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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."
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?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
Or am I off my rocker?
sigfault (core dumped)
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.
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.
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make install -not war
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.
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."
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
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.