ACLU Explains Why It's Fighting To Protect Info On Anonymous Vegas Newspaper Commenters

from the you-should-be-able-to-criticize-the-gov't dept

We recently wrote about the fishing expedition US prosecutors went on trying to get all sorts of info (much of which didn't exist) on anonymous commenters on an article by the Las Vegas Journal-Review. The newspaper fought (publicly) the request as being way too broad, leading the feds to back down and greatly narrow the request to just info on four commenters. The newspaper appears to have no issue giving up that information, but the ACLU is still protesting, claiming that one should be able to anonymously criticize the government without having US Prosecutors track you down. Specifically, the ACLU notes that the US Attorneys are really stretching things to call the comments in question "threats" to the US Prosecutor involved in the lawsuit the article was about. It does seem clear that the comments weren't meant seriously. It sounds like people who disagree with the result of the case venting in the same way people vent on pretty much any forum online. That said, I would agree with the ACLU if the newspaper were being compelled to hand over the info. But if it voluntarily is handing over the info after being asked, then I'm not sure it's an issue for the ACLU to get involved in, because the decision is the newspaper's to make.

Filed Under: anonymity, comments, newspaper, privacy
Companies: aclu, las vegas journal-review

US Prosecutors Narrow Fishing Expedition On Newspaper Commenters

from the but-they're-stil-fishing dept

Last week, we wrote about how US prosecutors appeared to be going on a total fishing expedition, demanding all sorts of information from the Las Vegas Review-Journal about all of the commenters on a certain article, including their "full name, date of birth, physical address, gender, ZIP code, password prompts, security questions, telephone numbers and other identifiers." This seemed to be far overreaching, and we're glad to see many more mainstream news sources picked up on the story this week. It seems that all that public attention has caused the US attorneys to back down a bit, greatly narrowing what they're requesting to information about just two comments. Even then, some are concerned about this, and the ACLU has filed a motion to try to block even the release of the info on those two comments, citing the right to anonymous speech. However, the newspaper seems willing to hand over what little info it had, noting that it really doesn't have much info on the anonymous commenters anyway (and had deleted one of the comments already for violating its terms of service). Either way, it's good to see the US attorneys quickly back down from such an over-broad request.

Filed Under: anonymity, comments, fishing expedition, nevada, newspapers, us prosecutors
Companies: las vegas review-journal

UK Court Says No Right To Being An Anonymous Blogger

from the wow dept

While there are certainly many problematic US laws, the fact that our court system recognizes and values the right to anonymous posting as a First Amendment issue is something that's quite wonderful. Tragically, very few other countries view things the same way. The UK has been especially bad when it comes to not protecting any rights to being anonymous, and the latest news is no exception. A UK judge has required the unveiling of an anonymous police blogger, claiming blogging is "essentially a public rather than a private activity," and thus, there is no right to anonymity.

In this particular case, the anonymous blogger was a working police officer, writing about daily experiences, and often taking strong opinions that could potentially get him in trouble. Now, some of us would think this is exactly why his anonymity should be protected, but the judge seemed to interpret it in the opposite way:

Mr Justice Eady said the blog contained opinions on a number of social and political issues relating to the police and the administration of justice.

He added Night Jack had expressed strong opinions on matters of political controversy and had also criticised a number of ministers.

The judge said the blogger risked disciplinary action if his employers found out one of its officers was communicating to the public in such a way....

Rejecting the argument that all the blogger's readers needed to know was that he was a serving police officer, the judge said that it was often useful, in assessing the value of an opinion or argument, to know its source.

"For so long as there is anonymity, it would obviously be difficult to make any such assessment.

"More generally, when making a judgment as to the value of comments made about police affairs by 'insiders', it may sometimes help to know how experienced or senior the commentator is."

This is troubling for any number of circumstances, especially in that it will certainly present quite a chill on people speaking out freely and anonymously on supposed problems within their workplaces. That seems a lot more dangerous and troubling than allowing this guy to speak anonymously, where readers were free to weigh the legitimacy of the information knowing the guy wasn't posting under his real name. Of course, it will come as no surprise that, now that the blogger has been identified, he's been disciplined by the police force. So much for encouraging any sort of public discussion.

