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Illinois Supreme Court: Comcast Must Identify Anonymous Internet Commenter
An anonymous reader writes: In 2011, an anonymous person on the internet posted a comment to the Freeport Journal Standard newspaper's website implying that a local political candidate was a pedophile. The candidate, Bill Hadley, took offense to this, and tried to get Comcast to tell him who the commenter was. Comcast refused, so Hadley took it to the courts. The Illinois Supreme Court has now ruled (PDF) that Comcast must divulge the commenter's identity. "Illinois' opinion was based in large part on a pair of earlier, lower-court decisions in the state, which held that the anonymity of someone who makes comments in response to online news stories isn't guaranteed if their opinions are potentially defamatory, according to Don Craven, an attorney for the Illinois Press Association."
ISPs generally throw out authentication logs after some period of time (a month to a year) unless they have a good reason to keep them. Unless Comcast is holding onto those logs, it has no way to determine who was using that IP way back in 2011.
Political speech was the primary form of speech on the founding father's minds. Religious speech would have been secondary. All other forms of speech are included, of course, but political and religious enemies are the most dangerous.
The comment in question falls under political speech. The commenter is commenting on a political candidate, after all. Calling a candidate a pedophile hardly differs from the bipartisan mudslinging that takes place in most elections anyway.
IMO, the Supreme Court has exceeded it's authority in this case.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
When he finds out the commenter was an 11 year old middle-schooler on his lunch break in the library, and not the great political adversary that he's making it out to be.
Not only that, but it's exceedingly difficult to make an example out of an 11 year old, to other 11 year olds, and not looking like an out of touch politician who's been expertly trolled by someone one fifth his age. This seems like a huge waste of resources, politically and judicially.
moox. for a new generation.
...that the anonymous commenter is the person whose IP is on record with Comcast, unless that commenter admits to it, and even then, that person may be lying for whatever reason. It's possible the Comcast customer had nothing to do with the comment, for a variety of reasons, from an exploited PC or Wi-Fi router on the Comcast customer's network being used by a remote 3rd party, to someone using a spoofed IP address, to Comcasts logs having been changed or erroneous (which they'd never admit to being possible, but it's possible). The courts are so far behind the times, how they perceive and respond to issues of identity put innocent people at risk.
The proper way to handle this, would be for the courts to be able to order a closed investigation, conducted by a forensic computer/network specialist within law enforcement, to look in to the Comcast customer's potential involvement from a technical aspect, in order to determine if it's reasonable to reveal their their identity to continue the case. Otherwise, the political candidate and his supporters may target the revealed Comcast customer outside of court, when there's no evidence beyond an IP address as to who the actual anonymous commenter may be.
On December 29, an individual using the name Fuboy posted the following comment: Hadley is a Sandusky waiting to be exposed. Check out the view he has of Empire [Elementary School in Freeport, Illinois] from his front door.
So of course an anonymous comment is no reason to believe someone is a pedophile, unless corroborated by further evidence.
But still, when I hear of defamation lawsuits like this, I always think back to Oscar Wilde.
He sued for defamation when someone outed him as homosexual. He lost and legal fees bankrupted him. And because sodomy was a crime, he was thrown in jail.
Has the politician denied being a pedophile ?
I had the opinion that politicians screwed us all over.
Some of the people are under 18, so logically it follows ----> All politicians are pedophiles.
Haven't you felt screwed over by our government ?
Choose carefully who you vote for...
I think we have have enough of Clintons & Bushes in the Whitehouse.
This is my opinion based on what little I know and understand of the rumors and lies Thanks, Randal
Free speech does not mean you can spread lies and slander a person. It means you have a right to your opinion of a person but not to defile a persons reputation or record. This is the problem with the internet, people can write whatever and not be held accountable. This is not right, the internet is a powerful tool to spread truth but its also spreading lies and propaganda because people think they can remain anonymous.
We want the ability to stay anonymous, however if someone else abuses such rights, we want them to be punished. So to punish them there needs a way to de-anonymize the person. But having such a system in place could mean tracking down people for more legitimate use of anonymity, such as whistle blowing or just stating an unpopular political belief, or just state a statement that inconvenience someone in power. But there are cases where such anonymous behavior where they cross the line, and goes beyond any reasonable level of free speech.
Then there is the amount of regulation that we need to place onto the ISP. Back in the old days during dial-up. setting up an ISP was easy and affordable. today it requires owning a good part of the infrastructure and increasing regulations, making it harder for new ISP to come up. If the government starts weight on ISP to try to stop behavior of their customers is like asking paper manufacturers to find who is the customer of the paper that posted such information.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The phrase "potentially defamatory" has no legal structure or meaning.
Also, common sense should indicate that the more outrageous the comment, the more easily it can be dismissed.
His concern over the remark give the commenter reasonable credibility that further investigation is required as to
the statement's truth. If you look at historical political comments (and I mean way back - 1700-1800's) you'll see
that candidates were "accused" of much more dirty things and everybody "lived." Now, if the commenter actually
said that he knew of a specific pedophile crime the candidate perpetrated, and it turned out to be a fabrication,
that's a very different issue and not "Free Speech."
Based on the "other" articles which actually include the comment made (see what /. did - they are so scared of
including that FACT that they might get sued themselves!), IMHO, there is no evidence that the commentor has
evil intent to harm the person who is the object of his comment.
