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The Courts Government Privacy News Your Rights Online

Masked Email Activist Can Stay Anonymous 152

Posted by samzenpus from the guess-who-I-am dept.
Mitchell writes "The NewStandard is reporting that a Texas judge ruled in favor of an anonymous political activist who used a Yahoo! email account to notify the press and to potential voters about the wasteful spending practices of Texas politician Jimmy Cokinos. Cokinos lost relection, and tried to nail "recall_carl01" with a defamation lawsuit, but a judge threw out the bid since the emailed critiques weren't defamatory."
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Masked Email Activist Can Stay Anonymous More

Masked Email Activist Can Stay Anonymous

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  • Proof that all is not lost.

    • Re:At last. (Score:2)

      by Anonymous Coward
      A hail the "Anonymous Coward"!
    • This is a victory for the average man over political power and should be remembered. Its news like this that gives me faith in humans even if there is few events like it.
  • Hopefully the government will recognize a right to anonyminity.
    • Yes, hopefully. However, this is not a direct display of that. The ruling is not particularly in favor of anonymity. The facts revealed that there was no defamatory statements, and thus there was no case.
    • Hello, yorkpaddy. This is the FBI...

    • Re:Hopefully (Score:5, Insightful)

      by coyote-san ( 38515 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @08:00PM (#11342341)
      You should not have an impenetrable shield from criminal prosecution or civil compensation just because your actions are online. Think about phishers - I cannot think of any reason whatsoever why their identities should be protected. Another good example is slander - I can understand the need for rape victims (for instance) being able to have true anonyminity when reporting abuse to authorities, but that anonyminity ends when they publicly accuse somebody of committing a crime - a person has the right to defend themselves from false allegations.

      On the other hand compelled disclosure of our true names on demand would be analogous to 7-11 demanding your driver's license before you could buy a soda. It's reasonable - even prudent - to maintain multiple pseudonyms across multiple sites.

      In the middle there are illegal acts that can be performed by maintaining multiple pseudonyms. A classic example is "pump and dump" stock manipulation.

      It's a very complex question and it's important to remember that there's a distinction between "pseudonymity" and "anonyminity".

      • Re:Hopefully (Score:2, Insightful)

        by racecarj ( 703239 )
        "On the other hand compelled disclosure of our true names on demand would be analogous to 7-11 demanding your driver's license before you could buy a soda. It's reasonable - even prudent - to maintain multiple pseudonyms across multiple sites." ... Or for that matter Radio Shack asking for your ID when you buy batteries.

        • Re:Hopefully (Score:3, Informative)

          by mforbes ( 575538 )
          I realize you're trying to be funny, but I can't help being pedantic (since I worked for the Shack when in my late around the time I graduated high school). It's true that they used to ask for name & address for all purchases, for marketing purposes, but the only time they asked for ID was when the customer was writing a check. I hope these days they check ID for credit cards too, since credit card fraud is such a problem, but either way, they don't ask for the address any more on most purchases. Tha
      • You should not have an impenetrable shield from criminal prosecution or civil compensation just because your actions are online.
        good point. Wanting for anonyminity is a result of the greater problem of frivilous lawsuits. I guess I should hope for more progress in that area too.

    • Re:Hopefully (Score:2, Insightful)

      by mordors9 ( 665662 )
      They have invented a right to privacy. Surely that means more than just abortion.

    • Re:Hopefully (Score:3, Interesting)

      by maxpublic ( 450413 )
      Hopefully the government will recognize a right to anonyminity.

      You do have this right. It's been recognized for some time that citizens can't truly have free speech without the ability to be anonymous. A simple fact even the brain-dead should be able to wrap their tiny minds around.

      Aside from which, the Constitution doesn't define your rights; it defines the rights of the government. Anything else belongs to the states, or the people. If you're dubious, check out the 9th and 10th amendments.

      Max

  • What?!? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    You mean that speaking the truth is OK?

    This has definitely been a freaky day.

  • And in other news... (Score:3)

    by winkydink ( 650484 ) * <sv.dude@gmail.com> on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @07:48PM (#11342194) Homepage Journal
    A man was found not guilty of murder when it was discovered he didn't do it.

    This is how its supposed to work (aka "dog bites man"). How is it news?

    • Possibly because it's shocking to the general population that the system actually does work the way it should periodically.

