a public defender

Scott Henson, over at the always interesting Grits for Breakfast, has been following this story out of Bexar County in Texas (original post and follow up), which chronicles the efforts of the Texas AG, on behalf of Bexar County probation director Bill Fitzgerald to out anonymous blog commenters at a probation officers’ employee blog .

As part of an ongoing feud with his employees over whether the department will unionize, Bexar County probation director Bill Fitzgerald is seeking the identities of anonymous employee blog commenters on a relatively new blog called Bexar Me the Pain.

This is indeed very troubling, not only for those employees targeted, but for what kind of precedent it could set if the “outing” were permitted. Everyone seems to be pretty clear that the comments would be covered by the guarantee of Free Speech under the First Amendment [Note that (as far as I can tell) the AG is seeking the "outing" of the commenters and not the author of the blog.]

Scott asks:

I also wonder what Greg Abbott, the Texas Attorney General, thinks about his minions trying to out anonymous blog commenters, not because they libeled anyone but simply to expose them to possible retaliation? Why would Abbott allow his attorneys to bully Bexar probation officers this way?

And would Google have just turned the information over if plaintiffs’ attorneys hadn’t filed a motion to quash? I’ve wondered about this in the context of Texas Youth Commission commenters on Grits, and this makes me more curious than ever what information Google/Blogger keeps on IP addresses of anonymous blog commenters and under what circumstances they release the information?

Here [pdf] are all the pleadings in this lawsuit, but they total 270 some pages, so here’s the Motion to Quash, which should give you a basic idea of what it is all about. Grits’ coverage of the lawsuit is here and here.