Las Vegas Newspaper Subpoenaed to Reveal Commenters' Identities
The Washington Post has reported that a Nevada newspaper has been served a grand jury federal subpoena to reveal the identities of commenters on its website. The newspaper editor is fighting the request.
The editor, Thomas Mitchell, received the subpoena after his paper covered the prosecution of business owner Robert Kahre in a federal tax fraud case. He is quoted as saying that anonymous speech, including online comments, is "a fundamental and historic part of this country," but that his publication might cooperate if specific crimes or threats were a factor.
The subpoena is asking for commenters' addresses, birth dates, genders, telephone numbers, ISPs, IP addresses, and credit card numbers, all for comments of a generally one-sided but relatively harmless nature. As is common on many websites, including this one, comments are permitted under pseudonyms.
U.S. Assistant District Attorney J. Gregory Damm's name appears on the subpoena. He was also the prosecuting attorney for the case which was the subject of the original report.
Comments from the article in question call Damm "a socialist, fascist Mormon" (which is a radical contradiction in terms) and a "Nazi moron," which is a lovely example of Godwin's law. Another comment reads, "The sad thing is there are 12 dummies on the jury who will convict him. They should be hung along with the feds." On the same website, comments of an antisemitic, extremist nature exist and occasionally abound.
Thanks to Rex Dixon for sending this news our way.
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Land of the free, isn't it?
Glad I'm not in the US anymore.
In Estonia the supreme court just ruled for a news portal to be responsible for comments left by readers. Although the portal was willing to give up indentities and wanted the people who left the comments to be sued, the court was not interested in that. Instead it was ruled, that portals and news media should pre-screen every comment. Doh.
Scary stuff, right?
Glad to see RWW write more about this!
Rex
They should be HANGED along with the feds. You can't bust a comment for poor grammar, can you? Maybe they meant a hung jury? I'm confusing myself. I'll stop now.
Very interesting to say the least and a unique lesson in leaving comments...
As a journalist myself, I can see the ethical issues with revealing the confidential information of commenters posting under pseudonyms. Let me just quote a couple of excerpts from the comment policy all of their posters agree to:
(emphasis is mine)
"You agree, through your use of article commenting, that you will not post any material which is false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, or otherwise in violation of ANY law."
Also
"We also reserve the right to reveal your identity (or any information we have about you including IP address and your ISP) in the event of a complaint or legal action arising from any information posted by you."
They RESERVE the right but it does not mean they will actually cooperate if pressed on the issue. This is a sticky situation, considering the language is a classic example of Schenck v. US and Clear and Present Danger. The real question here is whether or not the editor can actually be compelled to reveal the commenter's details, whether the publication reserves the right to do so or not.
Very interesting to say the least and a unique lesson in leaving comments...