Nick Gillespie of Reason Magazine says don’t discuss this:
Please refrain from any discussion of the subject of the article at Popehat.com and its contents on our site.
Well I did leave links in various comment threads to the article that wasn’t to be discussed. Just to make sure people knew what was out of bounds. And for CV readers I think I ought to provide the same service. With some commentary.
The article is: Popehat.com – Department Of Justice Uses Grand Jury Subpoena To Identify Anonymous Commenters on a Silk Road Post at Reason.com.
A little flavor:
The United States Department of Justice is using federal grand jury subpoenas to identify anonymous commenters engaged in typical internet bluster and hyperbole in connection with the Silk Road prosecution. DOJ is targeting Reason.com, a leading libertarian website whose clever writing is eclipsed only by the blowhard stupidity of its commenting peanut gallery.
Why is the government using its vast power to identify these obnoxious asshats, and not the other tens of thousands who plague the internet?
Because these twerps mouthed off about a judge.
How about some more flavor:
Rhywunl5.3l.15 @ 11:35AMIIt
I hope there is a special place in hell reserved for that horrible woman.Is it the position of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York that a reasonable reader would conclude that “Rhywun” is in league with the Dark Ones, able to bring into existence a hot place in the afterlife for an errant judge? Ridiculous. If that’s a threat, then so is “go to Hell.”
So: the government has used the grand jury to subpoena a news magazine for the identity of anonymous commenters who have engaged in political rhetoric that is clearly protected by the First Amendment.
Can they get away with this?
Regrettably, The Government Can Probably Abuse the Grand Jury Subpoena Power This Way
One other point that I think needs especial attention: if you want to get a message direct to the DOJ – leave a comment at Reason.
Comments
13 responses to “Please Keep The Comments In Bounds”
Freedom isn’t free in fact it is the most expensive thing there is. There are no rights only privileges. As posters here have pointed out you have no right to health care and as I have pointed then neither do you have a right to life let alone free speech all are privileges
Wired has an article up
http://www.wired.com/2015/06/feds-want-id-web-trolls-threatened-silk-road-judge/
Crap,
Rights can be asserted without making some one else pay for them.
My free speech costs you nothing.
Your free healthcare is a tax on me.
The commenters here are trying real hard not to discuss the issue – with very limited success:
http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/08/is-forcing-businesses-to-pay-overtime-to
The topic is interspersed with normal commentary.
A short roundup of articles/twitter feeds:
http://muckrack.com/link/ydJCV/department-of-justice-uses-grand-jury-subpoena-to-identify-anonymous-commenters-on-a-silk-road-post-at-reasoncom
A search turned up this:
http://reason.com/blog/2010/12/30/the-grand-jury-farce
http://popehat.com/2010/12/30/the-first-rule-of-the-war-on-drugs-is-dont-talk-about-the-war-on-drugs/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/06/08/department-of-justice-uses-grand-jury-subpoena-to-try-to-unmask-anonymous-blog-post-commenters/
[…] M. Simon’s recent post makes clear, the War on Drugs is not only far from dead, but its proponents have come up with a new […]
This just can’t be true. My Democrat friends assure me that civil rights violations such as those detailed here only occur when a Republican is in the White House. It’s a well known fact that Democrat administrations are just incapable of being a party to such BOR violations.
Russia Today chimes in:
http://rt.com/usa/266092-doj-subpoenas-commenters-threats/
===
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2015/06/09/reason-magazine-subpoenaed-over-reader-comments-on-silk-road-judge/
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2015/06/09/the-war-on-free-speech-u-s-department-of-justice-subpoenas-reason-com-over-comment-section/
http://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2015/06/09/feds-subpoena-libertarian-media-site-over-comments-threatening-silk-road-judge/
http://www.infowars.com/justice-department-issues-subpoenas-to-reason-to-identify-angry-anonymous-commenters/
Nick Gillespie has named names. It’s as simple as that. The only question now is whether we “nick”name him Elia Kazan or
Budd Schulberg.
Pete Moss,
Do you have a link for that? Or is it just surmise?
[…] The story that Eric and I have been following has reached the lower rungs of the MSM. NPR. […]