[EL] Twitter sues - and Seth Waxman urges protection for anonymous speech

[Rick Hasen]

1. I imagine Twitter is a paying client for Seth Waxman, and this does not necessarily represent his personal views.
2. Even for those of us who support strong disclosure laws, there is an exemption when the government singles out people for harassment (Brown v. Socialist Workers Party).  From the Twitter complaint: “Such fears are likely to be especially great for users of “alternative agency” accounts who are currently employed by the very agency that is a principal target of the commentary, in light of the retaliation, harassment, or even loss of livelihood that might occur if their real identities became known to their superiors.”
3. Will all the campaign finance deregulation groups that oppose disclosure come out and condemn the attempt to unmask the identity of the Twitter user?

Rick

On 4/7/17, 3:32 AM, "law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu on behalf of Jason Torchinsky" <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu on behalf of jtorchinsky at hvjt.law> wrote:

    All,

    It is amazing to see this complaint urging the court to protect against government disclosure of speech.

    Jason