    • Re:And in other news... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TheCabal ( 215908 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @07:55PM (#11342281) Journal
      This is how its supposed to work (aka "dog bites man"). How is it news?

      Maybe because it hasn't worked in such a long time (privacy), that it's newsworthy when it does.

      • Except that this incident is not about privacy. The issue of privacy never made it's way before the judge.

        • Re:And in other news... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by bigsteve@dstc ( 140392 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @08:38PM (#11342821)
          Actually, it IS about privacy, even if the judge did not explicitly mention this issue. (And without the court record, we don't know!)

          One of the aims of the politician who brought the lawsuit would have been to unmask the poster. I guess he/his lawyers thought it would be a significant detterent to critics if an anonymous email poster's identity could be revealed (and hence his privacy could be breached) by means a bogus defamation lawsuit.

          It is newsworthy that this tactic was tried, and newsworthy that the courts barred it.

      • It's nothing to do with privacy, the judge looked at the emails and said "nope, not slander. NO SUE FOR YOU".
        • Actually it is. It's a well used legal tactic to unmask anonymous critics, even if the plaintiff has no other winnable case against them. Just the threat of being able to pull back the veil of anonynimity is capable of producing a chill for some people, thereby silencing their dissent.

  • Urm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mistersooreams ( 811324 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @07:49PM (#11342197) Homepage
    This case isn't really that interesting, since it was rejected before an issue of privacy became involved. Someone sued for defamation; the judge said no defamation had taken place; end of case. It would be a lot more interesting if the judge had considered the case worthy of being heard, and had to decide whether the unmasking of an anonymous emailer was appropriate. Is there any precident for this?

    • Re:Urm (Score:5, Insightful)

      by DarkKnightRadick ( 268025 ) <the_spoon.geo@yahoo.com> on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @07:52PM (#11342243) Homepage Journal
      I agree, it's not that interesting but at the same time, I like to hear about such cases because it reassures me that the entire system isn't completely pwned by political corruption and our Corporate Overlords. Give this judge a pat on the back.

      • Re:Urm (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Timesprout ( 579035 )
        If you need reassurace from stories about non stories on slashdot then its way too late for you my friend.
        • It's not a non-story. Maybe for /. it's a non-story, but it is newsworthy. A corrupt politician tried to shift the focus from himself to someone else who was only spreading the truth. When stories like that get supressed, because people like you think they aren't newsworthy, then it's too late.
    • It would of have, but pursing a defamation case where none exists isn't the best way to establish precedent (correct spelling ;)
    • The good part is that the judge didnt unmask the identity (or the threat of that action didnt stop the person) in order to deal with the case.

      Even if it's clearly not defamation, it would have been easy for the judge to have forced the identity to become public (or atleast revealed to the plaintiff) before deciding that there was no case.

  • And yet another reason why Texas deserves to be blessed.

  • Private voting (Score:4, Funny)

    by eviloverlordx ( 99809 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @07:51PM (#11342222)
    Pretty soon, some judge will rule that voting is private too, and you know what that leads to: freedom! Who knows when this madness will end?

  • The lawsuit was pointless anyway (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anita Coney ( 648748 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @07:51PM (#11342233) Homepage
    It appeared that Cokinos was under the impression that Yahoo! had recall_carl01's real identity. I'd bet any money that the person behind recall_carl01 used fake sign-up information to get the account.

    • Why would she do that in order to do protected political speech? Or is there something about the political climate in the US I don't know about?
      • Assuming you're serious, first, the vast majority of people who sign up for free accounts use fake IDs.

        Second, if he had no problem with his name being made public, then why would he pick a pseudonym in the first place?! The only thing keeping him from giving his own name in those emails was himself. Thus, there must have been some reason for it!
        • the vast majority of people who sign up for free accounts use fake IDs.

          Do you have any evidence to back this claim up?
          • I'm my 40 years of life I've NEVER EVER heard about someone giving real information for a free email account. Never. Ever.

            Sure there are some morons out there. But considering that recall_carl01 was actively trying to remain anonymous, I doubt he was that stupid.

            • Re:The lawsuit was pointless anyway (Score:4, Interesting)

              by ari_j ( 90255 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @10:25PM (#11344085)
              I know many people who have, and it's hardly indicative of stupidity. In your 40 years of life, free e-mail accounts have existed for about 1/4 of the time, so your 40 years of life have absolutely no relevance to this discussion. The only evidence that supports your claim arises solely out of your own ignorance.

