Time Warner Cable has been ordered to turn over the identity of the e-mailer who sent an insulting message to some Great Diamond Island residents, made to look like they came from one of them, by the Maine Supreme Court.
The March 17 ruling held that federal law lets judges order companies like Time Warner to turn over such information, meaning the e-mailer’s name would be revealed in a lawsuit Ronald Fitch—the apparent target of the e-mail—plans to file in civil court.
However, the state high court also rejected a plaintiff argument that the subscriber deal between the anonymous e-mailer and his ISP showed the e-mailer’s consent to disclosure, because no admissible evidence showed that consent, according to Public Citizen attorney Paul Alan Levy.
The e-mail featured a cartoon lampooning Fitch, his wife, and their deceased St. Bernard, and was made to appear to have come from Fitch himself, according to published reports. The message was said to be sent Christmas Eve 2003, in the middle of a testy dispute among Great Diamond Island residents over using golf carts on the island, and over Fitch’s reputed influence in the since-resolved dispute.
Fitch told reporters he expects to learn the identity of his e-mail insulter this week.
Levy—whose group co-filed an amicus brief in the case with the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the Maine Civil Liberties Union—said in an email sent to Declan McCullagh’s politechbot.com website, that the court bypassed certain First Amendment considerations.
“The court acknowledged that courts in several other states had adopted First Amendment standards that balance the right to speak anonymously against the right of a plaintiff with a valid claim that can be supported by evidence of wrongdoing’s had been met,” Levy said in the e-mail. “However, the court declined to decide whether Maine should follow those authorities, and whether the case should be sent back for further consideration of that issue, because the Doe failed to raise the issue in the trial court.”
But he said the high court ruling said those issues could be raised again in a future case. “(T)he Maine court joined the other states in ruling that, when a trial judge allows such a subpoena to identify an anonymous Internet user, the user can obtain immediate appellate review,” Levy wrote.
“Otherwise, the court recognized, the right to anonymity will be forever lost,” he continued. “Thus, the court's opinion sends a clear message that, in future cases of this sort, an anonymous Internet use can raise the First Amendment right to remain anonymous and can secure consideration of his First Amendment rights on appeal if necessary.”
