kid game of "hide and seek". If you don't want them looking for you, fly under their radar.

Re:Does not, eh?

[Atzanteol]

Ahem.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Rights are protected by the state, not granted by it.

Re:Does not, eh?

[tom's a-cold]

One of the reasons some framers didn't like the Bill of Rights was that they worried that courts or the government would believe the list to be an exhaustive enumeration of all our rights. This ran against the principle that the Constitution should grant powers to the government by exception, and that any but those specific powers should be forbidden.

This narrow interpretation of our rights has been exactly the approach taken by authoriarians ever since, whether they're troglodyte Supreme Court justices or executive-branch sycopants of power-hugry Presidents. So the fact that the Constitution does not mention a right to privacy, in the world-view of the framers, cannot be used by the courts to conclude that we have no such right. Nor is it necessary for the courts to derive our rights from the short list in the Bill of Rights.

For this reason alone, Alberto Gonzalez should be driven from office, since he is deliberately undermining the constitution he swore to uphold. Then, for his support for torture, he should be tried and imprisoned for crimes against humanity.

Re:Does not, eh?

[hjo3]

> but I'm under no illusion that they exist in nature external to homo sap.

What does gay sap have to do with any of this?

Re:Does not, eh?

[gurps_npc]

The right to publish anonymously is the right to publish without having the government insist on knowing who you are. They can't arrest you/charge you just for trying.

The right to remain anonymous is the right not to have other people reveal who you are.

You definitely need the right to publish anonymously if you have the right to remain anonymous, but you don't have to have the right to remain anonymous if you have the right to publish anonymously.

It is sort of like the right to buy vs. the right to use. Typically americans have the right to buy ammo, but not the right to use it (with some specific exceptions).

Re:Does not, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You have a right to obey causality. You have a right to obey gravity. You have a right to keep your velocity under the speed of light at all times. You have a right to conserve energy/mass.

These and their like are the only "natural" rights "endowed" upon you by the universe -- in fact, they are *forced* upon you."

These are natural laws, not rights.

Example:
The law:
You shall not go faster than light.

Your right with regard to this law:
You have the right to try, it's an inherent right, and someone will eventually try to do it.

The law:
Gravity will pull you to earth.

Your right with regard to this law:
You have a right to build an airplane, rocket or other flying machine and break this law.

-AC

Video of a fictitious person?

[John Hasler]

I'd like to see that.

Re:Video of a fictitious person?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see that.

Try Batman Begins or Passion of the Christ. (Posting as an anonymous for obvious reasons.)

Re:Video of a fictitious person?

[Marko DeBeeste]

Anime

Re:Video of a fictitious person?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try with your attempt at anonymity. I captured you on a surveillance tape. You're actually George Albert Wells! (Posting as an anonymous for obvious reasons.)

Re:Video of a fictitious person?

[The One and Only]

You're afraid of Batman fundamentalists?

Isn't their take bass-ackwards?

[siglercm]

What's really at issue here is the right to publish anonymously vs. the right to remain anonymous. The former exists, the latter does not. It seems to me that their conclusion is, logically, the wrong way around. IMHO, we all have the right to remain anonymous. However, if we want to publish we may give up that right. Publishing is totally different from being an anonymous source of information, quoted in a publication.

Or am I off my rocker?

Re:Isn't their take bass-ackwards?

[AlanS2002]

My thoughts exactly. Do we not, by publishing something in the public domain, by definition invite a lack of anonymity?

Re:Isn't their take bass-ackwards?

[ScrewMaster]

Only if you piss off the wrong people.

The problem is not so much that veil of anonymity can be pierced, but that the government has, in the midst of its own quest to make our private lives a thing of the past, provided would-be piercers with way too much ammunition.

Re:Isn't their take bass-ackwards?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't understand the issue with being anonymous whether or not you're publishing. Just seems like a way to control people that need not happen.

Re:I've been wondering...

[WgT2]

What's really at issue here is the right to publish anonymously vs. the right to remain anonymous. The former exists, the latter does not.

What irony it would be if this were applied to the parent poster.

Im sorry but

[Creepy Crawler]

When I think of "anonymous bloggers", I get this image.

Or, I recall that "Multiple Theology Degree, exquisite super-intelligentsia" Essjay. Oh, thats right.. He's a redneck hick who lives about 80 Mi south of me (Louisville, KY).

Anybody can say whatever they want, but due to the "Credibility" of the internet, it usually means something is going to be believed. Not good, as most people haven't the logic or intelligence to discern real from fiction.

Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified?

[toupsie]

Absolutely. Journalism should not be the art of protecting secrets. The first amendment right to a free press does not have a caveat that states that people with hidden agendas are protected from exposure. As long as this is not a government mandated revelation of secrecy of a citizen, there is no issue at hand. The press has a right and I feel a duty to expose all that want to be a part of the public debate both for and against what I personally believe. The only reason the editor feels that this was a bad choice is that he doesn't have the requisite reproductive organs to stand up for what they did which was good reporting. There is no right to anonymity when to start to engage in the public debate. If you can maintain it, that is through your own efforts and not through some Constitutional mechanism.

Re:Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified?

[ceoyoyo]

I'm thinking of the cases where corporations have been posing as bloggers to promote their products. Undoubtedly a case where revealing them is justified.

This sounds very similar. A political group posing as an individual? Please. They're misrepresenting themselves and then they get mad when someone calls them on it?

Re:Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified?

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. Journalism should not be the art of protecting secrets. The first amendment right to a free press does not have a caveat that states that people with hidden agendas are protected from exposure.

Does that include journalistic sources? If someone were to follow up on Woodward and Bernstein and expose "Deep Throat", would that be fine by you? After all, he had his secret agenda as well... (Anger at not being promoted to be head of FBI after Hoover left).

Re:Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified?

[AlanS2002]

Does that include journalistic sources? If someone were to follow up on Woodward and Bernstein and expose "Deep Throat", would that be fine by you? After all, he had his secret agenda as well... (Anger at not being promoted to be head of FBI after Hoover left).

He might very well of had an agenda, but he did not publish. That took a decision or not of a journalist.

Re:Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified?

[MrSteveSD]

Surely the ability for people to address the public anonymously is beneficial and should be protected. e.g. Anonymous whistle-blowers.

Re:Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified?

[toupsie]

Surely the ability for people to address the public anonymously is beneficial and should be protected. e.g. Anonymous whistle-blowers.

So we are going to create a protected class of citizens that can infringe on the first amendment rights of others? Who gets to decide who can maintain a protected state of anonymity? This is bad policy. Sunshine is always the best environment for speech.

Re:Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified?

[polar red]

Yes, if you are not in danger of being prosecuted for your opinions. Try saying the war in Iraq is unjustified, you'll get your dose of hatred, isn't it so, dixie chicks ?

Re:Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified?

[Anonymous Coward]

So I will write this anonymously, just for effect.

Companies, politicians, and celebrities abhor the anonymity that the internet can provide, and so they hunt and battle it endlessly. However, they do this for selfish reasons, simply put. No one likes to be bad mouthed and their first thought is revenge. They don't care if it is a lone disgruntled person or an opponents organized effort. They just want to know and incorrectly assume they have the right to know. They do not.

If they are able to, by legal means, determine the person's identity, then that is fine. That means looking for mistakes, posting hints (like the video) and asking for help, or in the case where they can demonstrate to a court a reasonable probability of libel, then they should be able to get a subpoena. However, they should not be allowed to gain identity by illegal means, like HP and their pretexting or with bogus SLAPP lawsuits or subpoenas. Most often they claim their is a conspiracy, a political one or a shorting conspiracy or an employee using confidential information, and try to get a subpoena for IP or other privileged info on those basis, with no proof whatsoever of slander, libel, etc. That, is the divide between when someone has rights to anonymity and when legal means are justified to expose the person. There is no basis (unless the person makes a claim that they broke the law or was an insider or etc) to use that as a reason to unmask them. The only reason to unmask them is if in their statements they break the law.

And again, if the person trying to be anonymous makes a mistake and can be unmasked without breaking the law, that is just fair game.

Re:Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified?

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind that honesty and accuracy are important, as well. Disregarding "Media Bias", think of how many folks complain when something false or inaccurate is printed? Letters to the Editor are likewise full of either "preaching to the choir" or damning the side chosen by a particular person. However, the person is known, even if it is by a pen-name.

The Internet's given more people a voice and outlet than previously was possible, and permits this with a degree of privacy & anonymity. As the technology becomes cheaper, this only increases. You, I, or anyone else can create a page somewhere in five minutes, and say pretty much whatever we want. If a law is being broken, then that anonymity will go away, with a speed dependent on the severity of the infraction.

Just because one can anonymously post online, does not mean that s/he has the Constitutional right to remain that way. I don't see that anywhere in the document. In fact, it looks in this case as if "good journalism" won. Well, that, and bad moves on the "outed" party. Despite the fact that "The Media" is generally biased to one side or another, some of these "Anonymous" folks really discredit them.

Re:Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified?

[gclef]

The constitution does not exist to protect you from the hatred of others. You are free to speak your mind. So are the people who disagree with you. This is how it should be.

Whistleblowers and informants are a case where the privacy of a source should be protected by the government officials that they are working with, but that is not a constitutional right. Again, this is how it should be. Whistleblower's treatment need to be balanced against the rights of the accused. An incredibly important right in the constitution is the right of an accused person to face their accuser. Anonymous whistleblowers risk violating that right of the accused, which is a terrible thing and ripe for abuse.

Re:Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to say "that depends", but we know about things with Witness Protection programs. If it's just a matter of covering your pride? Shut up and take it like a man. Some of these things were placed here in order to legitimately protect people.

What protection should there be for a person who creates false documents in order discredit an individual? What protection should there be for a person who falsely accuses an individual of a serious criminal offense? What about skating around legal loopholes for a political agenda?

Was "Deep Throat" "outed" in 1978 (for instance), it's doubtful that any physical threat would exist. Sure, some career paths may be changed by the discovery, but others would have been opened.

Yes, innocent victims need to be protected. Yes, people need to be able to blow the whistle on safety issues in the workplace. Yes, people should be able to blow the horn on something crooked going on in the government. No that should not be a broad-spectrum treatment for all actions.

Re:Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified?

[Anonymous Coward]

If outing an anonymous blogger is justified, nay a duty, then using anonymous sources should also be banned in all respectable newspapers.

Re:Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified?

[heinousjay]

Yeah, I guess it would take a lot of courage to speak against the war in Iraq. I never hear anyone say anything like that at all, never read it on the internet or in newspapers, never come across it on TV. It would take real bravery to take such a stand. People are obviously holding back their true opinions and merely toeing the line.

yup

[Diotallevi]

now this isnt the evil repressive gov-mint doing the outing. a news guy hunting a story....the blogger is fair game. considering blogs or really internet news is replacing the old paper and editorial pages, and are gathering thousands of readers, some bloggers are becoming sorta online celebrities. welcome the new bloggeratzzi to the internet era!

Dear Dumbass,

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for your interest in paying us money. Please note that in an effort to serve you better, we will go to great pains to expose you in an unflattering way so as to benefit our corporate stability by increasing brand awareness through scandalogy. Now, will that be cash or charge?

Next!

-1, poor style

[pla]

Can Outing an Anonymous Blogger be Justified?
Absolutely, depending on the circumstances

No editorial slant on this FP, no-sir-ee!

Many of our fundamental "rights" in the modern world very much depend on not only having anonymity before doing something, but after as well.

In particular, and I expect the FP author had this exact situation in mind, when the exercise of speech/publishing relates to the commission of a crime. But in all but a few situations (defamation or lying to a grand jury come to mind), the crime and the speech exist as entirely separate concepts, with the latter protected.

Even when the speech does break the law directly (defamation), you need to consider how much credibility an anonymous source really has. If I say "The PS3 sucks", I may have defamed Sony, but no one will care. If US VP of marketing for SCEA says the same thing, it would make headlines (at least in the geek news community).

If I cheat on my taxes, that breaks the law. If I brag about it anonymously - The bragging doesn't break the law, and I have every right to maintain my anonymity in the bragging. If the IRS catches me for the crime itself, no foul; If they hunt me down like a dog and then find out I just bragged but have filed accurately, they have wasted time and money and potentially injured me financially or reputation-wise in the process, despite no actual crime occuring.



Anonymity has a dark side, but without an absolute right to it, we may as well let the government install "The Eye" in our living rooms right now.

Re:-1, poor style

[skoaldipper]

Since when did we have any rights to our identity on the internet? I must have been asleep on the couch next to a empty bottle of Vodka when that law got passed. You are right it was in poor taste, but which was worse - the newspaper or the people who identified him on video and turned him in?

Re:-1, poor style

[Raenex]

Anonymity has a dark side, but without an absolute right to it, we may as well let the government install "The Eye" in our living rooms right now. What nonsense. There's a big difference between government mandated spying in your living room vs investigative journalism. If you want to remain anonymous then it is your job to protect your identity. Don't trample on my rights to expose the source of a public action.

You keep using that word "absolutely"

[Gothmolly]

I do not think it means what you think it means.

So it can "absolutely" be justified, yet it is also "depending on the circumstances".

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

Why is it obvious/implicit that you don't have the right to remain anonymous, save in a society where you have no rights?

You bet!

[toupsie]

Does that include journalistic sources? If someone were to follow up on Woodward and Bernstein and expose "Deep Throat", would that be fine by you? After all, he had his secret agenda as well... (Anger at not being promoted to be head of FBI after Hoover left).

Damn skippy it would! The country spent nearly 35 years trying to figure that Deep Throat was William Mark Felt, Sr. Every journalist interested in Washington politics wasn on the hunt for the identity of the real Deep Throat. Journalists that keep secrets from the public are betraying their audience. Sometimes the audience puts up with it like in the case of Deep Throat.

Re:You bet!