Update: Lots of good points in the comments that weren't entirely clear in the original article. The specific details in this case were somewhat different, which changes the story significantly. The blogger in question had actually been identified by a reporter, and had asked for an injunction against that reporter revealing who they were. Under those circumstances, we actually have to agree that there's no right to demand anonymity if you've been outed through other means. There should be a right against the gov't forcing you out, but having individuals figure out who you are is an entirely different matter.

Filed Under: anonymity, blogging, uk

US Attorneys Fishing For Tons Of Info On Anonymous Commenters

from the isn't-that-a-bit-much? dept

Michael Scott points us to the fact that US Attorneys have requested data on anonymous commenters who commented on an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. From the description, it sounds like the feds are fishing for a lot more than they should be allowed to get. The subpoena requested:

"full name, date of birth, physical address, gender, ZIP code, password prompts, security questions, telephone numbers and other identifiers ... the IP address," of everyone who commented

Seem a bit excessive? It's not entirely clear what the feds are fishing for, but one indicator? Some of the comments were quite critical of (you guessed it) a federal prosecutor. As Thomas Mitchell, the editor of the Review-Journal notes:

These comment posters are not reporters; they have no shield law protection, especially since Congress has yet to pass the pending federal shield law. A grand jury can subpoena just about anyone for any reason.

But what time, effort and tax-funded expenses are being expended by the U.S. attorney's office to track down a bunch of posturing blowhards squandering their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination?

....

What the prosecutors don't appear to understand is that we don't have most of what they are seeking. We don't require registration. A person could use a fictitious name and e-mail address, and most do. We have no addresses or phone numbers.

To add prior restraint to the chilling effect of the sweeping subpoena, we were warned: "You have no obligation of secrecy concerning this subpoena; however, any such disclosure could obstruct and impede an ongoing criminal investigation. ..."

We've been seeing a lot of similar stories lately -- with gov't officials getting upset at what's being said about them online, and pushing the (or crossing) the boundaries of the law in order to try to find out who is behind those comments.

Filed Under: anonymity, anonymous comments, las vegas, privacy, us attorneys
Companies: las vegas review-journal

And Yet Another 'Anonymous' Dataset Proves To Be Not Anonymous

from the how-it-goes dept

For years, we've been pointing out that there's really no such thing as an anonymized dataset. There's almost always ways to associate data back to people. We've seen it happen over and over again as companies claim they're releasing an anonymous dataset, only to discover later that it's not so difficult to re-nomynize it. In fact, there was even a recent paper on how to re-identify people based on an anonymous data set. So perhaps it should come as no surprise that yet another "anonymous dataset" has been shown not to be very anonymous. This time, it's about GPS data that was supposed to be scrubbed of identifying info, but some researchers have found that it's not hard to put that data back together, knowing that the two main places people go are home and their office. With that info, you could pretty easily uniquely identify people. Among the many reasons why this could be important? All those silly efforts by politicians to force drivers to install GPS devices in order to tax their driving habits. They always insist the data won't be used for tracking, but even if they're well intentioned, you can see how the data can be abused.

Filed Under: anonymity, anonymous dataset, gps

South Korea Bans Anonymous Posting On Popular Websites

from the no-anonymity-for-you dept

While the US courts have been quite clear over and over again that people have a right to post anonymously online, other countries have been a lot less open to the concept. Over in South Korea, we recently covered the lawsuit against an anonymous (ok, formerly anonymous) blogger who was accused of spreading "false rumors." Apparently there was also another recent case in the country, involving photos anonymously posted online of a woman who failed to clean up after her dog. In response, Korea has now passed a law that requires anyone posting on a site that has over 100,000 unique visitors a day to reveal their real names and national ID (found via Michael Scott). This seems quite extreme. There are certainly pros and cons to allowing anonymous speech, but it seems to go overboard to outlaw it completely on any relatively popular site.

Filed Under: anonymity, south korea

The Pirate Bay's New Business Model Apparently Working Wonders

from the wonder-how-this-will-work-out dept

One of the key elements of the trial against The Pirate Bay in Sweden was the claim by the entertainment industry that the site's owners were profiting massively by selling ads on the site. The defendants denied this, claiming that they basically earned enough to keep the site operating, but not all that much more. However, the entertainment industry may now have evidence of a new lucrative business model by The Pirate Bay. Apparently, 113,000 customers have already signed up for The Pirate Bay's new anonymous VPN service, which costs around $6/month. So, we're talking more than half a millions dollars coming in every month from this alone... and that's just based on customers signing up in the first week or so. But would the entertainment industry really be able to go after that revenue as well? After all there are plenty of services out there that provide anonymous VPN services, so you can't say that this particular revenue is "profiting from piracy." Either way, though... it's yet another sign that everything the entertainment industry tries to do to "fight" file sharing seems to come back to bite them.

