bloggers have rights to be anonymous

… so said the court…. BUT unfortunately that does not comes from our bolehland court but the US court in delaware.

the delaware supreme court understands about free speech. it rules that the ISP of an anonymous blogger should not be disclosed.

it seems that this anonymous blogger by the handle of ‘proud citizen’ had posted some disparging remarks on someone by the name of cahill, and cahill then decided to sue him and sought to identify him through a subpoena to their ISP. as the court found that cahill did not have a strong defamation case against ‘proud citizen’ (and also 3 other bloggers he is suing), the court decided it is not right to disclose his ISP, and thus identifying him.

the chief justice, steele, hit the nail on the head when he remarked that plaintiffs harmed by internet blog have an instant means of remedying the situation – that is through blogging itself. this was what he said:
“The plaintiff can thereby easily correct any misstatements or falsehoods, respond to character attacks, and generally set the record straight. This unique feature of internet communications allows a potential plaintiff ready access to mitigate the harm, if any, he has suffered to his reputation as a result of an anonymous defendant’s allegedly defamatory statements made on an internet blog or in a chat room.”

see? wasn’t this what a few people (like ong, and probaby freddie chong or chez78) said as regard to the ‘good man’ hoo-haa? instead of running to the police, one should try to respond to him by counter-attacking him… and most definetely not disclosing his ISP. sorry. i hear somebody sighing “there she goes again” so i’m going to shut up now.