[zCyl]

Every journalist interested in Washington politics wasn on the hunt for the identity of the real Deep Throat. Journalists that keep secrets from the public are betraying their audience. Sometimes the audience puts up with it like in the case of Deep Throat.

If Deep Throat would have thought ahead of time that the journalists he was turning to would print his name right away and out his identity, then there would have never been a Deep Throat, and we would not have learned what he had to say. We would have had no whistleblower. Is that a better world, and is the audience better served under that condition?

Never has been absolute

[Excelcia]

There never, ever, has been an absolute right to anonymity. The day people have that right, is the day that society will cease to exist.

Society exists because of law and peer pressure to conform to its rules. Where anonimity is guaranteed, peer pressure cannot exist, and law cannot be enforced.

There are restrictions on what government can do to invade your privacy, but privacy and anonimity are two different things. In fulfilling its duties to you, government necesarily has a lot of information about you. Because this information is required by the government, there are also restrictions on accessing that information by other parties. Because of these government restrictions, people mistakenly think those restrictions can and should carry over to everyone. There is a mistaken belief that all people are or should be restricted from determining information about another person. This is patently false and rediculous on its face. Who is to say that the blogging groups right to private criticism of a public figure is more important than my right to find out the motives behind that criticism? Who is to say that opening my eyes to observe someone else is a crime? Is there some sort of "I want to remain anonymous" flag that people have? Like the broadcast flag? You go around wearing this flag, and this makes it so no one is alowed to observe or recognize you.

The blogger(s) waded into a public debate. They can do what they want to try to remain anonymous, but the newspaper along with any other member of the public has the right to do what they can to find out who it is.

In short, YOUR RIGHT TO ANONYMITY ENDS WHEN YOU DO ANYTHING THAT SOMEONE ELSE CAN OBSERVE. If you want to stay anonymous, don't do anything.

Re:Never has been absolute

[The One and Only]

Anonymous action is out, obviously. (Anonymous murder, anonymous theft, anonymous money laundering, etc. are situations where anonymity is not your right anymore.) What about anonymous speech? (assuming it's "free speech" in the generally accepted sense, and not "speech" in terms of "coded signals to terrorists" or "instructions for your colleagues in the Mafia").

Re:Never has been absolute

[Excelcia]

If you say nothing that is unlawful (defamatory, treasonous, etc), there is no law that says that you have to identify yourself. If someone else wants to try and indentify you, though, that person is free to do so as long as no law is broken. Pretexting, for example, as a method for obtianing identifying information is ilegal in many states (and I agree it should be). If you go through an effective anonymizing network, like Tor for example, for your communication; if your speech is not unlawful, if you tell no one else, and if your style of writing is bland enough that it cannot be linked definitively to you, then there is probably very little anyone can do to identify you. If, however, you use an internet cafe and someone observes you, they are free to share what they observed with anyone. As long as no laws are broken on either side, the rights of the observer are just as strong as the rights of the observed. You can try to remain anonymous, and other people can try to reveal you. In that case, I don't cry either way. Bloggers should not be forced to identify themselves, but someone who outs a blogger should not incur some sort of hue and cry of protest either. Freedom cuts both ways.

Newspapers' Job is to Expose

[Doc Ruby]

What makes anonymity sacrosanct? Someone does something to be anonymous, their perogative. If someone else does something to expose their identity, that's their perogative, too. If what they do to expose them isn't itself wrong, then they haven't done anything wrong. If they use public info (eg. cameras recording public appearances) and deduction, there's not wrong. The exposed anonymous might not like it, but there's no intrinsic, universal right to anonymity just because they want it. And in fact exposing hidden players in public acts is the primary responsibility of newspapers and other periodical publishers.

I wish there were a lot more outrage about newspapers keeping some people anonymous. Anonymous sources used to spin news, lie to damage coverage and public knowledge. When the source isn't actually anonymous at all, to the reporter (or their editors), but is anonymized by the newspaper, creating more ignorance rather than more knowledge. Especially when that anonymity makes unaccountable some people who are reliably wrong, lying, or just predictably spinning.

Newspapers have a glorious future working to expose trolls in our new mediasphere full of cheap and easy cover. We need more exposure, and more support for it.

Re:Newspapers' Job is to Expose

[funwithBSD]

"Newspapers have a glorious future working to expose trolls in our new mediasphere full of cheap and easy cover. We need more exposure, and more support for it."

I think as Rathergate and Ruetersgate (gods I hate the -gate meme, but it is so useful) have shown that they are part of the trollers, and that the blogosphere are the ones doing the outing of trolls.

Re:Newspapers' Job is to Expose

[Doc Ruby]

Yes, they're part of the trolls, though Dan Rather is a bad example (at least in the case of the simulated memos that blew the story of Bush's actual derelictions of duty). The blogs out more trolls, and will continue until either the mass media catches up, or the blogs have as much entrenched interests to lose. Then there will likely be even more distributed exposures, more by people casually collaborating as tech makes that more convenient, fun and accessible to more people. Corroboration transforms gossip into fact, which destroys trolls.

Re:Newspapers' Job is to Expose

[funwithBSD]

And that is the sort of Fake-but-acurate bull that I am talking about.

The ONLY evidence available shows that Bush did his time as required. But here you are calling it "Bush's actual derelictions of duty" when there is no (unfabricated) evidence what so ever to back that claim!

So sir, you have bought the bait, you need people to expose the fraud for you because your pre conceived notions blind you.

Re:Newspapers' Job is to Expose

[Doc Ruby]

If you still believe that Bush flew his duty during Vietnam then there's no point arguing with you. You'll believe whatever bullshit they manufacture to cover that coward's failures.

But since he saved us from Saddam's nukes, it's all OK, right?

Re:Newspapers' Job is to Expose

[funwithBSD]

The current hard evidence, what little is exant, shows him flying and doing his duty as was required at the time.

Show me ONE peice of actual, unfabricated evidence and I will say you have a point. "So-and-so says so" does not fly with me, just like the whole "swift boat" thing with Kerry. Yeah sure, 5 bajillon guys that may or may not have served with him say the offical records don't match what happened. Total hatchet job just like the National Guard thing and Bush. Maybe you took the bait on that one too, or maybe because it wasn't Bush it had to be a fabrication. In terms of actual records the level of rebuttle is the same, there are no fact to back up what the denouncers on each side claim. I did not vote for Kerry because he is a socialist liberal who betrayed his comrads in arms in testifying to congress about "atrocities", not because some guy said he was an elitist jerk. Kerry says it far better himself anyway.

See, I have an actual open mind on these things. You need some real evidence to say "X did this or that" not just what you "think" is true.

If there is no point in arguing with me, it is your own failing, not mine. I look at real evidence and make up my mind. You, by your own words, are willing to believe something you have no proof for and only something you believe is true.

I can't argue with that either.

The real question?

[Bizzeh]

Can arresting and imprisoning someone for blogging their opinions, be justified?

yes but, no but

[symes]

I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly - however there is another perspective I think worth exploring. While anonymity should be protected I often wonder what it achieves. Thinking back over time I couldn't think of one anonymous person or group who suceeded in bringing about change. There's been the od whitleblower here and there - but all the big rhetoric counted because someone was willing to stand up and put themselves on the line (e.g. Emmeline Pankhurst, Nelson Mandella, etc., etc.).

