Anonymous Blogger Outed By Politician

Snoskred writes with the story of a blogger who chose to remain pseudonymous, who has been outed by an Alaskan politician in his legislative newsletter. Alaska Rep. Mike Doogan had been writing bizarre emails to people who emailed him, and the Alaskan blogger "Mudflats" was one of those who called him on it. (Mudflats first began getting noticed after blogging about Sarah Palin from a local point of view.) Doogan seems to have developed a particular itch to learn who Mudflats is, and he finally found out, though he got her last name wrong, and named her in his official newsletter. The Huffington Post is one of the many outlets writing about the affair. The blogger happens to be Democrat — as is Doogan — but that is immaterial to the question of the right to anonymity in political speech. Does an American have the right to post political opinion online anonymously? May a government official breach that anonymity absent a compelling state interest?

Comments

ANONYMOUS FIRST POST TROLL!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

pleaase don't oust me :(

please?

Uhhh

[QuantumG]

Does an American have the right to post political opinion online anonymously?

Sure.

May a government official breach that anonymity absent a compelling state interest?

Why yes. Everyone has the right to keep their identity a secret.. but no-one has the right to prevent others from discovering their secrets.

Re:Uhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

but no-one has the right to prevent others from discovering their secrets.

So does you proclamation apply to whisle blowers, people in witness protection, confidential documents, your SSN, trade secrets, etc.

People have a perfect right to protect their secrets, otherwise they wouldn't be secrets.

Re:Uhhh

[RodgerDodger]

Actually, that is not the case. Government officials in particular have a greater duty to protect your privacy than the average citizen, due to their access to greater-than-normal tools to violate it.

If, for example, Rep. Doogan abused his office to discover Mudflat's identity, then that would be a serious problem.

Re:Uhhh

[QuantumG]

Can you actually state any *laws* to that affect? Hiring a registered private investigator to discover the identity of a whistle blower.. yep, perfectly legal. Witness protection is more myth than fact. Confidential documents remain confidential until they are lawfully obtained by the people you want to keep them confidential from, then they no longer are. My SSN? I think I have one of those from back when I worked in the USA.. assuming that everyone else reading this has one or considers it a secret is a pretty big assumption. Trade secrets are exactly the same as confidential documents.. with the added fun of reverse engineering.. also perfectly legal as has been upheld by the supreme court dozens of times.

People have a perfect right to protect their secrets, otherwise they wouldn't be secrets.

No-one said they didn't.

Re:Uhhh

[julioody]

Except he's a public official. I for one very much doubt he did this in his own time, or with his own money.

The blogger committed no crime, as from TFA. So what gives?

Hate to state the obvious, but that strikes me as a personal vendetta being pursued while the fine representative should be more concerned with matters of public interest.

Re:Uhhh

[dexmachina]

I agree, with one reservation. If Rep. Doogan discovered the blogger's identity using channels that would be available to anyone, then he was well within his rights to "oust him"...otherwise, you're effectively arguing that Mudflats' right to anonymity trumps Doogan's right to free speech. However, if he used his position as a government official to access information not available to the general public, then his actions were an abuse of power.

Re:Uhhh

[nedlohs]

But then it's not the exposing of identity that is the problem, it's the abuse of power and resources. It would be just as much an abuse if he then kept the knowledge to himself.

If I want to work out who is sending me anonymous emails I can look at the headers and notice they all come from an IP used by a local internet cafe and they seem to be sent at 10am each Saturday, nothing wrong with me going there at that time the next Saturday and seeing if there's anyone who's the likely sender. Nothing wrong with a policeman or a politician doing the same. As soon as the policeman or politician uses their additional powers (flashing a badge and asking to see the credit card receipts and user lists, etc) then we have a problem.

Re:Uhhh

[xouumalperxe]

As recently as 1995 (in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission) the Court ruled that anonymous pamphleting is protected by the First Amendment

What that means is:

• Posting anonymous pamphlets is legal;
• You can't legislate to make it illegal (not american, can't recall whether 1st amendment rules at state or federal level);
• Since anonymity is legal, you can't ask law enforcement to help you find out who posted something anonymous (or do anything else about it, for that matter) unless there's something else about it that makes it illegal.

What it doesn't mean is:

• If you spread an "anonymous" message via SMS, it doesn't bar people from just saying "look whose caller ID it is!"
• If the speech itself is illegal (not sure what constitutes illegal speech in the US, but violence/hate inciting speech, or holocaust denial are recurring items elsewhere), anonymity doesn't suddenly make it OK because of the first amendment

Anonomity should not be required

[pwizard2]

I'm disturbed that an American would feel that they should have to be anonymous to post political speech. There should be no threat of reprisal whatsoever; in fact the politicians should be the ones who are worried about what the electorate thinks of them.

Re:Anonomity should not be required

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd guess that it isn't the politicians that one would be worried about.