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Privacy Advocates Move To Stop Oklahoma Suit
by Michael Martinez
Privacy advocates on Friday filed a motion in an Oklahoma court to prevent a school administrator from obtaining the identities of people who have anonymously posted comments critical of him to an online message board.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is seeking to quash subpoenas filed last month by Jerry Hurd, the superintendent of Sperry Public Schools. They would apply to two domain-name registrars, GoDaddy.com and DomainsByProxy.com, and seek all information pertaining to the identities of site posters and those registered for it.
Hurd filed a defamation lawsuit on June 13 against the site's operator, Lori Cole. He accused Cole and the message posters of libel. The initial suit also alleges Cole slandered him after an elementary school booster club meeting by accusing him of embezzlement.
According to EFF's motion, Hurd filed the suit "not with the narrowly-tailored objective of challenging speech that could be shown to be defamatory, but instead with a shotgun approach that could only be aimed at intimidating opponents and chilling the speech of members of the community who dared to disagree with him or even associate with those who do."
The court is scheduled to hear oral arguments on EFF's motion July 20.
"Anonymity is critical to public discourse and fundamental to a free society, allowing speakers to offer diverse views without fear of undue reprisal," said EFF staff attorney Corynne McSherry in a statement. "There is now clear judicial consensus that subpoenas to identify anonymous speakers must be carefully scrutinized."
EFF participated last year in a case in which the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the rights of the author of a controversial Web log to remain anonymous. In that case, Doe v. Cahill, the court outlined strict standards for evidence that defamation plaintiffs must provide in order to make such information requests.
The motion argues that the Cahill case and several other recent rulings have confirmed the rights to remain anonymous until defamation litigants demonstrate legitimate claims. EFF claims that providing Hurd with the information he is seeking would cause "significant harm" to the users of the site by forcing them to give up their anonymity and subjecting them to "potentially frivolous litigation."
"Litigants must not be permitted to abuse the judicial process to identify anonymous individuals who have simply created a forum for critical comments or made statements a plaintiff dislikes," said EFF staff attorney Matt Zimmerman. "Speech critical of public officials, made anonymously or not, enjoys an extremely high level of legal protection."
Elsewhere, the Florida Supreme Court on Monday issued an administrative order calling for an additional study on the security of an online database of the state's court records before making it publicly accessible.
According to the court, sensitive information could be exposed if the database is not crafted in a responsible manner. The court will maintain a moratorium on which information can be posted online until the study is completed. The moratorium expires July 2007.
"The issue is not whether the courts will make records available electronically, but rather when and under what conditions," the order said.
Illinois To Electronically Track Sex Offenders
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Sunday signed into law a bill requiring sexual predators released on parole in Illinois to wear devices equipped with global positioning systems.
The measure, H.B. 4222, expands a GPS monitoring program run by the state Corrections Department that concurrently tracks up to 200 high-risk offenders. The bill also increases penalties for individuals who aid sex offenders in evading law enforcement agencies. It also enhances the state's sex offender registration verification system.
In a statement, state Sen. William Haine, a sponsor of the measure, said it puts Illinois "on the road" to full electronic surveillance of all registered sex offenders. During the past several years, a wave of states has emulated a Florida law requiring registered sex offenders to be monitored electronically for life. The Florida statute is widely referred to as "Jessica's Law," after the kidnapping and murder of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford. Several states, including California, New York and Pennsylvania are currently mulling their own versions of the bill.
"With new, more technological options to track sex offenders that will identify the offender's current location and provide timely reports or records of the offender's presence, we as a society are working to keep innocent civilians safe and free from harm," Haine said. "We must maintain control of sex offenders in order to keep our communities safe for all."
Colorado Governor Discloses SSN Fraud
Colorado Gov. Bill Owens on Wednesday announced that the Social Security numbers of thousands of Americans have been stolen and reused to obtain jobs in his state.
Owens released information from studies conducted by the state's Labor and Employment Department that found more than 2,200 instances last year when employers reported the same Social Security number more than six times.
According to the department, one Social Security number was reported by 57 different employers.
Hackers Mangle Iowa Education Web Site
A link to an online job board maintained in Iowa last week was altered by hackers to direct users to a pornographic Web site.
The state's Education Department site was accessed by an unauthorized user, who changed a link to the department's job board to send users to a site containing a picture of a topless woman. Education Department officials said the error was corrected about 20 minutes after it was reported. The culprit of the breach has not been identified.
"It could have been worse," Education spokeswoman Kathi Slaughter told The Des Moines Register. "But it's not something we want to leave on our site."
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