So, yes, anonymity is a good thing but hiding behind anonymity, imho, undermines the value of what's said.

As a local

[Bryan Bytehead]

I find this pretty offensive.

Mainly because what the blogger has been publishing is the truth, and the idiot paper had admitted as as such!

The only reason for trying to get the identification is retribution. Retribution for printing the truth?

No wonder local politics bothers me.

Re:As a local

[nothing now]

I'm ashamed of living in this hellhole now

Re:As a local

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I'm not a local, so I did research. From an article in the St. Augustine Record:

"The law says that "any combination of two individuals or a person other than an individual" cannot spend more than $500 to expressly advocate the election or defeat of another individual without filing as a political committee."

Essentially, the paper knows that 1) there is a web site attacking a current candidate, and 2) a person going under the name of Lee Padgett also posted a 1/2 page ad against that candidate.

I'm guessing that a half-page ad costs more than $500. It does in my rinky dink hometown newspaper. The newspaper is making an educated guess that more than one person is behind the website. If that's true, then they have to register as a political committee or they're breaking the law.

It sounds to me as if the newspaper is doing good reporting through some crappy means. (Posting a video of a customer? Bad idea. Do the legwork, for God's sake.)

Sadly, no matter how true something is, or how much of an idiot the candidate Rich may be, you don't get to break laws. If you do, expect someone to call you on it. They can say what they want as individuals. They can register and follow the rules and say what they want. They just can't work together and pretend they aren't.

Re:As a local

[Brandybuck]

No wonder local politics bothers me.

There is no tyrant so terrible as your neighbor across the street who just got elected to the city council.

What right to life?

[sheldon]

I see no Right to Life specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

Re:What right to life?

[penix1]

You are correct that there is no "right to life" enumeration in the Constitution. However, there is one in the Declaration of Independence. Add that to the 9th Amendment and you do have a right to life. The founders were religious men and these documents reflect that. The right to life was enumerated as one of their main reasons to sever the ties to England. They believed the right to life was granted by a higher power so its enumeration to the Constitution was unnecessary besides being already covered in the document that started this nation to begin with.

From the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Re:What right to life?

[AshtangiMan]

A small matter is that the Constitution and Bill of Rights are the legal documents. The Declaration of Independance is an opinion piece, rhetoric, propaganda . . . agreed to by many, but more of a vision statement than binding law. Sorry if this is pedantic, but I recently bumpped into this again and always find it interesting.

Re:What right to life?

[The One and Only]

Fifth Amendment: "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..."

Re:What right to life?

[sheldon]

I know that.

I was simply trying to point out the stupidity of the GP who claimed that because privacy wasn't enumerated, it didn't exist. But then went on to talk about other rights.

Yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymity is killing the internet. It should be banned.

Why do you wear a mask?

[Original Replica]

I agree with you, in rights being "self evident". I disagree with you that anonymity is one of those rights. At it's best anonymity is a form of security through obscurity. Why is this security needed? To voice an unpopular opinion? If that opinion is what you believe, why do you need to hide? If you hide out of fear of a violent reprisal, then the problem is that you are not truely secure in your rights to life and liberty. Fix that problem, don't mask it with a thin veil of anonymity. If you are afriad of social reprisals, well then you have some soul searching to do about your friends. The only other reason that Immediately occurs to me to "need" anonymity, is because you are ashamed of your actions or you are doing something illegal, I see no reason to protect those with a supposed "right".

Re:Why do you wear a mask?

[Qzukk]

If that opinion is what you believe, why do you need to hide? If you hide out of fear of a violent reprisal, then the problem is that you are not truely secure in your rights to life and liberty.

The country has basically decided that rights should only be protected from the government, and that companies and individuals can trample these rights all they want, and in fact the government can hire, ask, or even order those companies and individuals to trample on your rights without infringing on them itself.

Re:Why do you wear a mask?

[k_187]

One could argue that privacy is like property, you have no right to intrude upon mine without good reason. Implict in your argument that one is "ashamed of your actions" is that others have a right to know what I am doing. Right to privacy isn't necessarily a right to anonymity, but a right to keep others out.

Re:Why do you wear a mask?

[Short Circuit]

If you hide out of fear of a violent reprisal, then the problem is that you are not truely secure in your rights to life and liberty. Fix that problem, don't mask it with a thin veil of anonymity. Fix it, how? By demanding that other people protect me, the same people I might be criticizing? Or by fortifying myself?

Self fortification isn't something that should be necessary in order to speak an opinion. That's why we have punishments for violent crimes. The problem is, no punishment can be a sufficient deterrent for some motivations, or we wouldn't have people who martyr themselves for good or for ill.

Not to mention that effective means of self-fortification are often either illegal (as in the case of firearms for people not permitted to have them, or who live in states that prohibit carry), frowned upon (Sure, it's not illegal, in most states, to carry a pistol in a TAC holster. But you know someone's going to call 911 if you walk into that mall.), or requires years of training to obtain any degree of skill (i.e. martial arts).

In short, fear of violent reprisal is not something that can be allayed.

If you are afriad of social reprisals, well then you have some soul searching to do about your friends. Uh, social reprisal isn't limited to my friends. It also includes my coworkers and anybody who might recognize my face.

The only other reason that Immediately occurs to me to "need" anonymity, is because you are ashamed of your actions or you are doing something illegal. Shame is a social construct, a method of many people imposing their way of life on a few individuals, and is intended to represent when one violates what others consider decent behavior.

Illegal acts are merely those acts for which government (which may or may not be based on the will of society, depending on the case) has deemed it necessary to punish.

I see no reason to protect those with a supposed "right". Then you logically throw out the concept of individuality in its entirety.

BTW...you missed financial reprisal. That's rather surprising, because SLAPP and big-pockets-versus-little-pockets is a daily topic around here.

Re:Why do you wear a mask?

[sumdumass]

The only other reason that Immediately occurs to me to "need" anonymity, is because you are ashamed of your actions or you are doing something illegal, I see no reason to protect those with a supposed "right".

For some people, the faxct that people know who made the statment give it less importance. Suppose i tell you that "the government should do this", then I tell you Rush Libaugh or George bush said it. For some, this would mean an automatic rejection of whatever "this" is. For others, it might sound good but still retain more scrutiny that if I was sitting in a crowd and just said it. Then again, for others, it could have the exact oposite effect.

In case your not completly in agreement with me. Look at all the studies against global warming. If Exxon or some other big oil, big coal or big industry has their name close to the study, it will automaticly be discounted because of that and not because of anything it presented.

In the case of this political group hiding behind the apearance of being one individual caring person is akin to paid advertisment being trolled in youtube like what has happened with the penguins critisizing Al Gores movie. Anyone wanting to claim some right to anonymity should ask themselves how far it should go. Why wasn't there outrage about the cover being blown on this? It is the exact same thing.

What makes anonymity sacrosanct?

