I got hooked onto this story by Robinia at TheAlbanyProject.com.  This is rather a disturbing story of police abusing power, stealing everything that wasn’t nailed down at their department (including an apparently highly-entertaining porno for which they allegedly bought blank DVDs with taxpayer money), and in an attempt to cover their tracks, bullying an internet forum into revealing the identity of posters on their site:

Finger Lakes Times Online - News

But Connolly got their names and three others critical of the sheriff’s department from the operators of the forum, stating it was for a police investigation, Castiglione said, adding that he still fears retaliation from Connolly supporters.

Either Robinia knows something I don’t, or she’s got one minor point wrong: according to reports I’ve searched on the Internet, this doesn’t appear to have happened on an MSM blog, but rather “a popular Web log site.”  (pause a moment: honestly, how is this adequate reporting?  No one cites the original website on which the event took place, and the one that comes the closest doesn’t know how to spell “blog.”)  In any event, this is an important lesson to all of us who blog.

I personally think that this does, to some degree, illuminate the fact that silly pseudonyms on the Internet are just that, . . . silly.  When I got started blogging, I used a pseudonym (can you guess what that was?) thinking that I was protecting my identity from those who might do me violence for my opinions.  Eventually I realized that I’m really not that important or interesting, and no offense, but you probably aren’t, either.  As for those who might threaten you online, ask yourself: if they really need to make threats on the Internet, what are the odds they’ll get off their fat asses, put down their Hot Pockets, their Superman comics and their “The Tick” action figures long enough to do something about it?  Those odds are long, my friend.  And on the off chance that you or I might actually be persons of interest to the actual criminal types, only the dumbest of the dumb criminals requires your full name in order to find you out.

In short, safety - on the Internet as well as in life - is a state of mind.

On the other hand, there are those who would like to avoid getting “Dooced,” and here the lines become more blurry.  If you’re going to write about stuff you do at work, that’s probably a bad idea in the first place.  If not, then you can’t really be fired for expressing an opinion.  To me, if you’re afraid to say it and take credit for it, then it’s probably just as well that you not bother.  Just an opinion.

I still do use the pseudonym for commenting on other sites, but that’s mostly for the sake of name recognition for normal, non-criminal types, not to protect my identity.  Perhaps I shall resolve to eliminate this, too?  Nah.  I’m a “hit-count whore.”

On the other side of the issue of Internet safety, there is the issue of what, precisely, the rights and responsibilities are of blog and website owners where user-submitted content is concerned.  People get blogs but don’t know these things, which can lead to some unfortunate circumstances.  If you have a responsibility as a private citizen to protect your identity and defend your Constitutional rights, then as the owner of a blog, you have that same right for every bit of data left by every other person on your blog, whether you know it or not.

Somewhere along the line, someone posted an article about the things most bloggers don’t know that will get them into trouble.  Do you think I can find that now?  Or even my own article in which I discussed it?  Nope.

But the bottom line is, yes, you do need to submit to a search warrant if police want to get the records of those commenting on your site.  Basically, you have to more-or-less regard all things on your website to be your property, and all the same rules apply to that virtual property as do to your real stuff.  However, you can protect yourself and your readers somewhat by setting up some legal ground rules and posting them to your website as I have done.  Notice that a link to those rules appears just above the comment box.  In general, its probably good to let people know where you and your website stand on the privacy of your commenters, how you intend to moderate comments, and any other issues you think might arise before they happen.

In stating these facts, I’m not encouraging a furious, Stalin-esque purging of the comment roles; I’m not suggesting that we delete or otherwise block every comment that seems slightly out of line or offends us because we disagree.  The blogging community is just that: a community, and you have to have respect as well as personal legal safety.

On the other hand, you have to protect yourself against fraud.  I found rather an interesting website that deals with tangential issues, Black Cops Against Police Brutality.  Check the section on home searches, as it applies to this instance.  You have the right to ask questions, inspect the warrant and look it over for mistakes, and itemize all things that the police seize. You don’t have to submit to any warrant that looks funny, and you do have the right to call someone to find out if it’s legit.

Bloggers, your readership is depending on you knowing your rights and those of your readers.  In case you thought it was just some tin foil hat-wearing conspiracy theory about the FBI or the NSA, now you know for sure that it most certainly is not.

Technorati Tags: Privacy, Blogging, Dooced, Police Misconduct

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