Talking about elected officials in Internet chat rooms is and should be protected speech, the American Civil Liberties Union has told the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The organization is defending a cyberchatter who lambasted a state judge for behaving unethically in a case that could have ramifications - on- and offline - for elected public officials overly sensitive to public criticism and for their critics.
"The Internet offers unparalleled opportunities for free speech [and] offers a unique weapon to those who would seek to squelch its wide-open debate," the ACLU argued in a brief filed with the Pennsylvania high court. "In order to access the Internet, would-be participants must register … with a service provider. A subpoena directed to that provider - even in the case of a John Doe who has yet to be served with original process - will uncover the identity of virtually any anonymous speaker."
The case is slightly unusual because, traditionally, this kind of case against anonymous chat room criticism is brought by corporate and other commercial interests - not elected officials.
Allegheny County State Superior Court Judge Joan Orie Melvin filed a defamation suit asking for the real identity of the cyberchatter who criticized her on a chat site known as Grant Street 1999. The chatter claimed Melvin lobbied then-Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge - now the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security - illegally to get a friend tabbed for a vacancy on the county bench.
The ACLU won a round in a lower court in November 2000, when that court ruled a person's identity can't be disclosed until the person gets a chance to prove the lawsuit has no merit, but the civil liberties group lost its bid to have the lower court throw out the case entirely.
Melvin's attorneys argue that the Internet may still be a new communication tool, but that doesn't mean online chatters are allowed to slander public officials.
The ACLU isn't fighting this one alone. Among the companies who have joined the case is America Online. In a friend of the court brief, AOL urged the Pennsylvania supremes to test Melvin's claims for their viability before forcing the anonymous chatter to reveal his true identity.
"The recent proliferation of 'John Doe' litigation in which a person subject to anonymous online criticism - sometimes without any viable claim - seeks to use the power of a court to breach the veil of anonymity, threatens to transform judicial process into instruments for overriding online speakers' First Amendment rights," AOL argued.
"...While sometimes these 'John Doe' lawsuits target speech that was clearly tortious and injurious to the plaintiff, on other occasions these suits can constitute an illegitimate use of the courts to silence and retaliate against speakers whose statements, while unpleasant from the standpoint of the defendant, were not unlawful," AOL continued.
The lower court's ruling was saluted by the ACLU as a major step against those who previously could intimidate online critics merely by filing suits to get their identities revealed before the actual merit of the suit was determined.