[walterbyrd]

That is a fair question, and I hope it gets more attention.

My answer is: by remaining anonymous, you can avoid retailiation by powerful entities that may not like what you have to say - whether your articles are true or not. Benjamin Franklin knew this, and sent his letters to the newspaper editor, under a psuednym.

As a more modern example: suppose you knew of a utility company committing some type of a crime. You expose the crime on your blog. The utility company, although guilty, files a lawsuit against you, that would cost you $250K to fight. Your only way out is to stop posting the truth about the company.

Think it can't happen? It already has.

Re:What makes anonymity sacrosanct?

[Doc Ruby]

That kind of exchange is what makes anonymity valuable, especially to the anonymous person. But it's not sacrosanct, in and of itself. Anonymous government sources have negative value, and ought to be exposed every practically time. Which is just one example of how anonymity is not sacrosanct.

But it is valuable. In the case of whistleblowers, in a legitimate process it is usually essential, at least public anonymitiy. But even there, without eventually exercising the right of the accused to confront their accuser, the anonymous person gains too much power from unaccountability. Sometimes it might be worth it to society (and just to others than themselves), but overall it's too abusable. And there's no way to distinguish between those that are worth it and those that aren't, at least not until it's too late and damage is done.

Your example is flawed, because the utility company can't sue you if you're anonymous. A blog to which you repeatedly connect from a unique location controlled by only you is such shabby anonymity that it's like a password set to "password": no reasonable expectation of privacy should be attached. But what about the person who takes the steps necessary for anonymity, only to libel someone? Why should their anonymity be protected from the effort of the libel target to confront them?

If there is a problem with whistleblowers, it's not in the anonymity loop. It lies in the power of some people (eg. corporate execs) to damage others without accountability, often anonymously. If that problem is fixed, then anonymity isn't nearly as useful for security for whistleblowers or other accusers. So the anonymity isn't sacrosanct, even if the safety of an accuser with facts is always to be protected. We've popped out of anonymity into something else entirely. So there really is little, if any, reason to protect anonymity as a right, because it isn't.

No, there is a HUGE difference, the sources are KN

[SmallFurryCreature]

The sources of a newspaper are KNOWN, they are NOT anonymous, except to the public at large, but the reporter and editor and in fact the entire newspaper staff ARE known. So we still got a degree of accountability. If you want to remain anonymous as a news source you must first convince a reporter to risk being thrown in jail (a legal action that can be used by the state) to reveal his sources.

However if you publish anonymous on a blog, you got no such layer, anyone can do it, and without anyone to throw in jail to force the revelation of the sources.

Protected sources are a very important part of western civilization that allows newspaper to obtain news from people who are at risk for disclosing it. Anonymous writers are an entirely different story. There is nobody you can go to if they are saying outright lies.

It is about layers of trust, a newssouce will have with you an X amount of trust.

Now wich story do you trust more, a story written by a known writer citing publicly available records and quoting known officials?

Or a story written by a known writer quoting people that don't want to be named by are identified as sources close too X.

Or a story on the letter pape signed by A.Nonymous.

Only an idiot would attach the same weight to all three. Blogs fall in the last group.

Read up on reuters and the numerous doctored and staged photo's from the lebanon war just how dangerous it is to accept new sources as truthfull that are not.

A reporter can keep his sources anonymous, that does NOT mean that the source is unknown to the reporter. HUGE difference. I would trust a reporter that uses anonymous sources (people UNKNOWN to him) about as far as I wuld trust a slashdot poster.

realize what you are saying, if a report publishes anonymous sources (unknown to him) he would be publishing stuff he can't verify at all. Even gossip columinists frown on that.

Perhaps some examples might be enlightening?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

I think this discussion can be more enlightened by considering some particular hypothetical cases.

In this case the anonymously-posting group whose member was exposed was critical of a prominent county politician.

Suppose the anonymous poster(s) had been critical of the Chinese government's suppression of Falun Gong or occupation of Tibet.

Suppose the anonymous poster had been Salman Rushdie, at the height of the "Satanic Verses" flap, and the outing included his address.

Suppose the time was shortly before the American Revolution and the posters were people like Samuel Adams, William Molineux, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, and Paul Revere.

Think about what happened to people like Yuri Orlov, Alexander Litvinenko, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Wang Xiaoning, Nathan Hale, Theo Van Gogh.

I could add names for hours. And, yes, only some of these particular critics of the powerful did so anonymously, so don't bother pointing that out: This list shows what can happen to critics and why they might want to be anonymous.

Maybe this guy won't be sent to a gulag, poisoned by thallium, vanish into the Chinese prison system, or assassinated on the street in broad daylight. But would you be surprised if he is the subject of continual harassment from now on - at least until he moves to another county?

Re:Perhaps some examples might be enlightening?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Maybe this guy won't be ... poisoned by thallium ...

Or, as in Litvinenko's case, polonium-210 - though thallium would have done the job in sufficient amounts.

Re:Perhaps some examples might be enlightening?

[Omnifarious]

Who knows? Maybe the anonymous poster is part of a massive, well-funded astroturf campaign. Maybe the anonymous poster is a sock-puppet for the guy running against him. I can think of just as many reasons for the person to be anonymous for nefarious reasons as for good ones. IMHO, it's up to the newspaper to make the decision about whether the poster should be outed or not, and if so, how far.

The newspaper can than be criticized or praised depending on the information. For example, posting someone's address is rarely justified. But often posting their affiliation with some well-known group is.

The point is that it should be the newspaper's choice, and they should be able to rise and fall based on that choice. The only problem I would have is if the local politician managed to use the resources of his office to expose who the anonymous poster was. That isn't and shouldn't be a concern of the government, and the government should not be going around exposing anonymous people for any end other than enforcing laws against illegal behavior these anonymous people engaged in.

quick litmus test

[swschrad]

if they're in politics or influencing politics, they should be public.

full disclosure forever! -- I am a former practicing journalist.

Girl With A One-Track Mind

[paj1234]

Sounds like what happened to the "Girl With A One Track Mind". It's a (formerly) anonymous blog and book about sex from a female point of view. A newspaper printed extracts from her book, and then went on to reveal her identity without her permission. This is the email that she received from the newspaper:

Aug 5, 2006 11:08 AM

Dear Miss [my name],

We intend to publish a prominent news story in this weekend's paper, revealing your identity as the author of the book, Girl With a One Track Mind.

We have matched up the dates of films you have worked on - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Batman Begins and Lara Croft Tomb Raider - and it is clear that they correlate to your blog. We have obtained your birth certificate, and details about where you went to school and college.

We propose to publish the fact that you are 33 and live in [my address] -London, and that your mother, [her name], is a [her address] -based [her profession]. The article includes extracts from your book and blog, relevant to your career in the film industry. We also have a picture of you, taken outside your flat.

Unfortunately, the picture is not particularly flattering and might undermine the image that has been built up around your persona as Abby Lee. I think it would be helpful to both sides if you agreed to a photo shoot today so that we can publish a more attractive image.

