Question for Aaron re. IAAL

[deadlock]

Well, when you come back, can you state what it is that you are trying to say? It's difficult to follow you. You ask a question. It's answered then you say you didn't ask a question.

You say that there is no contract. The contract is the agreement. That's YOUR contract with the website host. If you don't agree to the terms of the agreement then you lose. There is no requirement for damages. Period.

You are trying to make the 1st Amendment fit your idea that it applies to Internet Forums. It doesn't.

Quarre: my interest in the case has to do with the way the plaintiff managed to out the defendant absent any evidence of a prima facie case. This is contrary to the case law established thus far in unmasking anonymous users.

Quarre: It is usually possible to prove authorship by a preponderance of evidence.

You are answering your own questions.

Please provide a reference to the right to remain anonymous as a 1st Amendment right. The agreement reads to remain completely anonymous, don't register; that cookies are used to identify persons who register; that 3rd parties use cookies for advertising purposes and the website host doesn't control that.

Pleadings are a matter of public record.

[Quaere]

Deadlock wrote:

Well, when you come back, can you state what it is that you are trying to say? It's difficult to follow you. You ask a question. It's answered then you say you didn't ask a question.

LMAO, ok, now I see it. I asked if you could find a viable cause of action in the complaint.

You came back and said that the COA is breach of contract.

“The contract is the agreement. That's YOUR contract with the website host. If you don't agree to the terms of the agreement then you lose.”

I am trying to explain to you, that FA is missing two of the four elements needed in a breach of contract claim. First, there is no contract to be breached, lol.

FA’s TOS is an illusory promise. It looks like a contract, but it does not qualify as a contract under the law. It makes no promise of any kind to users = not a contract.

There is no requirement for damages. Period.

The second element FA is missing for a breach claim, is proof that they suffered ECONOMIC loss, as a DIRECT result of the fact that IAAL or whoever it was, deviated from the TOS. Deadlock, google “elements breach contract” and you will see that damages are definitely an element of a breach claim.

So, FA does not have a breach of contract claim. Since I see no other viable claim in their complaint, they have no cause of action upon which relief can be granted.

They sued IAAL without adequate cause and they are rapidly digging themselves in deeper. I see a malicious prosecution claim in their future and by outing IAAL on their website, they have just satisfied the malice element of that claim.

You are trying to make the 1st Amendment fit your idea that it applies to Internet Forums. It doesn't.

The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that the right to anonymous free speech is protected by the First Amendment. A much-cited 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission reads:
Protections for anonymous speech are vital to democratic discourse. Allowing dissenters to shield their identities frees them to express critical, minority views . . . Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. . . . It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.

Dendrite International v John Doe 342 N.J. Super. 134 (App. Div. 2001) is a more recent and oft cited case that helped define the standards for stripping a user of his anonymity.

Earlier I wrote:

my interest in the case has to do with the way the plaintiff managed to out the defendant absent any evidence of a prima facie case. This is contrary to the case law established thus far in unmasking anonymous users.

and

It is usually possible to prove authorship by a preponderance of evidence.

Deadlock wrote in response to those two quotes:

You are answering your own questions.

No I’m not. You don’t understand those two comments.

Please provide a reference to the right to remain anonymous as a 1st Amendment right.

See above two references.

Several people on this board, were under the mistaken impression that forum speech is not protected by the First Amendment. This is why I think FA should not be further misleading the public into believeing they can out someone by filing a meritless complaint.

[deadlock]

Quarre,

Regarding McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission

Margaret McIntyre distributed handbills. Among other things her estate support her right to distribute unsigned handbills which Ohio Elections Commission claimed did not conform to Ohio election laws. "Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority. See generally J. S. Mill, On Liberty, in On Liberty and Considerations on Representative Government 1, 3-4 (R. McCallum ed.)"

From the Ohio Supreme Court ruling:
Ohio has not shown that its interest in preventing the misuse of anonymous election related speech justifies a prohibition of all uses of that speech.
____

Dendrite International v. John Does, et al.
Docket No. MRS C-129-00 (Sup. Crt. N.J., Chancery Div., November 28, 2000) aff'd. 343 N.J. Super. 134, 775 A.2d 756 (N.J. Super. Ct., App. Div., July 11, 2001)

Really?

Defendants John Does 3 and 4 posted various messages pertaining to Dendrite on internet-based financial boards maintained by Yahoo. Plaintiff claimed that some of the messages so posted by John Doe 3 were defamatory and improperly disclosed its trade secrets about a publicly traded company.

Please explain the similarities between Dendrite's subpoena for identities of JD's #3 & #4 and IAAL identity revealed as a matter of public record. ?

You may want to review the Privacy Statement regarding the right to use customer contact information ...when necessary... to comply with applicable laws... to enforce compliance with terms and conditions of our sites.

[aaron]

There is no right to anonymity on the Internet. Do what you want to remain anonymous, but have no illusions that you have a constitutional right to be anonymous.

