Posting AC - a Thing of the Past?

c0lo writes to point out an article from the Indystar. From the article: "A Marion County judge has ruled, for the first time in Indiana, that news media outlets can be ordered by the court to reveal identifying information about posters to their online forums."

I am ironically....

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting this anonymously

Defamation is illegal

[imthesponge]

Who knew?

So,

[unity100]

Random judge, in Indiana, usa, fucking marion county, decides what are the web standards and realities of life on internet ?

Re:All I can think about in reference to this...

[DurendalMac]

Already happened. Moot got subpoenaed and showed up to present IP logs and such on the Palin email skiddie. The court also had him define "newfag" and "rickroll".

Re:For what reason?

[MightyYar]

Bullfighting is well established and widely accepted also. Does that make it okay?

In Spain, yes. In India, no.

It's suppression.

Suppression can be good. Bad suppression: mowing down peaceful protesters in a public square. Good suppression: putting a serial killer in prison.

An assertion of arbitrary authority.

Depends how far you stretch the term "arbitrary". Our government is, in theory, "of the people". We elect them, and our elected officials appoint the judiciary - except where the judiciary is directly elected. It may not be the best system, but I'd hardly call it "arbitrary".

The commission of a crime has nothing to do with speech.

A death threat is a crime, and it has everything to do with speech. To paraphrase Holmes, falsely yelling "fire" in a theater is a crime, and it has everything to do with speech.