Additionally, the First Amendment protects an individual's right to speak anonymously. See McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n, 514 U.S. 334, 342 (1995) ("[A]n author's decision to remain anonymous . . . is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment."). This statute not only regulates a person's right to [ .. speak...], but it also requires that person to identify him or herself as the photographer as well as identify the individual depicted. While the individual depicted is shown in the photograph, that person still has a First Amendment right to not provide his or her name and therefore retain a certain level of anonymity. See Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc'y of N.Y., Inc., 536 U.S. at 167 ("The fact that circulators revealed their physical identities did not foreclose our consideration of the circulators' interest in maintaining their anonymity [in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1 (1976)]."). It is clear that this statute covers quite a bit of protected speech.

To paraphrase a bon mot from Heinlein, Daphna and Garance (where do they get these names?) can take their proposal to unmask us anonyms, fold it until it's all corners and, ... well, you know....

Is Dana Perino telling the truth just because she's standing there as herself?

Was BTD lying when he was anonymous?

Is Digby any less credible because she posts under a pseudonym?

Is Glenn Greenwald any more credible because he posts under his real name?

Are the celebrity blogs on the Huff Post any more coherent just because they're well-known celebrities writing as themselves?

Were the Federalist Papers any less seminal and important because they were written anonymously?

There is zero correlation between what one writes, and who ones writes it as.

(Irony: Plame's job was monitoring Iran's nuclear capability. Paranoia: was that the reason for revealing her covert identity...or just a reason? How far ahead was Cheney thinking?)

At the bottom, Mitch McConnell, Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly... etc. forever.

In addition, Pope's observation in his Essay on Criticism remains apropos:

Some judge of Authors' Names, not Works, and then
Nor praise nor blame the Writings, but the Men.

No "hominem" to attack, then it's not as easy to attack ad hominem rather than addressing an opponent's actual argument.

Yeah, right, whatever.

At least I'm open about it when I call someone a liar and an idiot. No insinuation needed. Nor would I deny it if accused of it.

and as you point out impossible to know what you are saying

I wrote:

BTW - Have you acquired a channeling ability? No?

Then how do you know what I meant?

Knowing what I was saying, the ability to read, is totally different from knowing what I meant.

Jerry got the point immediately. I was making fun of the Junior Senator's ears, which I have admitted as perhaps tasteless. I will now revise that as being accurately tasteless.

As I assume you think calling Bush "Monkey Boy" is.

So unless you can provide some proof for your "homophobic" claim I think I will just mark it down as another smear. I mean, you did write:

ppj does as ppj does (none / 0) (#30)
by squeaky on Sat Mar 03, 2007 at 09:58:35 PM EST

(I had written.)So because Rove is doing wrong, it is okay for you to do wrong?

(You replied.)I have no problem with alleging that Rove's grandparents were Nazi's. Even if they were not, he uses Goebbels' propaganda techniques as a bible and may as well be a born and bred Nazi.

Well, at some point, my identity, likely because I did not cloak it properly, was used to attack me because of my expressed views.

Sure, there are (I'm sure) thousands of examples of anonymous writing throughout history.  But, WHY was it anonymous?  1) It had to be for fear of persecution, 2) It had to be to be published, and/or 3) To protect the author's identity and personal life from scrutiny.

You see it today with actors, singers, etc, using fake names.  You saw it with Mark Twain, who was actually Samuel Clemens.  You saw it with women writing under a man's name when women authors weren't allowed.  You saw it with our own founding fathers.  Sure, I can accept that people write under false or anonymous names.  I did it myself.  No biggy.

2) Stripping away the anonymity

I can see a reason for this; credibility as an "expert" on a subject.  A very standard line is; I'm not a doctor, I just play one on the internet.

A person can use google and, suddenly, they can be a doctor on a blog.  Or an astronaut.  Or a cop.  Anything other than a Burger King grill boy/girl.  

Even though I have about 19 years as a bomb technician, I don't consider myself an expert on the subject (we got that drilled into us at NAVSCOLEOD) even though, by rule 702, because of my experience, training, etc, I would be considered an expert witness.  And with 6 years in law enforcement, I most surely don't claim to be an expert.  I claim to be "knowledgeable" in my fields.

But, the issue online becomes one of credibility.  Take Larry Johnson at No Quarter, for instance.  He is much more credible to read on intelligence analysis than some person on the internet who comments/blogs under a nick of "Spyman".

The best example I can think of where this came into play is an email exchange I had with an individual who blogs anonymously on the internet about 9/11.  The person commented that "anyone who believed in 9/11 conspiracy theories wasn't credible" (paraphrasing)and mentioned Ray McGovern specifically.  My response to this person was that if this person wanted to put their credibility as an anonymous blogger against the likes of Ray McGovern, Paul Craig Roberts, Catherine Fitts, Bill Christison, etc, they would lose that battle every time.  It was a laughable statement.  An anonymous person was claiming that Ray McGovern wasn't credible!

