Free speech v. public records — which way should the scales tip?
It’s a conundrum for a champion of both free speech and access to public records.
This week the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Doe v. Reed in which a couple of John Does sought to have kept secret the signatures on a Washington state petition seeking to overturning a gay marriage law. They feared repercussions and harassment from gay activists, like those that were visited upon supporters of a similar petition in California when their names were publicly released.
It involves two of the five rights delineated in the First Amendment: freedom of speech and the right to “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Anonymous speech is a fine tradition. John Locke published his treatises anonymously. John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon used a pseudonym to publish “Cato’s Letters.” Thomas Paine published “Common Sense” anonymously. Printer John Peter Zenger was brought up on libel charges for printing an anonymous essay. The Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers were printed in American newspapers using pseudonyms.
Is petitioning one’s government for redress tantamount to free speech?
What do you think?
More importantly, read what I think in Sunday’s column.
Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna and Secretary of State Sam Reed give statements and answer questions regarding Doe v. Reed after the arguments.
