Judge orders identities of commenters be revealed
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Anonymous bloggers beware. You may not be as anonymous as you think.
Forward Township Supervisor Thomas DeRosa has won a court victory in the action that he filed in November to uncover the identities of people who posted comments on an online bulletin board that he said defamed him.
On Wednesday, the ACLU, which had intervened in the case, turned over the Internet Protocol addresses of six individuals who made specific posts that Mr. DeRosa mentioned in his court filings.
That action follows an announcement Tuesday night by West Mifflin Area school director Albert Graham, who vowed to take legal action to obtain the names of individuals who he said had posted threats against his life on the West Mifflin page of the discussion board Topix.com.
Web service providers have protection from comments made by third-party posters under a federal 1996 telecommunications law. But some courts require them to release the names of posters' identities if a strong enough case is made for defamation.
The ACLU's actions in the Forward case followed a July 22 ruling by Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. that information about the individuals who made the postings about Mr. DeRosa be turned over. The ACLU will not file an appeal in the case, said Sara Rose, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Pennsylvania.
Richard Rattanni, who operates elizabethboro.com, where the comments were posted, said he was disappointed in the ruling.
"I think it's bad for our First Amendment rights to just hand them over," said Mr. Rattanni, who is not facing any legal action in the matter.
"It's going to send a big rippling effect through every discussion board and make people afraid to post."
Neither Mr. DeRosa nor his attorney could be reached for comment on the court decision. But in his filings Mr. DeRosa said the alleged defamatory comments posted to elizabethboro.com related to his actions as a township supervisor and accused him of corruption and damaged his reputation.
First Published August 12, 2010 12:00 am
