When Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin and city officials decided they didn’t like some of the things a local blogger was posting, they did what any deep-pocketed bully might do — they took the anonymous blogger to court. It didn’t really matter that they had no real basis for their case. Maybe they figured a little harassment and intimidation at the taxpayers’ expense would be enough to get the blogger to shut up.
So, now it seems, they may be thinking better of it, having decided to drop a subpoena against the author of the MPD Enforcer 2.0 blog after Public Citizen stepped in to defend the blogger. In dropping its subpoena to identify the blogger, the city’s actions appear to concede that the First Amendment protects the right of anonymous speech. It also sends the message to other bullies who think they can use the power of the subpoena to easily unmask anonymous bloggers.