              I agree that it's almost a given that the person in question did not give his real name and address when he applied for that Yahoo account, but that does not mean that everyone who has ever applied for one lied in their application.
            • ....and lots more that have not. And anything non-visible (age/job/DOB) is completely bullshit on all. Guess which ones get used for every kind of sign-ups, forums etc.? I use my named accounts for communicating with people that already know my name, friends, family, "official" communication with serious companies etc. etc.

              Just because you never have, nor never will recieve an email from one of my properly named accounts doesn't mean they don't exist.

              Kjella
      • Well, in case you didn't notice, there was a lawsuit going on. Lawyers aren't free, although they can often counter-sue for court fees and the like. Still, if you want a settlement, you usually end up paying your own lawyers fees.

        The bottom line is yes, there's something about political climate in the US you don't know, but you either should have (read the article) or you're feigning ignorance to make some sort of point about how evil and corrupt American politics is. Bravo.
      • Who ever bothers using real information when getting a free email account?
    • 1. Compel Yahoo to provide all logs regarding user. These probably have IP address and time. (Hopefully the time is maintained with NTP. It's not hard to do and allows you to coordinate logs across multiple sites with extremely high accuracy.)

      2) Determine who manages this/these IP addresses. For convenience call them "home" (e.g., comcast) and "work".

      3) Compel owners of these IP addresses to provide all identifying information they have regarding the person(s) assigned this address.

      Depending upon the
    • Used fake signup info, but how many anonymizer proxies were used? yahoo would have kept IP logs, and unlesss they used some form of proxy, or connected to insecure wap nodes it's pretty likely the the info retained by yahoo could be used to track down the likely person responsible... especially if they used carnivore/omnivore whatever to track the person down...

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • There are many ways to anonymize the connection via proxies or public access.

        The Local community college library has a bunch of computers and no logging of who uses them. The Public Library logs who uses the computers, but is not exactly meticulosu on saving the records.

  • I await the day (Score:5, Funny)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) * on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @07:52PM (#11342240) Homepage Journal
    I await the day a judge orders slashdot to reveal the real identity of Anonymous Coward.

    "Which one, your honor, there's 2 grillion of them."

  • Texas judge (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I am amazed at common sense rulings in Texas and constantly ashamed of rulings from California's Federal 9th Circuit Court?

  • Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)

    by CypherXero ( 798440 )
    I found something interesting [64.233.179.104] on this topic.
  • Compare this story to this recent gem [slashdot.org] about the NY court ruling that the police attaching a GPS tracking device to your car without a warrant is just fine and dandy. It's no coincidence that NY is (for America) extremely liberal and TX is fairly conservative.

  • Corrupt (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mboverload ( 657893 )
    The judicial branch is currently the only part of the US government not to be corrupted in general.

    It is the ONLY branch we can remotely count on, a small glimmer of hope swimming in a sea of darkness.

    • There's a reason for that, at least in the case of federal judges - they are appointed for life, and thus have no political motivation to weigh in their decisions. State judges, at least in my state, are elected, so they suffer from political pull, but you are still more likely to see the little guy win in court than in front of the legislature. And the little guy winning is why we can't afford any kind of tort reform or killing of all the lawyers - the system just plain works the majority of the time.
    • Ok, so, what you're saying is, the checks have not swayed the balances, right?
  • "You have a right to privacy online as long as you aren't doing anything illegal"?

    That's... reassuring... I guess?
    • Of course, there's a simple solution to that. Make criticizing the government OFFICIALLY illegal (as opposed to the current status quo, where it just makes you a "disloyal, anti-patriotic terrorist sympathizer"
      • yes, that is correct. the FBI keeps files on everyone who whines and bitches about how bad the government is on slashdot. Seriously, it's getting old.
        • I've just stolen your sig.
        • yes, that is correct. the FBI keeps files on everyone who whines and bitches about how bad the government is on slashdot.

