At the uneasy intersection of bloggers and the law

Prospect of helping unmask commenters on politics blog--and not being allowed to warn readers--made the site's co-founders nervous.

The story "At the uneasy intersection of bloggers and the law" published July 15, 2008 at 10:16 AM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[kenstech_com]

There should be criminal legal sanctions for prosecutors and politicians who violate other people's First Amendment rights.

These people push and push and push to see how far they can go. They only pull back when they meet resistance. The only way to fight them is with the only thing they respect: POWER.

They may not understand all that "freedom" stuff, but they will understand a jail sentence. Make it simple so that even they can understand: Violate someone's First Amendment rights, go to jail.

Ken
www.kenstech.com

[Imalittleteapot]

The only thing I can see is they've started to go after people based on political ideals which is the exact opposite of why this country is here. Since they won't say why they needed the information that's the only conclusion to be made. If that is true then they are traitors against this land and have committed one of the highest crimes possible in my opinion. I agree with kenstech_com with one addition. If they violated free speech for political purposes then I would suggest putting the death penalty on the. Violating a person's right to freedom of speech is a higher crime than murder or even 9/11 in my opinion. I know many won't agree with me, but I would be willing to let a jury decide that. No jury would ever sentence them to death, but knowing it's a possibility might teach these people a lesson about how important a person's rights actually are to some of us.

[private-internet]

First Amendment Guarantee of Free Speech does not mean guarantee of anonymity. IF you speak in a public forum, you should face the consequences of your actions. So I do not see the violation of free speech.

[Imalittleteapot]

That's probably because you're an idiot. First, none of the posters did anything because the prosecutors won't tell us what they did. Obviously if they all had done something the prosecutors would tell us what to defend their actions, would they not? There was no crime by the anonymous posters here that needs paid for. At least as far as the prosecutors would tell anyone. Now some people believe that without anonymity you never truly have freedom of speech. This is a perfect example of why they believe that. Because if you can't remain anonymous people in power that don't like you will start to spy on you, try to convict you, and come after you based on political ideals even though you've done nothing criminally wrong, which is exactly what has happened to some people. If you can't see that you have a serious problem. If you can't though, let me help you out a little bit more. The violation is issuing a blogger with papers saying they have to give up their websites IP addresses and then telling that blogger they're not allowed to warn anyone or they will go to jail. Not being able to say what you want to say because you fear the threat of jail is a violation of free speech. Duh!