Anonymous message board posters must show IDs to government

A Pennsylvania judge has ordered the owner of a Web site dedicated to Lackawanna County, PA political affairs to disclose the identity of six anonymous posters for posting defamatory remarks about the Scranton City Council President.

This is a "Lackawanna Six" of a completely different nature. In a case centering around whether anonymity protects citizens from responsibility for defamation claims, an initial complaint was filed last year by Joe Pilchesky, a Scranton resident and webmaster of DohertyDeceit.com, a journal of local political criticism. Pilchesky claimed that he and his site were the victims of harassment, retaliation, and defamation at the hands of City Council President Judy Gatelli.

Gatelli filed a counterclaim against Pilchesky and nearly one hundred anonymous posters on his site for defamation, civil conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and abuse of process. Gatelli petitioned for the identities of all the anonymous posters be revealed. Though Gatelli's counterclaim was incontrovertibly denied, she was given time to renew and re-file her petition, and in the process, collect new evidence against the anonymous posters.

On the first of October, Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas Judge Peter J. O'Brien handed down his judgment on Gatelli's re-filed petition: Some 98 anonymous posters were safe, but six posters were ordered to reveal their identities.

Citing such cases as Roth v. United States (1957), which determined that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment; Beauharnais v. Illinois (1952), where libelous statements were found to be outside the realm of constitutionally protected speech; and Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire (1942) finding that First Amendment protections do not extend to "fighting words," Judge O'Brien determined the six posters to be outside of the protection of the First Amendment.

In his discussion of the case, Judge O'Brien remarked, "The First Amendment protects opinion criticism of public officials. The above quoted statements attributing serious sexual misconduct to Defendant Gatelli go beyond the bounds of those protections afforded by the First Amendment."

One of the posts in question read, "Just when you thought Judy Gatelli was the world's biggest a**hole, she shows up as the world's dumbest, biggest a**hole. And where was the w**** of all w***s tonight? She was a no-show once again. Too afraid of questions? you can't make this crap up, she goes down in history as the ugliest woman to ever take council and the most dysfunction moran [sic] to ever be president."

On a scale of one to ten for Internet diatribes, this is a three at best. Yet this post, and five others of similar severity, were found to adhere to the court's definition of defamation or libel, and therefore were unprotected by the First Amendment in the eyes of the court.

O'Brien said, "There is no question that generally, the constitutional right to anonymous free speech is a right deeply rooted in public policy and falls within the class of rights that are too important to be denied review...The right to speak anonymously is not, however, absolute."

Some of the anonymous posters were defended by Public Citizen civil rights lawyer Paul Levy, Esq. who spoke to BetaNews Tuesday afternoon. "This is a potentially vulnerable decision," Levy told us. "And it's not over yet, both Pilchesky and Gatelli have publicly said they will continue the appeals process."

Indeed, the outcome of this case could set a precedent for future cases against anonymous Internet posters.

In regards to the identity disclosure, Levy noted the user "Adam" who wrote: "I had an encounter with her at a drug store. That b***** had the nerve to mention to me that Scranton is a far better place than it was before she was elected. I couldn't help myself and called her a Doherty ****job right to her face' I gave it to her good. She left her stuff on the counter and all upset she walked out. Looking into her eyes is looking into something that transformed into something unhuman. she's got a cold deep look to her, pretty scary."

Levy said, "Was discovery really necessary for this instance? If this user actually had this exchange with Gatelli, I should hope she'd know who he is already."