Background, from the archives: "New Jersey officials sue news website over namecalling, criticism" http://www.politechbot.com/p-02355.html "More on New Jersey officials sue news website over namecalling" http://www.politechbot.com/p-02399.html ********* Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 13:19:04 -0400 From: "Paul Levy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Untoward development in the Emerson case I am providing for your info the URL for an answer and counterclaim that Steven Moldow, the defendant in the Eye on Emerson case, has filed. http://www.geocities.com/emersoneye/lawsuit/answer.html One can debate whether he has a sound claim for violation of his civil rights against the government officials who have sued him - - personally I doubt it - - but the really sad thing is that he has also alleged tort claims against several anonymous posters on his own bulletin board, alleging that they put nasty posts on the bulletin board in order to disrupt the board. You'd think the defendant in a free speech case would know better than to file such a suit. Indeed, what's really odd about this is that Moldow could simply have moved to dismiss the case against him under the Communications Decency Act and the First Amendment (remember most of what he has been sued for is the allegedly defamatory comments posted on his bulletin board). Instead, in the name of being "proactive" and, I suppose, trying to give the plaintiff's another reason to go away, he has asked the Court to issue an order restricting the First Amendment rights of posters. So, what's the next step, is he going to subpoena their identities himself? Yech. Paul Alan Levy Public Citizen Litigation Group 1600 - 20th Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009 (202) 588-1000 http://www.citizen.org/litigation/litigation.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------
