How Government Stifled Reason's Free Speech - Nick Gillespie & Matt Walch, Reason Hit & Run Blog:
June 19, 2015 - "For the past two weeks, Reason, a magazine dedicated to 'Free Minds and Free Markets,' has been barred by an order from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from speaking publicly about a grand jury subpoena that court sent to Reason.com.... Yesterday, after preparing an extensive legal brief, Reason asked the US Attorney's Office to join with it in asking that the gag order - now moot and clearly an unconstitutional prior restraint - be lifted. This morning, the US Attorney's Office asked the Court to vacate the order, which it did. We are free to tell the story for the first time.
"On May 31, Nick Gillespie published a post at Reason.com's Hit & Run blog discussing Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht's 'haunting sentencing letter' to District Court Judge Katherine Forrest, and the judge's harsh response. Gillespie noted that Forrest 'more than threw the book' at Ulbricht by giving him a life sentence, which was a punishment "beyond even what prosecutors...asked for.'
"In the comments section of the post, six readers published reactions that drew the investigative ire of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. In a federal grand jury subpoena dated June 2, the U.S. District Court commanded Reason.com to turn over 'any and all identifying information' we had about the individuals posting those comments'.... The original subpoena ... came with a letter ... requesting that we refrain from informing any other parties about the subpoena ... though it also said that we were under 'no obligation' to keep the subpoena confidential....
"So we decided, against the government's request but well within our legal rights, to ... notify and share the full subpoena with the six targeted commenters so that they would have a chance to assert their First Amendment rights to anonymity and defend themselves legally against the order.... Reason Publisher Mike Alissi sent the subpoena to the six email addresses associated with the user accounts for the comments identified in the subpoena....
"Since receipt of the gag order on June 4, and until this moment, Reason has not spoken with any outside parties about the subpoena or the gag order. We originally intended to publish the subpoena as part of a Reason.com story about it after the reply deadline; unfortunately, the gag order put those plans on ice.... So as of this point in the saga, Reason had been subpoenaed, we had been vaguely — and falsely — accused by a United States Attorney's office of actions verging on obstruction of justice and contempt of court, and we were now told that we were being investigated further....
"None of the six commenters informed us that they would be filing motions to oppose the U.S. Attorney's subpoena. Therefore we complied with the subpoena on the deadline of June 9....
"Providing the subpoena to the commenters before the gag order was issued is what presumably enabled it to become public. That has had the effect of bringing to light what these compulsory grabs for information look like, launching a wide number of conversations about a grand jury process in which the government can target individuals, platforms, and publications for data about users....
"Regardless of the legal details, the growing government demand for user data and our own experience with court-enforced silence on a self-evidently ridiculous investigation raise important questions about free speech and the abuse of power.... In fact, three of the six commenters subject to this very subpoena voluntarily displayed public links to personal blogs at Blogger as part of their comments, one of which further links to a Google+ page. Raising the question: How can the government view these so-called 'threats' as so nefarious when people posted them in such a non-anonymous fashion?... To live in a world where every stray, overheated Internet comment — however trollish and stupid it may be — can be interpreted as an actionable threat to be investigated by a federal grand jury is to live in a world where the government is telling the public and media to just shut up already."
June 19, 2015 - "For the past two weeks, Reason, a magazine dedicated to 'Free Minds and Free Markets,' has been barred by an order from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from speaking publicly about a grand jury subpoena that court sent to Reason.com.... Yesterday, after preparing an extensive legal brief, Reason asked the US Attorney's Office to join with it in asking that the gag order - now moot and clearly an unconstitutional prior restraint - be lifted. This morning, the US Attorney's Office asked the Court to vacate the order, which it did. We are free to tell the story for the first time.
"On May 31, Nick Gillespie published a post at Reason.com's Hit & Run blog discussing Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht's 'haunting sentencing letter' to District Court Judge Katherine Forrest, and the judge's harsh response. Gillespie noted that Forrest 'more than threw the book' at Ulbricht by giving him a life sentence, which was a punishment "beyond even what prosecutors...asked for.'
"In the comments section of the post, six readers published reactions that drew the investigative ire of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. In a federal grand jury subpoena dated June 2, the U.S. District Court commanded Reason.com to turn over 'any and all identifying information' we had about the individuals posting those comments'.... The original subpoena ... came with a letter ... requesting that we refrain from informing any other parties about the subpoena ... though it also said that we were under 'no obligation' to keep the subpoena confidential....
"So we decided, against the government's request but well within our legal rights, to ... notify and share the full subpoena with the six targeted commenters so that they would have a chance to assert their First Amendment rights to anonymity and defend themselves legally against the order.... Reason Publisher Mike Alissi sent the subpoena to the six email addresses associated with the user accounts for the comments identified in the subpoena....
"Since receipt of the gag order on June 4, and until this moment, Reason has not spoken with any outside parties about the subpoena or the gag order. We originally intended to publish the subpoena as part of a Reason.com story about it after the reply deadline; unfortunately, the gag order put those plans on ice.... So as of this point in the saga, Reason had been subpoenaed, we had been vaguely — and falsely — accused by a United States Attorney's office of actions verging on obstruction of justice and contempt of court, and we were now told that we were being investigated further....
"None of the six commenters informed us that they would be filing motions to oppose the U.S. Attorney's subpoena. Therefore we complied with the subpoena on the deadline of June 9....
"Providing the subpoena to the commenters before the gag order was issued is what presumably enabled it to become public. That has had the effect of bringing to light what these compulsory grabs for information look like, launching a wide number of conversations about a grand jury process in which the government can target individuals, platforms, and publications for data about users....
"Regardless of the legal details, the growing government demand for user data and our own experience with court-enforced silence on a self-evidently ridiculous investigation raise important questions about free speech and the abuse of power.... In fact, three of the six commenters subject to this very subpoena voluntarily displayed public links to personal blogs at Blogger as part of their comments, one of which further links to a Google+ page. Raising the question: How can the government view these so-called 'threats' as so nefarious when people posted them in such a non-anonymous fashion?... To live in a world where every stray, overheated Internet comment — however trollish and stupid it may be — can be interpreted as an actionable threat to be investigated by a federal grand jury is to live in a world where the government is telling the public and media to just shut up already."
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