The United States Department of Justice is using federal grand jury subpoenas to identify anonymous commenters engaged in typical internet bluster and hyperbole in connection with the Silk Road prosecution. DOJ is targeting Reason.com, a leading libertarian website whose clever writing is eclipsed only by the blowhard stupidity of its commenting peanut gallery.
Why is the government using its vast power to identify these obnoxious asshats, and not the other tens of thousands who plague the internet?
Because these twerps mouthed off about a judge.
Last week, a source provided me with a federal grand jury subpoena. The subpoena1, issued by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, is directed to Reason.com in Washington, D.C.. The subpoena commands Reason to provide the grand jury "any and all identifying information"2 Reason has about participants in what the subpoena calls a "chat."
The "chat" in question is a comment thread on Nick Gillespie's May 31, 2015 article about Ross "Dread Pirate Roberts" Ulbricht's plea for leniency to the judge who would sentence him in the Silk Road prosecution. That plea, we know now, failed, as Ulbricht received a life sentence, with no possibility of parole.
Several commenters on the post found the sentence unjust, and vented their feelings in a rough manner. The grand jury subpoena specifies their comments and demands that Reason.com produce any identifying information on them:
The grand jury subpoena specifies that it is seeking "evidence in regard to an alleged violation of: Title 18, United States Code, Section 875." In other words, the U.S. Attorney's Office is looking for evidence of violations of the federal law against interstate threats. That's the same statute that was at issue in the Supreme Court's decision in Elonis v. U.S. last week, in which the Court decided that to be a "true threat" in violation of Section 875, the speaker must have some level of knowledge or intent that the hearer will take the threat seriously.
Since the comments are about a judge, if they are "true threats" they could conceivably also violate Title 18, U.S.C., section 115(a), which prohibits threatening federal judges.
The subpoena raises a few questions:
First, are Those Comments True Threats?
Second, if they are not true threats on their face, does the U.S. Attorney's Office still have the power to use a grand jury subpoena to identify the commenters?
Third, even if the U.S. Attorney's Office has the power, should it have that power?
http://popehat.com/2015/06/08/department-of-justice-uses-grand-jury-subpoena-to-identify-anonymous-commenters-on-a-silk-road-post-at-reason-com/#more-23910------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note to myself: write everything I say on the internet as if I am being watched by 10000 eyes all the time...
