WILMINGTON, DE -- The Delaware Supreme Court has protected the identity of a
blogger in the case of Doe v. Cahill, finding that the plaintiffs failed to meet
the strict standards required by the First Amendment to unmask an anonymous
critic. It dismissed the case Wednesday.
This is the first state supreme court to rule on a "John Doe" subpoena or to
address bloggers' rights.
"Bloggers have a strong First Amendment right to speak anonymously," said
Kurt Opsahl, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "It is
critical that plaintiffs' claims face a stringent test before a court unmasks
online critics, lest we reduce the vibrant public debates on the Internet to the
cautious views of a select few voices."
The defendant in the case posted under the alias Proud Citizen on the
"Smyrna/Clayton Issues Blog" (www.newsblog.info/0405). In two
messages from September of 2004, Proud Citizen discussed a member of the Smyrna
Town Council, Patrick Cahill, referring to Cahill's "character flaws," "mental
deterioration," and "failed leadership," and stated that "Gahill [sic]
is...paranoid."
Cahill and his wife filed a complaint for defamation, and sought to discover
Proud Citizen's identity, which the trial court allowed under a very relaxed
standard - merely requiring a claim made in good faith. The Delaware Supreme
Court disagreed, noting that substantial harm may come from allowing a plaintiff
to compel the disclosure of an anonymous defendant's identity with a weak or
trivial claim.
Instead, the Court required a stricter standard: the plaintiff must (1) make
reasonable efforts to notify the defendant; and (2) provide facts sufficient to
defeat a summary judgment motion (i.e., submit enough evidence to show the Court
that the case was strong enough to proceed to trial). The Court held that the
plaintiffs had not shown that statements made by Proud Citizen met this test, in
large part because they were likely to be seen by the Internet audience as
statements of opinion.
EFF, along with Public Citizen, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the
American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware, filed a "friend of the court" brief
supporting the blogger's right to speak anonymously. You can learn more about
EFF's efforts to defend bloggers' rights at www.eff.org/bloggers/
For this release: http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2005_10.php#004038
