Fergie's Tech Blog

Anonymity Preserved for Critics of Oklahoma School Official

Via The EFF.

An Oklahoma school superintendent has dropped his attempt to unmask the identities of a website operator and all registered users of an Internet message board devoted to discussion of local public schools after the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) intervened in the case.

Jerry Burd, superintendent of the Sperry, Oklahoma, school district, had sued anonymous speakers who criticized him on an online message board. As part of the case, he filed a broad subpoena seeking to identify the site's creator and everyone who had posted or even registered on the site, violating First Amendment protections for anonymous speech and association. Working with Tulsa attorneys Greg Bledsoe and Curtis Parks, EFF filed a motion to quash the subpoena on behalf of the site's operator and a registered user. The superintendent responded by dismissing the case on Monday.

posted by Fergie @ 7/19/2006 07:19:00 AM