          Well, actually they do. It's called Slashdot; the articles stay up for ever. Have you seen the guidelines for forensic analysis of suspect PCs? The authorities aren't stupid. They know about cookies. They know about caches. They even know about dead-man-switches and NEVER boot your harddrive, they always slave it. They'll find your online accounts and check them. PCs offer a never-befo

  • Service of process online (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ari_j ( 90255 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @07:57PM (#11342307)
    Truth is an absolute defense to libel and slander and so forth. My only question is how they served process on a Yahoo ID. You can't sue someone that you can't bring into court, and it's difficult to remain anonymous when you do get brought into court. This case is interesting to me purely for its procedural side. Substantively, it's boring and I have no idea how it made the front page over more interesting cases such as the lawsuit against Sony's legal affairs director for illegally enslaving his housekeeper.
    • The issue before the court was wether or not Yahoo had to abide by a Supeona for the identity of the anonymous person, so that they could serve her.

    • You can't sue someone that you can't bring into court, and it's difficult to remain anonymous when you do get brought into court. This case is interesting to me purely for its procedural side.

      Yes you can, and many people do file John Doe lawsuits [chillingeffects.org]. If the suit goes forward, then a subpoena can be issued to determine the identity of the John or Jane Doe named in the suit. Of course, this does provide a bit of a Catch-22. How do you fight a subpoena to reveal your identity if you don't know that it's yo

      • Yes you can, and many people do file John Doe lawsuits. If the suit goes forward, then a subpoena can be issued to determine the identity of the John or Jane Doe named in the suit. Of course, this does provide a bit of a Catch-22. How do you fight a subpoena to reveal your identity if you don't know that it's your identity that's going to be revealed?
        And how do you fight it while remaining anonymous?
    • Truth is an absolute defense to libel and slander and so forth.

      That's true in the USofA, but not in Great Britian. Truth isn't a defense there, and the wealthy use that to punish the tabloids for printing things all the time.

      • Are you sure? I thought the case was that while truth was an absolute defense, the burden of proof was on the defendant, and not, as it is in the US, initially on the petitioner.
        • Yes, I'm sure. The truth has never been a defense against libel or slander in Great Britian. In the Colonial period, a governer sued a newspaper publisher for libel, heard the case himself and rejected the defense plea that the article was true.

          • Yes, I'm sure. The truth has never been a defense against libel or slander in Great Britian. In the Colonial period, a governer sued a newspaper publisher for libel, heard the case himself and rejected the defense plea that the article was true

            Keep doing shit like that long enough, and people get so pissed off that they take matters (and arms) into their own hands.

            That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to i

      • That's true in the USofA, but not in Great Britian. Truth isn't a defense there, and the wealthy use that to punish the tabloids for printing things all the time.

        Truth is a defence against libel in the UK. The only reason that wealthy people like Geoffery Archer beat the tabloids is because they are able to convince a jury that it is them and not the paper that is telling the truth. Then again, the tabloids here tell the truth so rarely that it really isn't much of a challenge to convince the jury ...

  • Clarification (Score:3, Interesting)

    by antifoidulus ( 807088 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @08:01PM (#11342357) Homepage Journal
    It's been a while since I took civics class, but can a politician really claim defemation? I thought libel and slander suits only applied to non-famous people. If you go in the limelight, then you give up a lot of those rights(but then you are filthy rich, so who cares).
    For example:
    Saying Daryll Q. Handtro of 123 South Berry Street, Polandville, AL loves hot monkey sex, then I could be sued for libel(provided he does not in fact, partake in said monkey sex of course). But if I said that Micheal Jordan and Uma Thurman are secretly funeeling their money to build a lab that will clone Cowboy Neal, I cannot be sued.

    • Re:Clarification -Rule of Law (Score:4, Informative)

      by saskboy ( 600063 ) on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @08:10PM (#11342457) Homepage Journal
      That's not actually the case in law. In practice, there is a lot more leeway as far as satire, of famous people. However, if you are Oprah, and say you're not going to eat Uncle Tex's cattle because they are diseased, when they are in fact not diseased, then she'd have been successfully sued for slander. If Uncle Tex had said Oprah is a pedophile and that's why she doesn't eat veal, well I'd think she'd successfully sue back.

      The Rules of Law, no one [not even Oprah, or Bush] are above the law.
      • Oprah did a story about mad cow disease and then stated she wasn't going to eat beef anymore out of concern for it. Where's the slander?

        The US beef industry was just pissed off at the bad publicity they were getting.
        • ...the Texan cattlemen didn't win. Oprah did. (Personally, I'd have preferred it if a Texan cow had been diagnosed during the case. Sure, I'd feel bad for the cow, but it would have served those arrogant money-grubbers right.)

