News-Record.com

Via my colleague Eric Townsend comes news of a court ruling that should gladden the hearts of those who choose to, or feel they must, blog anonymously:

... the Delaware Supreme Court sided with free-speech advocates Wednesday and rejected a Smyrna Town councilman's quest to unmask an anonymous Internet critic.

The state's high court reversed a Superior Court order requiring Internet service provider Comcast Cable Communications to release the identity of "John Doe No. 1" to Councilman Patrick Cahill so Cahill could pursue a libel suit for allegedly defamatory comments Doe posted on a weblog, or "blog."

And the justices set a high standard for future cases, making it difficult for people like Cahill to force disclosure of an anonymous poster's identity simply by filing lawsuits that have little chance of success.

"We are concerned that setting the standard too low will chill potential posters from exercising their First Amendment right to speak anonymously," Chief Justice Myron T. Steele wrote in a 33-page opinion.

"The possibility of losing anonymity in a future lawsuit could intimidate anonymous posters into self-censoring their comments or simply not commenting at all," the opinion states. ...

The high court's ruling was hailed by free-speech advocates who, like the Supreme Court, likened anonymous political speech on the Internet to the anonymous political pamphlets handed out during the Revolutionary War era. ...

"This is an important decision by an important Supreme Court," [attorney Paul Alan] Levy said, noting that this is the first such case addressed by a state's highest court. [Levy filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Doe No. 1.] That makes courts in other states likely to look to this decision for guidance.

"The court's determination to require sufficient evidence before a critic is outed will go a long way toward reassuring citizens that they remain free to anonymously criticize public officials," he said.

David L. Finger, who represented Doe No. 1, said he was "pleased that the court agreed that the statements that John Doe No. 1 made, in the context of this blog, could not reasonably be interpreted as statements of fact. They were basically his opinion."

I'm not a big fan of anonymous/pseudonymous blogging, just as I am not a big fan of anonymous sources in journalism. But, also as with anonymous sources, I realize that some people -- because of fears of losing their job, or alienating loved ones, or some other legitimate concern -- have to blog anonymously or can't blog at all. Calling someone names anonymously, or opining anonymously that someone is a jerk, is pretty cheesy behavior, but allowing it is the price we pay for freedom of expression -- if you don't believe me, look at the comments to some of my previous posts :-)

I'm not a lawyer, but I think the court did a good job of balancing some important competing interests. It protected anonymous/pseudonymous expression of opinion while leaving the door open to libel suits against the purveyors of anonymous/pseudonymous, but false and damaging, factual assertions. You can't just use any old lawsuit to destroy anonymity, it said, but if you have a legitimate legal gripe, the courts will help you draw aside that veil. That's a perfectly reasonable standard, and when, not if, this case or one like it makes it to the U.S. Supreme Court, I hope and trust that the justices will rely heavily on this ruling in crafting their own.