Let's face it, this post could be "potentially defamatory" as well. We've got to stop this silliness.
Craven = bowing down to his masters and willing to lick boots.
Now, come get ME for making a defamatory comment, you pathetic loser.
By the way, good luck with that, I'm in Romania.
Is a real cock gobbler.
And name. I don't want to serve justice on the wrong person.
because you rape babies.
You say "Without anonymity, you can't have free speech."
Really? On what logic is that true? By what historical example is that based? Most (if not all) of the American Revolutionary pamphleteers I have studied proudly signed their names to their work. The Colonial newspaper editorialists signed their names. Without demonstrating the strength of their convictions by courageously identifying themselves, (we mutually pledge our lives fortunes and sacred honor) free speech isn't worth much. You might just as well put a white pointed hood over your face if you lack the courage to identify yourself, and if you do that, your words offer little to any discourse.
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
he molested me when I was a child.
Also I have a video of him fellating a horse.
tor user here, enjoy your wild goose chase.
I'm behind 7 proxies!
The complainant should have every one of the web pages he has viewed publicly disclosed if he is demanding the disclosure of the author of a post. His web browsing should not be any more private than the posters.
You say "Without anonymity, you can't have free speech."
Really? On what logic is that true?
HTH, HAND
You might just as well put a white pointed hood over your face if you lack the courage to identify yourself,
Please provide a link to a scan of your driver's license.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
He should own it! Wear a pedobear shirt to court.
Just because Bill Hadley is a kiddie diddler the world has the right to know what politicians do behind closed doors..
Posting, of course, anonymously. (The title refers to the Streisand Effect, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., and is not a direct quote by anyone famous, or otherwise. For him to file a lawsuit is exactly like Barbara's lawsuit to get a picture of her coastal home removed -- prior to the lawsuit, it was downloaded a total of 6 times (and 2 of those, by her attorneys); afterwards, more than 420,000 times. Ignoring negative statements is a much more nuanced form of public relations.)
Don't tell the MPAA or RIAA...
when I took Comcast's side on anything. I was wrong. This kind of shit needs to stop. Every shitty anonymous comment on the internet isn't even close to the same thing that defamation/libel laws were written for.
See subject: mmell posted I'm a pedo on /. http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
(Personally, I love it IF the courts would give me 5 MINUTES ALONE IN A ROOM with him to beat his FUCKING ASS TO PULP for that... that'd be reward enough!)
* "Gee, I wonder WHO downmodded this?" (not) last time I posted it -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... and my further proof of it also -> http://yro.slashdot.org/commen... PLUS here too, as additional proof thereof -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...
APK
P.S.=> Incidentally: I'm NO pedo/child molester etc. (& I detest those who TRULY are) - et al, but scumbags like mmell get away with it here on THIS site (I've spoken to DICE & /.'s "legal people" over things like the one above, & I got "We're not responsible for those comments" bs, well... YOU ARE IF YOU LEAVE THEM THERE AFTER I NOTIFIED YOU OF IT & YOU KNOW IT...)
... apk
Only partly right. Anonymous posters and pamphlets were quite common in revolutionary times, some of them published by those very same people you were citing as being so courageous. That courage, by the way, came about when it was time to start shooting in earnest. Before, when it was discussion and debate time, not so much.
So please try some other examples because that one is awful.
Did you hear the news?
Bill Hadley, of Illinois, is a pedophile!
-We should all discuss this endlessly...
You say "Without anonymity, you can't have free speech."
Really? On what logic is that true? By what historical example is that based? Most (if not all) of the American Revolutionary pamphleteers I have studied proudly signed their names to their work. The Colonial newspaper editorialists signed their names. Without demonstrating the strength of their convictions by courageously identifying themselves, (we mutually pledge our lives fortunes and sacred honor) free speech isn't worth much. You might just as well put a white pointed hood over your face if you lack the courage to identify yourself, and if you do that, your words offer little to any discourse.
You and I must have studied different American Revolutionary pamphleteers. The Federalist Papers were anonymous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
These are the times that try men's souls.
The USA is only 4X older than me...perspective
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Federalist_Papers
Hamilton chose "Publius" as the pseudonym under which the series would be written. While many other pieces representing both sides of the constitutional debate were written under Roman names, Albert Furtwangler contends that "'Publius' was a cut above 'Caesar' or 'Brutus' or even 'Cato.' Publius Valerius was not a late defender of the republic but one of its founders. His more famous name, Publicola, meant 'friend of the people.'"[8] It was not the first time Hamilton had used this pseudonym: in 1778, he had applied it to three letters attacking fellow Federalist Samuel Chase. Chase's patriotism was questioned when Hamilton revealed that Chase had taken advantage of knowledge gained in Congress to try to dominate the flour market.
Wouldn't it be funny if the anonymous person, once his/her identity is exposed, actually has hard evidence to back up their claim? I think that would be pretty funny.
Considering it's Democrats/Liberals who have a long history of using social media to defame and slander.
Get rid of the Wi-Fi security and claim that it must have been someone else who connected to his WiFi and posted the comment. A coworker of mine says he does that - he leaves his WiFi wide open so he can download pirated software and movies. He says if the authorities ever show up he'll claim it must have been someone else doing that.
Yeah, I mean it's not like IRS email or something...