This Oregonian article ("Anonymous Blog Commenters Shielded by Oregon Ruling") talks about an extremely broad shield law in Oregon which apparently protects blog commenters, and is so board that (according to the article):

under the right circumstances in Oregon, even anonymous comments that destroy a career or drive a person to suicide potentially could be protected.

The article on the whole touches very quickly on many of the issues that are in flux in the speech/privacy world due to the internet+blogs.  Bloggers now seek to attend city council meetings and questions come up as to whether or not they are journalists.  Bloggers talk about people - are they public or private figures?  Are the bloggers themselves public or private figures? 

The article also talks about the Washington Public Disclosure Commission's rumblings about potentially regulating "online political activists" (aka bloggers) as lobbyists.  (The PDC appears to have backed off from this decision [link].)

Finally, the article talks about Section 230, which I'm a fan of, but which is bad-mouthed every once in a while.  Here, the article intimates that due to the interplay between section 230 and Oregon's robust shield law, a person who is the subject of nasty internet comments could be left "with little recourse." 

Anyway, the article is worth reading.  Here's a post about the judge's decision which actually quotes from it at length (from the blog actually involved in the dispute)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plaintiff's Motion to Compel seeks unpublished information that was obtained for a medium of communication to the public. While plaintiff does not tie his argument to this particular statutory language, it would appear that plaintiff's position is that the language "in the course of gathering, receiving, or processing information for a medium of communication to the public" is synonymous with 'in the course of gathering news'.

The statutory language, however, deliberately protects not only news but also "data" and what is commonly understood as information. It would seem clear that Oregon's Media Shield Law is intended to have a wider scope than "news gathering". The posting on the Portland Mercury Website titled "Busy Day at City Hall, Part 2" discussed actions taken by Sho Dozono to qualify for public financing in his run for mayor of the City of Portland. The Portland Mercury invited readers to comment on the blog post. An anonymous reader calling himself "Ronald" responded with a comment related to Mr. Dozono's candidacy which was allegedly defamatory of plaintiff. If the comment had been totally unrelated to the blog post, then the argument could be made that the Portland Mercury did not receive it in the "course of gathering, receiving, or processing information for any medium of communication to the public".

The Oregon Media Shield Law is broadly written and it is intended to protect a broad range of media activity, not simply news gathering. This court feels compelled to follow the broad statutory language in regard to plaintiff's motion to compel and therefore denies plaintiff's motion to compel.

Interesting!