Publius blogs: protecting online anonymity.

• Author: Balko, Radley
• Position: Citings

BLOGS ARE often likened to the pamphleteering that helped ignite the American Revolution. In some communities, the targets of anonymous blogs are trying to crack down on their Internet critics with the vengeance of King George III.

Start with Memphis, which last year ranked second only to Detroit in violent crimes per 100,000 residents. The city's police department has been beset by scandal, including a brutal beating of a transsexual in a Memphis police station that was caught on video last February and quickly made its way across the Internet. Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin has responded by devoting time and city resources to investigating ... a website.

MPD Enforcer 2.0 has become an online forum where Memphis police officers and citizens gather to dish dirt on Godwin and the brass at the Memphis Police Department. In July Godwin sought a court order demanding the identity of the site's administrator, who goes by the pseudonym Dirk Diggler, after the lead character in the movie Boogie Nights. Godwin is also trying to force America Online, which hosts the email account Diggler uses on the site, to reveal Diggler's identity. And Tennessee District Attorney Bill Gibbons has asked the state Bureau of Investigation to investigate whether police documents were illegally leaked to MPD Enforcer.

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