Govt wants names of online commenters who

Posted: Jun 10, 2015

The Department of Justice has ordered libertarian website Reason.com to turn over the information of six commenters after they made threats against the federal judge who presided over the Silk Road trial. Ken White of the blog Popehat obtained the grand jury subpoena issued by the Department of Justice last week, which demands "any and all identifying information” the website has pertaining to the threatening commenters. This includes email addresses, telephone numbers, IP addresses, and billing information associated with the accounts. The Department of Justice declined to explain how, exactly, it was alerted to the threatening comments on Reason.com, but a representative told Motherboard that “the US Marshal Service goal is ensure the safe and secure operation of the federal judiciary.” As White wrote at Popehat, the subpoena was issued under the same statute at the heart of a Supreme Court case decided last week: a federal law against interstate threats. The Supreme Court reversed an earlier ruling in the case of Elonis v. U.S., saying the government has to prove someone is serious about online threats before convicting them. However, it gave no instruction on how to decide if the threat someone is making is true. It’s hard to say if the trollish commenters on Reason.com were serious about putting a federal judge "in a wood chipper"—for what it’s worth, White wrote the comments are “very clearly not true threats.” But it’s clear the government is monitoring comments online, at least when they affect powerful federal judges. ;