The Superior Court of Arizona in Maricopa County ruled last week that in order to discover the identity of an anonymous online author, a plaintiff must first show that its interest in discovering that identity outweighs the speaker's constitutional right to speak anonymously.   The precise standard used by the court required the plaintiff to " show that its claim would survive a Motion for Summary Judgment before being entitled to discover the identity of an anonymous speaker through any compulsory discovery process."  The case is Paul McMann v. John Doe, and the opinion can be found here.  Evidently, the plaintiff would not commit to continue the case if it was allowed to proceed with the defendant remaining anonymous, and the judge tossed it.

Anonymity a constitutional right?  It's an interesting concept.  Prior to the advent of the Internet, true anonymity had been very hard to establish in connection with widely disseminated published materials.  Now it is the order of the day.  This can be very beneficial in limited circumstances by allowing one to pass helpful information and evade direct retribution, such as with "whistleblowers" or the anonymous reporting of crimes.  However, with true anonymity, extortion and harassment based on false information become commonplace.  Personally, I like the general idea of holding speakers accountable for their words, rather than allowing anonymity as the rule.  If you can't say something nice . . ..