First Amendment anonymity safeguards have been vital over the past half-century, but they have limits. The constitutional protections prevent certain uses of government power to unmask people. Cases like Talley limit the government’s ability to force authors to disclose their real names. And John Doe online subpoena opinions protect online anonymity when a private party […]
In the late 1990s, most publicly traded companies were the subjects of Yahoo! Finance bulletin boards. Yahoo! allowed users to post message under pseudonyms, so its bulletin boards quickly became a virtual water cooler for rumors about companies nationwide. Corporate executives and public relations departments routinely monitored the bulletin boards, keenly aware that one negative […]
My book explains the strong, but not absolute, protections that U.S. courts provide to anonymous speech. Those safeguards originated from a dispute over civil rights activist Manuel Talley’s March 22, 1958, distribution of handbills outside the A&D Market in Los Angeles. The handbills called for a boycott of the store, alleging that the retailer sold […]
“Sir,” the letter began. “The submission of a free people to the executive authority of government is no more than a compliance with laws which they themselves have enacted. While the national honour is firmly maintained abroad, and while justice is impartially administered at home, the obedience of the subject will be voluntary, cheerful, and, […]
“Sir,” the letter began. “The submission of a free people to the executive authority of government is no more than a compliance with laws which they themselves have enacted. While the national honour is firmly maintained abroad, and while justice is impartially administered at home, the obedience of the subject will be voluntary, cheerful, and, […]
Thanks to Eugene for inviting me to guest-blog about my new book, The United States of Anonymous: How the First Amendment Shaped Online Speech. For more than a half century, U.S. courts have held that the First Amendment provides a right to speak and associate anonymously. Courts have applied this right to the Internet and […]