We are proposing to assign you our senior portrait photographer, Francesco Guidicini, and would arrange everything to your convenience, including a car to pick you up. We would expect you to provide your own clothes and make up. As the story will be on a colour page, we would prefer the outfit to be one of colourful eveningwear.

We did put this proposal to you yesterday, but heard nothing back. Clearly this is now a matter of urgency, and I would appreciate you contacting me as soon as possible. To avoid any doubt we will, of course, publish the story as it is if we do not hear from you.

Yours sincerely,
Nicholas Hellen
Acting News Editor
Sunday Times

The author had to leave her job and home. Both she and her parents had photographers camped outside their houses. Even her friends were pestered by journalists. Here is how she felt about it: http://girlwithaonetrackmind.blogspot.com/2006/08/ thoughts.html

Fairness

[Joebert]

In all fairness, politicians have to live up to what they say in public, why shouldn't everyone else ?
I don't think anyone should have a "right" to be anonymous, if they want to be taken seriously they need to stand up & be heard like the people they speak out against.

Re:Fairness

[zantolak]

Why would someone need a static identity in order to be taken seriously? If anything, they should be judged on the merits of WHAT they're saying, rather than WHO is saying it, which may very well be irrelevant.

Re:Fairness

[Joebert]

That would be assuming that everyone knew everything.
If everyone knew everything, there would be no reason to talk because we'd already know what eachother was about to say.

Great Britain called

[HomelessInLaJolla]

There's a difference between setting up a camera for the express purpose of identifying your customers and setting up a camera to keep your advertising department safe They want the intent of their network of surveillance cameras back.

Outrage

[Brandybuck]

The outrage isn't what the city is doing, it's why the city is doing it. They aren't trying to discover the blogger so they can reward him, they're doing it so they can shut him up and get back to corruption as usual.

This isn't a video of some criminal holding up a liquor store. Hell, it's not even a video of someone running a traffic light. It's a video of someone buying a classified ad! Geez!

sure but...

[oohshiny]

Outing an anonymous blogger can be, but video taping customers coming into your advertising department and then using those videos to identify and out them is never justified. That has nothing to do with bloggers or anonymity or anything else, it is a fundamental breach of trust. I'm sure the company regrets it because any sane person would refuse to do business with a company that behaves that way.

Information Wants To Be Free!

[samael]

Whether it's an MP3, documentation of a government coverup or personal details, information tends find a way out.

freedom of speech

[superwiz]

Freedom of speech is not a freedom say anything anonymously. As a matter of fact, it is reasonable to demand that whoever speaks identifies themselves. Otherwise, freedom to say anything becomes a freedom to lie. As long as one stands behind what one has to say, one should be allowed to say anything (with the usual exception to incitement to do harm). But anonymity takes away the responsibility for one's words.

In that case

[zantolak]

What should reputation be dependent on, if not what a person says and the veracity of the things they've said in the past? It's impossible to dissociate reputation from what one says, and the idea is ridiculous on its face.

Re:In that case

[Short Circuit]

I don't care what reputation depends son...I simply don't believe speech should be dependent on it.

Advocacy != Slashdot Discussion

[Nom du Keyboard]

"Absolutely...The former exists, the latter does not."

Such advocacy for an issue does not belong in a Slashdot summary, regardless of if it is just a quote of someone else. We should be about open and even discussion here, and not stating one's conclusions right from the get-go. That's what TFA is all about, not the Slashdot summary.

Because they made the choice.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

In all fairness, politicians have to live up to what they say in public, why shouldn't everyone else ?

Because politicians chose to become "public persons" (and have their dirty laundry aired in the press) as a voluntary trade for their attempt to acquire coercive political power.

An anonymous poster has explicitly chosen the opposite course: Forgoing coercive power and influencing others only by the persuasiveness of his words, in order to retain a higher level of privacy.

He has chosen to expose only his anonymous persona to the mud-slinging of political discourse (and potential nonverbal retaliation), not to put his private life, peace, possessions, and employment, along with those of his family, in harm's way.

I don't think anyone should have a "right" to be anonymous, if they want to be taken seriously they need to stand up & be heard like the people they speak out against.

So I take it you were in favor of Yahoo giving Wang Xiaoning's name to the Chinese police? That if you'd know Salman Rushdie's address you'd have published it on the web or given it to Ayatollah Khomeini's government?

I take it you also disapprove of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay publishing the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym "Publius (which allowed people to debate the ideas without reference to the identity of those proposing them)?

But let's bring it a little closer to home.

If you really think that everyone should have to live up to what they say in public, why isn't YOUR NAME on your Slashdot user info page?

Re:Because they made the choice.

[Joebert]

He has chosen to expose only his anonymous persona to the mud-slinging of political discourse (and potential nonverbal retaliation), not to put his private life, peace, possessions, and employment, along with those of his family, in harm's way.

In other words, he wants to play the game but doesn't want to take responsibility if he's wrong.

I take it you also disapprove of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay publishing the Federalist Papers under the pseudonym "Publius (which allowed people to debate the ideas without reference to the identity of those proposing them)?

We're sitting here debating this issue right now, so yes I disapprove of it because it obviously didn't work well in the long run.

If you really think that everyone should have to live up to what they say in public, why isn't YOUR NAME on your Slashdot user info page?

My name is Joseph J. Kovar III & it's not there because I was unaware I was able to put it there.

Outing an Anonymous Blogger Justified

[ssintercept]

only a coward or a liar would cloak themself in anonymitiy. it seems everyone wants to have their cake and eat it too. dont want to hear about whistleblowers and the like being afraid of retribution. either stand for what you believe or die wimpering. and the checkbox for "Post Anonymously" should be removed from the comment page.

Re:Outing an Anonymous Blogger Justified

[Anonymous Coward]

Good that you're not one of us cowardly liars, Mr/Ms Ssinter Cept.

So what you're saying is...

[Anonymous Coward]

might makes right?

Re:So what you're saying is...

[cheebie]

might makes right? Might defends your rights. All government relies on force as a final means of enforcement. If you refuse the fines, they throw you in jail. If you refuse to be thrown in jail, they shoot you.

You can claim to have the right to run naked through the streets waving a bazooka and beating on passers-by, but unless someone is willing to insure that right, by force if necessary, that right does not exist.

No, but there needs to be a balance.

[Wolfier]

Between anonymity/freedom of press and conflict of interest.

While the article authors have the right to remain anonymous, every article should state upfront whether or not the author stands to benefit from the publication (e.g. a conservative lobby group attacking the Democrats).

And, laws have to be made that if authors are found to lie about this conflict of interest, there should be some sort of penalty.

i.e. you can be anonymous and say/lie whatever you want, but you have to honestly state whether and if so how you could benefit from the publication, with the consequence of being punished if you tell a lie.

Re:No, but there needs to be a balance.

[Apple Acolyte]

i.e. you can be anonymous and say/lie whatever you want, but you have to honestly state whether and if so how you could benefit from the publication, with the consequence of being punished if you tell a lie.

