Privacy Digest

Defending Anonymity Online: Legislation Would Give Does a New Weapon in Battle Against Frivolous Lawsuits - Via EFF: Deep Links:

The California Assembly took a crucial first step yesterday towards closing a significant gap in protection for anonymous speech online. One of the most pernicious threats to anonymity is the filing of bogus lawsuits as an excuse to force ISPs to reveal speakers’ identities. Once such a lawsuit is filed, speakers who want to protect their anonymity must find a way to pay a lawyer to go to court and prevent disclosure of their personal information. That can be a real hardship—in fact, even the threat of having to go to court may intimidate many people from speaking out in the first place.

Fortunately, Assembly member Paul Krekorian with co-authors Sally Lieber and Anthony Portantino introduced AB 2433 to help answer this problem. If AB 2433 becomes law, speakers who successfully oppose the use of bogus litigation to obtain their identities could also demand attorneys' fees. The bill has now passed the Assembly unanimously and is moving on to the Senate. EFF, the California AntiSLAPP project, and the California Newspaper Publishers Association are all supporters of this bill.

Californians have long had an extra layer of protection against these lawsuits. Thanks to California’s anti-SLAPP law (SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) they can file a special motion to strike any cause of action based upon their speech or petition activity. Courts are required to strike the action unless the plaintiff can show a probability of prevailing on the merits. As a deterrent to abusive lawsuits, a defendant who successfully moves to strike can also seek attorney fees and court costs. This procedure has been very successful in preventing abusive lawsuits designed to chill speech and waste precious court resources.

The Anti-SLAPP law works fine to stop the abusive subpoena if the underlying lawsuit is filed in California. But there’s a loop-hole: If the underlying lawsuit is filed outside California, at least one California court has read the law narrowly and held the Anti-SLAPP law is unavailable. As a result, speakers and companies in California are exposed to frivolous satellite litigation without the shield of deterrence provided by the Anti-SLAPP law.

AB 2433 would close this loophole by amending California law to provide that individuals whose information is subpoenaed can move to quash the subpoena (i.e, to prevent production of the requested information) and, if they succeed, seek compensation for the costs of going to court.

read more

(Read Original Article - Via EFF: Deep Links.)