Constitutional Law

Ind. judge orders news outlets to reveal IDs of online posters

By By The Associated Press,
First Amendment Cente

INDIANAPOLIS ? A judge in a defamation case has ordered news-media outlets in Indianapolis to reveal information that could help identify people who posted disparaging comments about a Junior Achievement official on their online forums.

An Indiana journalism-shield law that protects reporters from having to reveal their sources doesn't protect websites from being forced to disclose who made anonymous posts, Marion Superior Court Judge S.K. Reid ruled last month.

In separate orders, Reid held that The Indianapolis Star and the Indianapolis Business Journal must provide names or other information that would help Jeffrey Miller, the former chief executive of Junior Achievement of Central Indiana, identify who wrote online comments that described him as "greedy" and warranting an investigation by the state attorney general.

Miller has also subpoenaed WRTV seeking the names of certain anonymous posters to its website, TheIndyChannel.com. Early last week, the station reported that it expected Reid would rule on its case within a couple of weeks. WRTV reported that the station was ?still weighing its legal options.?

Kevin Betz, an attorney for Miller, told the Star that the rulings were the first of their kind in Indiana.

The case is part of a national trend of claims that target anonymous Internet posters to websites operated by news media and other owners, the Star reported.

David Hudson of the First Amendment Center in Nashville, Tenn., said such rulings could have a chilling impact on free speech.

"If this happens, then people will be less likely to comment" on public issues, he said.

Dennis Ryerson, editor and vice president of the Star, said it was the newspaper's practice not to reveal names of people who post anonymously on its website. "We've long had a practice of protecting sources at all levels," he said. "We now are reviewing our legal options."

The Star and other news-media sources had fought the disclosure. The Star argued that Indiana's shield law protects it from being forced to disclose names of anonymous posters on its website, as does the First Amendment.

But Betz said there was a difference between news sources and "cyberbullies."

"This is not an assault on the shield law," Betz said. "In fact, it is well within the bounds of the traditional terms of the shield law. I don't think the media should be interested ... in protecting the identities of cyberbullies. I don't think these people are advancing any cause of democracy or purposeful free speech."

Reid ruled that the Star and Indianapolis Business Journal must turn over posters' identifying information, typically their Internet protocol address or Internet service provider, with which an attorney can subpoena the provider for the poster's real name.

Betz said the Business Journal has already turned over its information.

Miller's lawsuit filed last year initially named officials with Junior Achievement and the Central Indiana Community Foundation, but later was expanded to include the anonymous posters.

Miller headed Junior Achievement, a nonprofit youth education group, from 1994 until he retired in 2008.

Last year, Junior Achievement halted an expansion at its Indianapolis headquarters over questions involving missed payments to contractors and unaccounted-for grant money from Miller's tenure as chief executive, the Star reported.

Full post as published by First Amendment Center on March 06, 2011 (boomark / email).