I think this notion has merit. Every anonymous source who causes to be published potentially damaging information should be made to declare that, under the penalty of perjury, he or she is telling the truth and has no ulterior motive or conflict of interest in providing the information in question. Then, if that person is later unmasked and it is found that he or she falsely made that declaration, that person should be prosecuted. Anonymity can be an important vehicle of truth, but its abuse represents a crime against society.

Back to the subject

[FishinDave]

What "justification" is needed for seeking to know who is speaking?

Gosh, how RL mirrors IRC

[e-scetic]

This reminds me of the time some asshole op banned me and my bot on efnet because I let friends and acquantances use it to speak to our channel anonymously.

First of all, the op in question was paranoid that one particular banned person might be doing the speaking, when in fact said person was not. Secondly, what prompted the ban was someone making a snide criticism of the op.

Then an argument erupted over whether speaking anonymously through bots was a "subversion" of the IRC protocol. And there was a great confusion because, well, the "founders" hadn't really coded "anonymous speaking behind bots" into ircd, and you had the camp which believed this meant anonymous speaking was "wrong" and the camp which disagreed.

Extending this to real life, the St. Augustine Record is like an asshole op, paranoid and intolerant of criticism, who believes anonymity is subversion of...something.

That's one opinion

[jgoemat]

I believe that anonymous speech is very important. The U.S. Supreme Court agrees with me. There are things that people can say when anonymous that they wouldn't say normally for fear of embarrassment or retalition.

This is just one link I came upon:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.10/cyber.righ ts.html

Re:That's one opinion

[superwiz]

Alright, I read the article. Sounds like the Supreme Court got it wrong. They said that ability to speak anonymously is necessary for some forms of political expression. But why should any form of political expression be encouraged? Why should the ability to say whatever and to not have to face the consequences be granted? This promotes smear. Certain facts might be embarassing to say, sure. But isn't embarrasment itself one of the checks that we have for ourselves on what is acceptable in a civil society? And isn't the point of the social contract of the law that we give up certain freedoms (such as to intrude into lives of others uninvited) in order to keep a free civil society. A free contry does not mean a country that practices anarchy. Freedoms must be checked by corresponding responsibilities or practicing those freedoms will necessarily intrude on the freedoms of others.

As to the point that lack of anonymity might silence criticism for fear of retribution, I would say "I should hope so." Saying what is unpopular should require courage. Having the ability to say the truth when the truth is unpopular is how one knows that he lives in a society where his freedom of speech is protected. When overwhelming opinion accepted by a society is wrong and one knows it, it should take courage to say it out loud or it will be whispered in anonymity but will never be said. The truth should have the loud voice of the person standing behind it. Anonymity relegates it to the rank of rumors. It hides truth from the public discourse by making it just another anonymous opinion.

Re:That's one opinion

[0x0000]

I get the impression you're trolling, but ...

You might consider for a moment that once anonymity to outlawed - as you seem to suggest it should be - this statement of yours:

Sounds like the Supreme Court got it wrong.

Might be made grounds for a breach of your Right to Speech.

But why should any form of political expression be encouraged?

Stating [and indeed protecting] a Right to a behavior is not synonymous with encouraging that behavior - when the courts uphold a Right, they are simply saying that you may not be punished [under the Law] for that behavior. Encouraging a behavior would be e.g. providing a tax break for those engaging in it. That's not what's going on in this case, so the argument that the courts are encouraging the behavior of anonymous speech is spurious and moot.

This is also a spurious argument:

Why should the ability to say whatever and to not have to face the consequences be granted?

First, we're discussing Rights, not ability. The two are quite different. You may have the Right to Free Speech, but you may not have the ability to exercise that Right. Likewise, you may have the ability to perform some behavior, but you may not have a Right to engage in that exercise.

Second, there is no "say whatever and not face the consequences" Right granted under any Laws, here. You are - still - not allowed [under the Law] to "shout 'FIRE' in a crowded theatre" ... unless, perhaps, there really is a fire.

Futhermore (and this refers also to some of your other statements), there is implicit in the Right to Free Speech a responsiblity on the behalf of the audience as well as the speaker. That is: You should not expect to be able to act blindly based on the ravings of random soap-box mounted street-corner lunatics. As a member of a Society which does in fact support the individual's Right to Speech, you are expected to draw your own conclusions and act [or NOT] accordingly.

This promotes smear.

Nonsense. Quite the opposite, in fact. Anonymous speech promotes debate based on ideas instead of personalities.

If the US is to be [as has been suggested a few times] a "Nation of Laws, not a nation of men" (a.k.a. we have the "Rule of Law") then anonymous speech would not be at all unusual. Of course, if you as an individual choose to base your evaluation of some particular speech based on what you do or do not know about the speaker, then - well, you're just exercising your Personal Responsibility [as mentioned above], aren't you.

But isn't embarrasment itself one of the checks that we have for ourselves on what is acceptable in a civil society?

No. I don't believe embarrassment is considered a "check" on behavior under the Law, since any such emotion is based largely on the individual(s) involved and their morality (or lack thereof), and is therefore an element of "personality" [see above] and not properly something that should be made Law.

And isn't the point of the social contract of the law that we give up certain freedoms (such as to intrude into lives of others uninvited) in order to keep a free civil society.

Again, no. Neither of us are giving up any Rights or Freedoms - socially or legally - when I say "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins." In fact, we are agreeing on our respective Rights if we agree to that statement, and thereby defining our Freedoms. You do not have the Right to punch me in the nose - you might think you have the Freedom to do so, but if you try to exercise it, I will assert my Rights in defense of my Freedom from being punched in the nose.

Also, note that above you are arguing against intruding on the life of the guy who is

Re:That's one opinion

[superwiz]

I am afraid we'll have to agree to disagree. We have a fundamental difference of opinion on what is human. More precisely, what is a human. To clarify a purely philosophical point, objective truth (while it does exist) is undiscoverable. This is a direct corollary of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Aristotle also made an argument to that effect as well (there is always a smaller scale on which you cannot look yet). But that is trully off the point. I cannot address all the points that you bring up, since that would make this argument my full time job. So I'll pick at it a bit. If that's trolling, so be it. You speak in theoretical terms of how people should act and I speak about how people do act. I happen to be very familiar with the former Soviet Union (my family is originally from there). You speak in theoretical terms of how people should act and I speak about how people do act. I have a concrete example in mind of what happens when anonymity is given legitimacy. Anonymity in the former Soviet Union did not promote public discourse. It gave ability to smear people and to legitimize smear campaigns of the descenters. That is that is what it did at first. After a while it became a standard revange tactic for spouses who were cheated on, disgruntled co-workers, etc. It got so bad that the popular vernacular and later the popular culture invented its own word for anymous letters. The word became synonymoous with a smear. No opinion stated anonymously was ever taken seroiusly. Anyone who wished to enter the public discourse had to courageoulsy stand against the tide of criticism. Lastly, not having to reveal ones identity gives a certain lightness to what one has to say. I certainly don't feel obligated not to troll because my identity on slashdot is anonymous. So before you say that if anonymity were to become the norm, society would not change for the worse, first imagine it. Imagine real world brick-and-mortar business engaging in smear campaigns againt competition because they can do it anonymously. Imagine all competing entities doing that.... Politicians, jealous lovers, businesses. Of course, then you'd pretty much imagine what is going on today on the internet. But imagine if it happened in real life, where the barrier of entry is much lower than knowing how to use a computer. Where the responsibility for knowing when speech should not be taken seriously lies on the shoulders of the people of lowest 50 percentile of intelligence as well as the highest. I am not saying people should be protected from speech because they can't handle it. I am just saying that they should know who is making the statement. Knowing who makes the statement is one of the basic human devices for evaluating its legitamacy. Without it, all that's left is the media through which the statement is transmitted. So well decorated lies will take shape of the truth for a large portion of the population.... possibly for the majority.