Filed Under: anonymity, business models, privacy, vpn
Companies: the pirate bay

Washington Post Editor Defends Anonymous Unmoderated Comments

from the good-for-him dept

When it comes to major media properties (and even quite a few blogs these days), it seems that "moderating" comments has become the norm. However, it's surprising (though, refreshing) to see a Washington Post editor speak up in defense of unmoderated and anonymous comments, which the Washington Post allows:

I believe that it is useful to be reminded bluntly that the dark forces are out there and that it is too easy to forget that truth by imposing rules that obscure it. As Oscar Wilde wrote in a different context, "Man is least in himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth."

Too many of us like to think that we have made great progress in human relations and that little remains to be done. Unmoderated comments provide an antidote to such ridiculous conclusions. It's not like the rest of us don't know those words and hear them occasionally, depending on where we choose to tread, but most of us don't want to have to confront them.

What's most impressive is that this comes from a guy who wasn't just opposed to such things originally, but was opposed to the whole concept of "blogging." When he finally relented to blogging, he was adamantly against unmoderated comments... but the more he's seen, the more he's realized the value in them:

I have come to think that online comments are a terrific addition to the conversation and that journalists need to take them seriously. Comments provide a forum for readers to complain about what they see as unfairness or inaccuracy in an article (and too often they have a point), to talk to each other (sometimes in an uncivilized manner) and, yes, to bloviate....

In fact, comment strings are often self-correcting and provide informative exchanges. If somebody says something ridiculous, somebody else will challenge it. And there is wit.... Comments also tell us that readers do not always agree with journalists about what is important.

We have always felt that way about comments. While they can be frustrating and ridiculous at times, they are also incredibly educational and entertaining. And, the most ridiculous stuff of all is quickly dismantled by others. That said, it doesn't mean that there aren't ways to improve the commenting experience without necessarily moderating or banning anonymous commenters. We're working on some things here that we'll be rolling out in the near future to hopefully continue to improve the overall commenting and discussion experience.

Filed Under: anonymity, comments, moderation
Companies: washington post

New Study Shows Anonymous Data Isn't Very Anonymous At All

from the hear-that? dept

We've pointed out time and time again that there's really no such thing as an anonymized dataset. Given the data, it's almost always easy enough to at least connect some of it back to a real person. It looks like there's now some research to support that. Steven Hoy points us to a new paper where some researchers wrote an algorithm that takes anonymized data from social networks and connects it back to names and addresses of individuals:

We present a framework for analyzing privacy and anonymity in social networks and develop a new re-identification algorithm targeting anonymized social-network graphs. To demonstrate its effectiveness on real-world networks, we show that a third of the users who can be verified to have accounts on both Twitter, a popular microblogging service, and Flickr, an online photo-sharing site, can be re-identified in the anonymous Twitter graph with only a 12% error rate.

Basically, the researchers are saying that anonymized data isn't really anonymous -- and social networks that insist they're "safe" because they've anonymized the data are being somewhat disingenuous.

Filed Under: anonymity, anonymous data, social networks

Canadian Court Orders Website To Disclose Personal Info Of Posters

from the anonymity-be-damned dept

We've noted, thankfully, that US courts have been quite good about protecting the anonymity of online posters, arguing that anonymous speech is a part of free speech. Other countries haven't been nearly as good about this, with courts often being quick to demand info on anonymous commenters. It appears that at least one court in Canada falls into that camp as well. Michael Geist highlights how a court has ordered a website to turn over info on anonymous posters. Geist notes that Canadian laws and court rulings normally do support a strong anonymity right as part of privacy rights -- but suggests that the court in this case simply wanted to side with the guy suing, perhaps based more on emotional reasons (the anonymous commenters are accused of hate speech) rather than on any true legal basis. As Geist notes, anonymity is not an absolute right, but the bar should be pretty high before a court orders any information to be revealed about anonymous commenters. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be the case here.

Filed Under: anonymity, canada, privacy