Subject: Re: [EL] Anonymity and harassment
From: Jon Roland
Date: 4/7/2011, 8:40 AM
To: "election-law@mailman.lls.edu" <election-law@mailman.lls.edu>
Reply-to:
"jon.roland@constitution.org"

It is useful to look to the long-established standards in the law of civil discovery, according to which a party may demand information from a witness, but the witness may object, and the demandant must then prove a specific need for the information in the interest of justice that outweighs the privacy interest of the witness. But that is a matter of judicial discretion, case by case and question by question, not of statutorily mandated disclosure without proof of need.

I maintain that a right, to be a right, must be exercisable anonymously, or in concert with others, unless a court orders disclosure on proof of prevailing need on a particular question, and then only for the purposes of the court, not for public dissemination.
-- Jon

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