Reprieve For Anonymous Blogger

The Delaware Supreme Court rejected a town councilman's quest to find out who posted obscenity-laden tirades about him on the Internet, saying free speech concerns outweighed the politician's argument that he was defamed.

The decision Wednesday reversed a lower court ruling ordering an Internet service provider to disclose the identity of four anonymous posters to a blog site operated by Independent Newspapers Inc., publisher of the Delaware State News.

The posted entries, among other things, accused Smyrna councilman Patrick Cahill of "obvious mental deterioration" and used the name "Gahill" to suggest that he is homosexual.

In June, the lower court ruled that Cahill had established a "good faith basis" for contending that he and his wife were victims of defamation, and it affirmed a previous order for Comcast Cable Communications to disclose the bloggers' identities.

But Chief Justice Myron Steele likened anonymous Internet speech to anonymous political pamphleteering, a practice the U.S. Supreme Court characterized in 1995 as "an honorable tradition of advocacy and dissent."

Accordingly, Steele wrote, a court should not order the unmasking of an anonymous Internet poster unless a plaintiff offers strong proof of defamation.

"We are concerned that setting the standard too low will chill potential posters from exercising their First Amendment right to speak anonymously," Steele wrote. "The possibility of losing anonymity in a future lawsuit could intimidate anonymous posters into self-censoring their comments or simply not commenting at all."

Steele also noted that plaintiffs in such cases can use the Internet to respond to character attacks and "generally set the record straight," and that, as in Cahill's case, blogs and chatrooms tend to be vehicles for people to express opinions, not facts.

"Given the context, no reasonable person could have interpreted these statements as being anything other than opinion. ... The statements are, therefore, incapable of a defamatory meaning," he wrote.

David Finger, an attorney representing a blogger who challenged the lower court ruling, said the Supreme Court decision helps protect bloggers and all citizens against suits filed only to intimidate them.

Robert Katzenstein, a lawyer representing the Cahills, declined to comment Thursday.

The Delaware court was the first state Supreme Court in the nation to consider the question of naming anonymous bloggers.