Comments on: Anonymous Blogger’s Identity Being Pursued Through Lawsuit by City of Memphis

By: Karen Scott

Karen Scott — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:38:02 +0000

If there isn’t a defamation charge, does that mean he’s likely telling the truth about the sexual harassment etc?

You’d think the MPD would be a little more worried about that, than the blogger’s identity.

By: sula

sula — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 15:42:01 +0000

What Robin said. This is a disturbing trend. I hope that this case shares the fate of the others.

By: SonomaLass

SonomaLass — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 23:16:07 +0000

Robin,

I agree absolutely. The best response to free speech you don’t like is more free speech! Not suppression, because we don’t want to go that way, do we?

By: Robin

Robin — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:29:55 +0000

The First Amendment applies to government intrusion on the right to free speech, which would include the Memphis PD. But the First Amendment does not provide protection for certain types of expression, including defamation, obscenity, harassment and certain types of commercial speech. Although in the case of the first three, at least, the speech would have to be deemed by a trier of fact (jury) as outside Constitutionally protected limits to be penalized.

Sadly, though, our society (US, that is) has IMO gotten very intolerant of critical speech, and rather than engage in rebuttal, people often just want the critic to shut up. Which probably doesn’t seem like such a big deal in individual cases, but as a political and social trend, it scares me, because it goes against the notion of a *participatory*, representative, Constitutional democracy. And let’s face it: we’re already in the danger zone as far as being a democracy of any type. Freedom of speech is usually the first civil liberty to go in dictatorial regimes, because it undergirds most other civil liberties.

By: SonomaLass

SonomaLass — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 18:29:00 +0000

I fervently hope this gets “the same fate as the others.” Seems like a no-brainer to me.

By: DS

DS — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:07:09 +0000

Access to information would be lost if it were widely known who the bloggers are. Others would no longer feel free to act and speak in front of them. Therefore, they would be a much less useful source of information. The 1st Amendment might protect their right to speak but their effectiveness would be destroyed by the loss of anonymity.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:11:15 +0000

Would freedom of speech not cover the blogger, or am I missing something?