      • The Rules of Law, no one [not even [...] Bush] are above the law.

        You mean, like, jailing US citizens without proper trial, and without access to their lawyer? Or, like, ignoring the SCOTUS decision that this is even illegal for foreign detainees?

        The current government of the USA has a blatant disregard for law, both national and international. And half of the voting US citizens thinks that's OK because `morality' and `faith' are more important than this old gimmick called `law' and `rights'. Gimme a bre

    • Hey! I am Daryll Q. Handtro of Polandville, AL and I'm suing you for libel!

    • Not Quite Open Season On Celebs (Score:4, Interesting)

      by cmholm ( 69081 ) <cmholmNO@SPAMmauiholm.org> on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @08:17PM (#11342536) Homepage Journal
      It's not true that it's open season on public personalities, just that said personalities have a much higher burden of proof than - say - me.

      Depending on the jurisdiction, it often appears that the BS threshold is so high as to make defemation of public figures outright legal. The reason is that courts feel that the right to openly discuss those in power outweighs the powerfuls' right to slap folks talking stink about them. Movie, tv, and recording stars are for the most part collateral victims.

    • Libel and slander are only actionable if the information is false but presented as truth.

      So if you say "man i bet that guy Richard Gere likes gerbil anal sex", that's not slander, if you say "Richard Gere likes gerbil anal sex", that's slander.

      It believe it also depends on the context, as I believe you could say "Who likes gerbils? Richard Gere, but only in his anus" and this would not be slander if say you said it on stage at a comedy club...

  • Obligatory Simpsons quote (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    And in other news Spanish AND Italian are the same language!!!!! ... more from Mr X shortly....
  • Send all your spam to recall_carl01@yahoo.com
    Why? Beacuse he's anonymous coward of course!
    • You don't have to forward spam to that email address. Just posting that email address is enough to get it crawled by spammers. Every time I post, within two hours I see a large burst of spam. I'm not taking my email address off of here. Now, you'll have to excuse me, I have some important business propositions and mortgage offers coming into my email shortly.
  • Is this another one of those "activist judges" that are trying to take over the country? Or is it a much-needed affirmation of our civil liberties?
  • This reminds me of Peter Zenger's famous lawsuit, in which he was sued by a government official for printing an unfavorable article about him. However, since the unfavorable things were completely true, Zenger won.

    Zenger's case established Freedom of the Press. Nowadays it's freedom of the e-mail.
  • Would recall_carl01's anonymity still be protected lies were told?

    This reminds me of a story involving the website Tucker Max and first ammendment rights:
    http://www.astro.umd.edu/~kayhan/misc/missvermont / 02INTE.html [umd.edu]
    While Tucker Max's story did not involve sercret identities, it did bring up the issue of defamation and the right to free speech. The basic story is Tucker posted graphic details about his relationship with a girl and the girl sued requesting those stories be removed from his website. T
  • Freedom of speech and that of being annonymous goes as long as you are not offensive in any way and the material of your talk is backed by evidence. Since, he/she (?!) matched all these criteria: way to go!
  • That bastard got me recalled from office.

    -Carl01

  • Masked...? (Score:3, Funny)

    by greenhide ( 597777 ) <`moc.ylkeewellivc' `ta' `todhsalsnadroj'> on Wednesday January 12, 2005 @11:50PM (#11344822)
    Apparently he doesn't know that no one can see you on the Internet. He doesn't have to wear a mask while e-mailing.
  • Even if the posts were defamatory?

    Is it illegal to defame politicians?

    The freedom to say nasty things about politicians (and the government) is one of the hallmarks of a functioning democracy.

    Any encroachment of the freedom to criticize a politician without any fear of retribution or lawsuit, especially while they are in office seems to be an invitation to totalitarianism.

    While it is probably true there is no legitimate reason to simply say bad things which are not true, there are so many instances wher
  • a Texas judge ruled in favor of an anonymous political activist

    Higher power bless Texas!

    Finally not just portrayed as dumb hicks, and in a time when Civil Liberties are bieng crushed everywhere, hopefully this doesn't violate the Patriot Act and make our good anonymous emailer a "CYBER TERRORIST".

    See not just bad things *cough BUSH cough* come out of Texas.

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