DA Withdraws Subpoena for IP Identity of ‘Republican Dissident’
Now that the Bronx District Attorney’s office has withdrawn a subpoena for the Internet identity of an anonymous commenter, two bloggers who fought the document are talking to a reporter.
The subpoena had sought the IP address of a person called Republican Dissident who posted comments on Room 8, a blog about New York politics named after the press room, Room 9 at City Hall, the New York Times reports. It carried a warning that the existence of the subpoena could not be disclosed.
The blog is published by Ben Smith, a senior writer at Politico, and Gur Tsabar, a vice president at the public relations firm Ketchum. Represented by lawyers from the Public Citizen Litigation Group, the bloggers filed a motion to quash and sought to open the proceedings to the public.
Smith told the Times he called the DA’s office to try to find out why prosecutors needed the IP address, but he didn’t get any answers.
Spokesman Robert Johnson told the newspaper the district attorney was not aware of the subpoena before it was filed and decided to withdraw it because it wasn’t necessary at this time.
There are few court decisions explaining how courts should evaluate criminal subpoenas, according to Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain. Most subpoenas seeking information about online posts are usually issued in civil suits rather than criminal cases.
Zittrain told the Times that bloggers can check to see if their Internet service providers pledge to notify customers when their sites are subject to subpoenas.