Re:That's one opinion

[0x0000]

Interesting - thank-you for the detailed response.

I take your point concerning the use of anonymity to e.g. "narc off" ones neighbor to e.g. the gestapo - pre-world war 2 Germany was famous for this, as was the [totalitarian] USSR regime.

Actually, I think your point in that respect completely supports what I was saying.

If we were to - as you advocate - acknowledge a fundamental inequity amongst people, then anonymity would, in fact, become nothing more than a tool of oppression. Fortunately, as things have been up to this point, anonymity in the US has been much more a cornerstone of Free Thought and [especially initially - see E Publius] a means of fighting oppression.

Anonymity in the former Soviet Union did not promote public discourse.

"When anonymity is against the law, only snitches will have anonymity" - it is my understanding (and this is based primarily on the pro-US propaganda disseminated in US schools during the Cold War era) that there was no anonymity in the USSR - except perhaps for snitches.

This is typically also true in other totalitarian regimes. Everyone has to carry "papers" at all times. Nothing gets published without an attribution. The only "anonymity" is when some snitch picks up a public phone and tells the "police" that e.g. their ex-wife is violating some law, or that their competition in commerce is a Jew [e.g. Germany].

The context here and now is the US in the 21st Century, and yes, I am very much addressing the way things should go, there. Unless we are going to cave to either the Totalitarian tendencies of the current Fascist movement, or the pending socialist rise, we very much should be looking to what is actually Right. It is a principle of Democracy that persons must be responsible for their own behavior. Unless we intend to move yet further from Democratic principles on which the country was founded, we must continue to behave as though in fact "all humans [men] are [created] equal" and imbued with certain Rights...

While what you say about "smearing" is obviously the case in those sorts of instances, I will point out that, in the US, it is [or at least it has been] the policy that some proof must be provided to support the allegation. A simple phone call by my neighbor to the local police claiming that I'm dealing crack out of my apartment is not [or has not been, yet, since I have some practical experience with this] sufficient to get me disappeared into a mental hospital in Siberia or a concentration camp in Poland. In fact, such tactics have yet to get me arrested, or even questioned.

Note that I say this in the context of a growing awareness that such charges regarding so-called "terrorism" in the US (and under the current Regime) typically are sufficient to get some attention - particularly with the implementation of the USA PATRIOT Act. Again, this is my practical experience. In fact, this is in large part the very reason I argue against anti-anonymity provisions of Law in the US. If we are to avoid the sort of police state nightmares you describe in USSR and of which we have heard in other countries, we need to make damned certain we fight tooth and nail against the very sorts of legal and political conditions that create those nightmares. Anti-anonymity Law is is one such pre-condition for the sort of scenario you described in the USSR. If anonymity is taken as the normative case, such that the ideas presented (e.g. "my neighbor is dealing crack") are never accepted without supporting documentation and demonstrable fact, you won't see the kind of scare/smear tactics used amongst citizens as you describe - or at least, when they are attempted, the results are far, far less damaging.

Note also that these sorts of tactics can already be used - and commonly are, actually, in viturperative divorces, etc - with little or practical effect, and the reason the affect is limited is because ano

Um

[tomstdenis]

private interests [the paper] have the right to scoop who is who. Provided they don't violate your rights. If you're doing things in public, I have the right to observe you. Running a blog ... that's public by definition.

Also like to point out, PEOPLE, BLOGS ARE NON-AUTHORATIVE, even worse than Wikipedia because they lack peer review. Don't trust or put stock in ANYTHING you read in a blog. Good lord, people are stupid.

Tom

Web site shut down...

[chfriley]

It appears also that the bloggers web site is shut down as of Wed (March 7th, 2007) (see Jacksonville Times-Union: http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/0310 07/neS_8452819.shtml). And this was due to the fact that the *subject* of the web site (Ben Rich) filed his papers for the 2008 commission race.

Once he registered sites could no longer *anonymously* attack him. There are several out-rages here:
1. Once he files, he can't be attacked anonymously? Wow. This is very similar to the whole McCain-Feingold free speech restrictions. ("First, if two or more individuals sponsor a Web site or other ad, they would be required to register with Halyburton because it would be considered an electioneer's communication. Secondly, if an individual funds the ad, that would be considered an individual expenditure and that person would have to register with Halyburton, just as a candidate would, to identify their expenditures.")

2. The candidate can file at ANY time and therefore shut down disent. It doesn't have to be near the election.

The U.S. Supreme Court has already tacitly agreed with these type of rules as not being a restriction on free speech, but the Justices who said that are in need of a dose of reality.

Paine, Hamiliton, Jay, Madison would disagree...

[chfriley]

Just ask Tom Paine (various publications), James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay (Federalist papers)....and more.

Anonymity is an important part of the ability to speech unpopular thoughts freely.

Of course there is no guarantee of anonymity, just the right to attempt to be anonymous.

Anonymous sources and bloggers

[tz]

I think the justifications would apply or not apply to both.

If the blogger said Candidate X was having an affair...

If the newspaper got a tip saying Candidate X was having an affair...

Or consider the current national security decisions (are we going to war with Iran) from "anonymous government sources".

I would note that the information exposed is usually something a third party is trying to hide - to remain anonymous, or to get away with something.

Oh, and in court, the witness protection program, etc. people have been convicted by "anonymous" testimony.

No anonymity, then sometimes vital information won't be exposed to public scrutiny.

And the information is credible or not in and of itself.

This is a trade-off.

Covering lies

[jsffive]

I'm sorry. But didn't we just recently get LIED INTO A WAR over anonymous sourcing? It's not unreasonable to question a source BEFORE believing what they say (pay attention neo-cons and mainstream media), but anonymous blogging has removed source-checking from the equation. When I read something, I consider the source first. But anonymous bloggers just want people to read their rants, and not question whether said rants are politically or personally motivated. And that can make all the diference in the world, when considering the objectivity of the poster. This isn't about leaking classified information, it's about an OPINION... and if one doesn't have the fortitude to say something to someone's face, then maybe one should keep their opinions to themselves... at least until they get a little more courage.

Re:Paine, Hamiliton, Jay, Madison would disagree..

[superwiz]

They all wrote under the system where one could have been be punished for what one had said. Once the right of the freedom of speech is guaranteed, the responsibility that keeps it in check is the responsibility to stand behind what one has said.