Subpoena seeks names -- and lots more -- of Web posters

[arcadian]

http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/47141327.html

Free speech should be practiced only by those who are ready to deal with the consequences, which just might include a knock on the door by a friendly federal investigator wanting to know if you posted an anonymous comment on a Web site. Were you advocating violence or confessing to breaking the federal tax laws?

This is not a hypothetical.

On May 26 the Review-Journal published an article about an ongoing federal tax evasion trial. The primary defendant, Las Vegan Robert Kahre, stands accused of tax fraud for using the rather inventive argument that he could pay people in U.S. minted gold and silver coins based on their precious metal value but for tax purposes use their face value, which is many times less.

The story was posted on our Web site. When last I checked nearly 100 comments were appended to it, running the gamut from the lucid to the ludicrous.

This past week the newspaper was served with a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. attorney's office demanding that we turn over all records pertaining to those postings, including "full name, date of birth, physical address, gender, ZIP code, password prompts, security questions, telephone numbers and other identifiers ... the IP address," et (kitchen sink) cetera.

Tantamount to killing a gnat with an A-bomb.


more@link

[Chemisse]

1. That is chilling.

Did anybody really 'confess' to anything? And if so, wasn't it most likely the blusterous spouting of those who hide behind their anonymity?

I just find that so disturbing.

Could someone have said something that added to the evidence in the case? If so, why gather ALL the data?

[loudsue]

2. Why don't they subpoena posts about MURDERING an abortion

doctor, or even the president??? Are white male terrorists and murderous religious fundamentalists somehow less of a threat than tax evaders?

This reminds me of the bush justice department: up is down, down is up, backwards is the way forward.

[Chemisse]

3. Maybe Cheney is still running it in the shadows, either that or Obama needs to clean out the sleaze

[arcadian]

4. it's not just the Bush Justice Department

The entire Federal governemnt is run that way, under Bush or Obama it doesn't matter.

[solstice]

5. That is scary as shit. Why is this happening under OBAMA?!?