There is no First Amendment right whatsoever when you are participating on a website or in a forum which has no association with the government or state. The First Amendment restricts state action, not private action.

I don't believe that the lawsuit against IAAL was premised on a breach of contract claim.

[seniorjudge]

There is no right to anonymity on the Internet. Do what you want to remain anonymous, but have no illusions that you have a constitutional right to be anonymous.

There is no First Amendment right whatsoever when you are participating on a website or in a forum which has no association with the government or state. The First Amendment restricts state action, not private action.

I don't believe that the lawsuit against IAAL was premised on a breach of contract claim.

My points exactly!

[jk]

quaere:
Let's try this again. I am not saying that anyone has a First Amendment right to use profanity on a privately owned website. My reference to the First Amendment, had nothing to do with the activity FA is complaining about.

you are the one that started this thread with the title "question for Aaron re. IAAL. That infers you are speaking of the IAAL situation.

quaere: The second element FA is missing for a breach claim, is proof that they suffered ECONOMIC loss, as a DIRECT result of the fact that IAAL or whoever it was, deviated from the TOS. Deadlock, google “elements breach contract” and you will see that damages are definitely an element of a breach claim.

breach of contract? No, they are simply seeking the penalty that each user was informed of when they registered that they would be assessed a penalty for failure to follow the agreement which the user did acknolwedge and agree to. It is not damages they are seeking but an agreed upon penalty.

quaere:Several people on this board, were under the mistaken impression that forum speech is not protected by the First Amendment. This is why I think FA should not be further misleading the public into believeing they can out someone by filing a meritless complaint.

FA did not "out" IAAL. There was a suit filed and the courts required him to identify himself. FA has posted what the courts have publicized. FA did not seek the ID and when they found who they believed it to be then piblicize his name. They reported only what the courts have discovered..

btw: you do NOT have 1st amend rights of protection of any speech you post on somebody elses forum. It is their forum. If the gov censored your own site, then you would have a complaint.

Quaere, I think everbody here is still waiting for you to establish some proof of a right to anonymity when posting on a web forum whether it be a 1st amend basis (which it isn't) or any other actual right. The only claim I could ever see is IF the forum has made some promise of privacy and then breached that promise. That is not what happened in this situation. Other than that, you are an open book. If there is no promise made, the forum would be free to post any/all of any info about you it had obtained. Unless it was done in a malicious manner intended to cause harm in some form, you would have no legit complaint. FA did not publicize IAALs name to cause harm. They did it as a matter of fact.



so, breach of contract? No, enforcement of it. Users agreed to it. Now it may be a contract, oh, what's that called, oh ya, a contract of adhesion and may be defensible on that point but since IAAL does have some legal training, apparently is very knowledgable of legal matters, and was/is employed in a legal field, his defense is diminished on those grounds.

[deadlock]

Complaint reads:

COMPLAINT FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT, FRAUD, INTERFERENCE WITH CONTRACT, INTERFERENCE WITH PROSPECTIVE BUSINESS ADVANTAGE.

Quarre is tossing out bits of case law that remotely deal with issues of anonymity, 1st amendment, breach of contract.

[Quaere]

This is a great discussion but we seem to be arguing an assortment of issues within one thread and it's getting confusing.

Let's take one topic at a time.

Is There a Right to Anonymity on the Internet?

We have the right to do anything that is not prohibited under existing law.

“Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech.”

The First Amendment protects us from prosecution for speaking freely about anything whether a public issue or not, in any place whether public or private, with a few subject matter limitations that have been defined by law.

The 1995 Supreme Court ruling in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, discusses the application of the First Amendment to the question of anonymity. The case was not about a woman handing out political pamphlets. It was about the fact that Ohio had an unconstitutional ordinance prohibiting anonymous leafleting. In finding the ordinance unconstitutional, the Court stated in part:

“It thus exemplifies the purpose behind the Bill of Rights, and of the First Amendment in particular: to protect unpopular individuals from retaliation . . . at the hand of an intolerant society.”

With this decision and others, it is well settled that we all have the right to speak anonymously, anywhere including the Internet and any site on it...as long as our speech remains otherwise lawful.

A court has a duty to protect our rights and absent cause to believe an individual is liable to another, the court should not disturb the potential defendant’s right to anonymity.

The following page argues a case very similar to IAAL’s as far as the anonymity issue goes.

http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Anonymity...erShearman.pdf

[aaron]

You are again confusing state action and private action. The government cannot impose a blanket restriction on anonymous pamphleting, particularly in relation to one of the most protected forms of speech - political speech. In contrast private party, such as an indoor shopping mall, can boot you off of its premises for trying to distribute a single handbill, anonymous or not.

[BlondiePB]

What I don't understand about the entire IAAL situation is after 5 yrs or more of him posting, FA decided to pursue action against him. Whatever happened causing his banning is still unclear to me as that all happened at the time of a natural disaster. Frankly, I don't give a ....