San Jose, CA - Defrocked Rabbi Cannot Violate Anonymous Bloggers First Amendment Rights

San Jose, CA - A rabbi’s petition to disclose the identities of anonymous bloggers who wrote on the Internet about him should be denied, Public Citizen said in motions being filed in the California Superior Court for Santa Clara County.
The plaintiff, Orthodox rabbi Mordechai Tendler, who served a congregation in New Hempstead, N.Y., was accused of abuse and harassment by some whom he had been advising. Tendler was expelled from the Rabbinical Council of America in March 2005, sued by one of his accusers in December 2005 and dismissed from his rabbinical post by his congregation in 2006.

Many Internet blogs covered the investigation of Tendler’s alleged misconduct. In an effort to fight back against the accusations, Tendler has sought to reveal the identities of four bloggers who wrote about his case on Blogspot sites.
Tendler filed a case in San Jose, Calif., in order to obtain enforceable subpoenas directed to Google, which operates Blogspot, compelling it to disclose information identifying four bloggers.

But Public Citizen said in their motions “Full First Amendment protection applies to communications on the Internet, and longstanding precedent recognizes that speakers have a First Amendment right to communicate anonymously, so long as they do not violate the law in doing so,” the motion reads.
“The right to criticize anonymously on the Internet is a fundamental free speech right and an important tool for whistleblowers and consumers who speak out against big companies or public figures for misconduct or corruption,” said Paul Alan Levy, the Public Citizen attorney who filed the motion.