Friday, October 07, 2005

Supreme Court Blogger Case - What does it mean?

I have been studying Wednesday's Delaware Supreme Court Case in: John Doe #1 v. Patrick Cahill and Julia Cahill. I offer this entry as a lay-blogger's quick translation. If you are an attorney, or otherwise if you are looking for a strict legal evaluation of the case, don't read this. Instead, I refer you to directly to the opinion link in yesterday's post. It is a clearly written opinion.

For the rest of us... the Court's ruling makes it harder for people to use (or misuse) the court system to find out who wrote anonymous blog entries. It is still possible to get a court order to disclose the identity of the writer, but the plaintiff will have to show that he has a real case, not just a case.

We are still responsible for what we say, and we still may be sued for libel and slander, but our free speech rights are still there as well. Our right to make statements anonymously are protected unless we step over the line.

No comments: