Anonymous Commenters Are Anonymous to ACLU Lawyer, Too
Journalists are familiar with the world of anonymous sources. That’s how they can sometimes break a really good news story.
But anonymous clients? That seems a little more unusual.
It turns out that the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who is tenaciously defending the privacy of anonymous commenters whose identities are being sought by federal prosecutors in Nevada, is just as clueless about her clients’ actual identities as the feds.
And that’s the way Margaret McLetchie wants it. McLetchie, in an interview posted at Bloggasm, says her boss knows the names of the commenters, but she doesn’t, and it’s her goal to make sure no one else IDs them either.
McLetchie is representing four individuals who left anonymous comments on a story about a tax evasion trial posted online by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Prosecutors maintain they need the identities because at least two of the comments were threatening toward the jury and one of the prosecutors handling the trial. And after narrowing the scope of their subpoena, the Review-Journal said it would turn over IP addresses.
But the ACLU argues that the newspaper is being too hasty and that the government is overreaching.
Bloggasm notes that McLetchie disputes that the comments are threatening. She spoke directly about the one in which a commenter bet quatloos that a prosecutor wouldn’t make it to his next birthday.
“First of all, quatloos are Star Trek money, so it’s clearly a fantastical reference, and quatloos.com is a website that debunks anti-tax myth. So it’s clearly an inside joke, it’s meant to be fantastical and it doesn’t reveal any actual plan to kill the prosecutor,” McLetchie says. “As awful and crude as it is, people can wish bad things about people and wish bad things would happen to people without it being an actual threat. So in our view, the subpoenas are clearly problematic because the government is in essence trying to squelch the criticism.”
Bloggasm reports that the government has filed yet another motion in the case, trying to get the ACLU’s motion dismissed. That motion was filed under seal, which means the ACLU can’t see it.
