Court upholds bloggers' rights agai t A le

An a eals court has ruled that A le is not entitled to su oena information from a blog's email service provider in order to uncover the identity of A le employees who allegedly leaked secret information to several blogs about Asteroid, a firewire interface for GarageBand that A le was developing. The decision agai t A le has implicatio beyond the facts of this case. It was a major victory for bloggers, webmasters, and email service providers.

One of the i ues in the case was whether bloggers are entitled to protect the identity of their sources to the same extent as offline journalists. In the opinion in favor of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), who represented the blogs Powerpage.org and A leI ider, the court rejected A le's contention that the blogs were not engaging in legitimate journalism, writing:

"We can think of no workable test or principle that would distinguish 'legitimate' from 'illegitimate' news. Any attempt by courts to draw such a distinction would imperil a fundamental purpose of the First Amendment, which is to identify the best, most important, and most valuable ideas not by any sociological or economic formula, rule of law, or proce of government, but through the rough and tumble competition of the memetic marketplace."

EFF says that the decision is also a victory for anyone who uses email, because it mea that litigants in a civil lawsuit can't su oena your email from your service provider.

The text of the court's opinion is available from EFF. For background on the case, take a look at our earlier post.