Proposed New Jersey Laws Would Chill Free Speech

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Fri, 17 Mar 2006 21:39:26 -0800 (PST)

Proposed New Jersey Laws Would Chill Free Speech

 

 

 

 

Proposed New Jersey Laws Would Chill Free Speech

 

EFF and Other Groups Call for Bills' Withdrawal

 

San Francisco - A diverse coalition of companies, public

interest organizations, and legal scholars, including the

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), craigslist, Public

Citizen, the US Internet Industry Association (USIIA), the

Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) and Professors

Lyrissa C. Barnett Lidsky and Jennifer M. Urban, sent an

open letter this week to three New Jersey assemblymen,

urging them to withdraw their support from two bills

designed to eliminate anonymous online speech.

 

Assembly bills A1327 and A2623 would require Internet

service providers to record users' identities and reveal

them in response to any claim of defamation. While aimed at

curbing online bad actors, the bills run afoul of the First

Amendment -- which protects the right to speak anonymously -

- as well as a federal law designed to protect speech in

online fora. The bills would require identification of an

online poster before the facts were resolved, leading to a

flood of unsubstantiated claims designed simply to unmask

online speakers.

 

" Protecting anonymity is vital to maintaining the diversity

of viewpoints on the Internet, " said EFF Staff Attorney Kurt

Opsahl. " Keeping online debates robust enables democracy,

even if it allows name-calling and strongly worded opinions

about political figures. "

 

The open letter calls for Assemblymen Peter J. Biodi,

Wilfredo Caraballo, and Upendra J. Chivukula not to waste

taxpayer resources in defending these bills that will

inevitably be struck down in court. New Jersey courts are

already handling claims of defamation online in a careful

and constitutionally appropriate manner, balancing a

speaker's anonymity rights with the merits of the

plaintiff's claim. The well-established standard in New

Jersey and elsewhere for deciding whether to order the

identification of anonymous defendants has functioned well

to separate ill-founded lawsuits from cases in which

identification is appropriate.

 

As evidence of this balanced approach, the open letter

points to the cases available for review on a web site

maintained by the Cyberslapp Coalition -- several of whose

members signed the open letter -- at www.cyberslapp.org. The

Cyberslapp web site provides briefs, evidence, and opinions

from nearly four dozen " John Doe " cases in which the

standard has been discussed and applied. The site, which

permits search both by keyword and by state of decision, is

provided free of charge as a resource for litigants on both

sides of Doe disputes.

 

For the full text of the open letter:

<http://eff.org/Privacy/Anonymity/NewJerseyLetter.pdf>

 

The Cyberslapp Coalition:

<http://www.cyberslapp.org/>

 

For this release:

<http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2006_03.php#004478>