Idea Lab

Judge Quashes Subpoena to Blogger Kathleen Seidel

by David Ardia
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

A federal magistrate judge in New Hampshire has quashed the subpoena issued to Kathleen Seidel. Seidel publishes the blog Neurodiversity, where she writes about autism issues. In February 2008, she wrote about a lawsuit against various vaccine manufacturers, Sykes v. Bayer, in which the plaintiffs Lisa and Seth Sykes seek to link exposure to mercury to their son's autism. (For more on her statements about the lawsuit, see my previous post: Blogger Kathleen Seidel Fights Subpoena Seeking Information About Vaccine Litigation.) On March 24, 2008, Clifford Shoemaker, an attorney for the Sykes, served Seidel with a subpoena in connection...

• April 23, 2008
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Blogger Kathleen Seidel Fights Subpoena Seeking Information About Vaccine Litigation

by David Ardia
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

We've been following the subpoena issued to Kathleen Seidel in the Citizen Media Law Project's Legal Threats Database, but thought it was time to throw our support behind Seidel and post about this egregious attempt to chill online speech. Seidel publishes the blog Neurodiversity, where she writes about autism issues. In February 2008, she wrote about a lawsuit against various vaccine manufacturers, Sykes v. Bayer, in which the plaintiffs, Lisa and Seth Sykes, seek to link exposure to mercury to their son's autism. Seidel's post mainly focused on developments in the lawsuit, but some of her language was critical...

• April 11, 2008
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Court Issues Search Warrant to Unmask Anonymous Poster

by David Ardia
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

One of the issues we've been focusing on at the Citizen Media Law Project is whether traditional legal protections for journalists and journalism organizations are eroding as news organizations move online.  A recent search warrant seeking information about the identity of a user of the Lawrence Journal-World's website, LJWorld.com, raises serious concerns about governmental overreaching and highlights the need for adequate legal protections for website user information. Last month, an investigator at Kansas University delivered a search warrant to the Lawrence Journal-World, a highly regarded newspaper in Lawrence, Kansas, demanding access to their computer servers in order to get information...

• January 9, 2008
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