Bloggers And The Law

(With a hat-tip to Raven, who emailed me the link below)

Better watch your backs, fellow bloggers.

Excerpt from this July 15, 2008 article in the New York Times:

...A grand jury subpoena sent by prosecutors in the Bronx earlier this year sought information to help identify people blogging anonymously on a Web site about New York politics called Room 8.

The subpoena carried a warning in capital letters that disclosing its very existence “could impede the investigation being conducted and thereby interfere with law enforcement” — implying that if the bloggers blabbed, they could be prosecuted.

“We were totally perplexed,” said Ben Smith, who co-founded Room 8 with Gur Tsabar. (The site calls itself an “imaginary neighbor” to the press room — Room 9 — in City Hall in New York.) The two promptly began looking for a lawyer. “We knew enough to be scared.”

This, of course, is a blogger’s nightmare: enforced silence and the prospect of jail time. The district attorney eventually withdrew the subpoena and lifted the gag requirement after the bloggers threatened to sue. But the fact that the tactic was used at all raised alarm bells for some free speech advocates.

The demand for secrecy raised the unnerving prospect that prosecutors could quietly investigate anyone who posts comments online, while the person making those comments is unaware of and unable to respond to the risk. The tactic also robs bloggers of one of their most powerful weapons: the chance to spread the word and turn the legal attack into an online cause célèbre.

[...]

Bloggers concerned about possible litigation may want to check the privacy policies of their Internet service providers, to see whether they include a pledge to notify any customer whose site is the subject of a subpoena, Mr. Zittrain said....

Read the entire article HERE.

For now, the above case never made it to court. Instead, the district attorney withdrew the subpoena. According to the article, the withdrawal included the caveat as follows: "a subpoena was not necessary at this time...."

But what about tomorrow?

Once compromised, freedom of speech is lost. And for how many generations? After all, the right to freedom of speech is a right won with blood and sacrifice, but a right which can be abrogated by a legislating judge -- right here in the United States.

Oh, and according to the latest information, the web site Room 8 has pulled all of its posts, past and present.

Read the entire NYT article. Now.