Consumer Law

Tom Corbett -- The Hypocrisy of Some Who Sue to Keep the Government Out of Our Private Lives

By Paul Levy

by Paul Alan Levy

Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett, who is running for governor, in part, based on his having sued to block the new health care bill on the theory that it puts the federal government too much into citizens' private lives, apparently doesn't have any problem abusing his access to grand jury subpoenas to put pressure on his anonymous critics.  Techcrunch reports that Corbett has summoned Twitter to appear before a state grand jury to identify two anonymous bloggers, CasablancaPA and bfBarbie, who have been criticizing Corbett on Twitter.

Over the years, we have defended consumer critics of companies and politicians against civil suits to identify their critics, concerned that, if it is too easy to identify critics, there will be a chilling effect on public discourse and, consequently, a loss to the marketplace of ideas.  A couple of years ago, we defended against a grand jury subpoena from the Bronx DA to force Room Eight, a popular blog on New York politics, to identify a critic who was going after his Republican allies.   The DA had an attack of good judgment and pulled the plug before we could set a good precedent extending the Dendrite standard to the grand jury context.  Will Corbett be brought to his senses too, or will he press on to the end? 

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on May 19, 2010 (boomark / email).