JUN 9, 2015 6:08 PM EDT
By Virginia Postrel
Wielding subpoenas demanding information on anonymous commenters, the government is harassing a respected journalism site that dissents from its policies. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York claims these comments could constitute violent threats, even though they’re clearly hyperbolic political rhetoric.
This is happening in America — weirdly, to a site I founded, and one whose commenters often earned my public contempt.
Los Angeles legal blogger Ken White has obtained a grand jury subpoena issued to Reason.com, the online home of the libertarian magazine I edited throughout the 1990s. The subpoena seeks information about commenters who posted in response to an article by the site’s editor Nick Gillespie about the letter that Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht wrote to Judge Katherine B. Forrest before she sentenced him to life in prison without parole. Ulbricht was convicted of seven felony charges, included conspiracies to traffic in narcotics and launder money, and faced a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison. The letter was an appeal for leniency.
Gillespie, who declined to comment on the subpoena, aptly described the letter as “haunting.” In it, Ulbricht expressed the libertarian ideals he said animated his creation of Silk Road — the same ideals that Reason upholds. The portion Gillespie reproduced reads:
https://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-06-09/reason-magazine-subpoena-stomps-on-free-speech