For myself, I started out commenting under an anonymous name.  Then I started my own blog under a moniker.  I wrote diaries under that moniker.  I "outed" myself when I got politically active and I saw zero reason to stay anonymous on the internet.     Others have followed the same route I have, so, it isn't new or unheard of (an example right off the top of my head would be Brandon, aka, The Angry Rakkasan at DailyKos).

I think it all comes down to the individual and if they are comfortable with being "out" or not.  Most aren't, and that is fine.  Some are.  Some need to be.  

As for your premise of "do I need to know who you are to realize you're talking nonsense", that is a double-edged sword.  No, on the one side, you (or anyone else) don't have to know who the person is to disagree with them.  People disagree all the time, even two people in the same profession.  Disagreement is common.  But, and this is the other side, when you use words like "nonsense" in the disagreement, it becomes a matter of credibility on the issue.  Truly, how much credibility does "Spyman" have to tell Larry Johnson his analysis is nonsense over the internet?  

I guess I am a bit hung up on the word "nonsense" here.  Disagreement to me is one thing.  People disagree all the time.  I disagreed with an analysis Larry Johnson wrote, but, I never told him that his analysis was nonsense - just that I disagreed with it and why.

Robero in Utah

It's amazing the numbers of former feminist leaders that decry the directions that modern feminist has taken.  Nancy DeCrow, Doris Lessing, Betty Dobson and many others.

If you spend time at the major feminist blogs, you can see lots of speech code, thought policing in action.

As a commenter and not a blogger, I have been struck by how insightful my partition of the blogosphere is, the free commenters vs. the heavily moderated commenters.

Free commenting blogs include (in no particular order.)

Atrios, Hullabaloo, Ezra Klein, Matthew Yglesias, TalkLeft, Oliver Willis, TBogg, Cathy Young, Glenn Sacks, Brad DeLong, Amy Alkon, Balloon Juice, Political Animal, TPM Cafe, Salon

(I don't have much experience with the mega group blogs like the great orange satan)

Heavily moderated blogs where I have personally seen many people banned, and comments deleted and even altered with no mention of this to the readers:

Little Green Footballs, Free Republic, Red State, Hot Air, Patterico, Protein Wisdom, TheGarance, Pandagon, Feministing, Feministe, Alas a blog, and many other right wing blogs and it seems almost all modern feminist blogs.

I think the way these blogs have partitioned themselves is very revealing.  It tells me that the "modern feminists" and the right wing bloggers are authoritarians that require message control and probably have other things in common as well.

It also tells me that many women that identify as libertarians, or not as "modern feminists" are actually much closer to what I consider are liberal progressive values that the modern feminists are who cozy up to these values to hide their actual pernicious messages.

The feminists bloggers usually say they require the heavy moderation in order to create a safe environment in which women can be encouraged to speak out.  I have no idea what that means.  I can understand the need for this in the real world, in an auditorium, but on the net?  Where almost everyone uses a pseudonym?  They are telling me that woman are every bit the equal of men (something I absolutely believe) but that they are so shy and fragile that they would be afraid to speak out in a forum unless that forum has heavy comment moderation and banning of users?

Due to that I try to take some of my cues from the fervid free speech advocates: Wendy Kaminer, Nadine Strossen, ....

we are all pretty much anonymous because, as someone else noted, how would we know for sure? and really, how much difference does it make? an idiot is still an idiot, whether they're anonymous, or sean hannity.

I saw him on Hardball tonight, and Tweety starts in on the Hillary and Woodstock nonsense, and instead of redirecting the focus by saying something simple and strong like "We should focus on getting out of Iraq, not 40 year old arguments"  Ezra says "I think debating who is a hippie or a soldier is dull."  It's bad enough that Tweety didn't even bring up the word "hippie" but he whiffed on a juicy-fat-one Tweety left hanging over the plate (due to Tweety's mccain-man-crush).

  Obviously, as I write here anonymously under a pseudonym, I believe in the  benefits of doing so. Some of my perceived benefits are entirely personal. Whether or not I wrote anything controversial there is the possibility that in a forum accessible to anyone,  mischevious or worse uses  could be made of my identity in areas that have nothing to do with politics and with no personal motive against me, just exploitaion of an opportunity.  Moreover, as I do very occasionally write something controversial I don't want to be take even the slight risk of people  angered by what I have written doing something malicious or just crazy.

  Beyond that I do think people do feel more open to make certain comments that are enlightening precisely because the source is unknown. I'm self-employed so unlike some others I don't have the worry that something I might write would offend or anger my employers, partners or fellow members. Is it possible though that something I have written would be be viewed negatively by a judge or client or prospective client? I really don't want to test that and at the least would be more circumspect in  if not refrain entirely from debates if known.

  So, I think self-censorship for fear of complicating professional relationships is a real likelihood and I think that would contract the "marketplace of ideas."

   On the other hand there is no doubt that the cloak of anonymity raises its own potential negatives. One is the lack of mutual trust sometimes displayed here. We see, less frequently recently it seems, accusations levied that certain people are falsely portraying themselves in various ways ranging from  embellishing credentials to being "enemy agents" working in an organized effort to accomplish some nefarious purpose. That sometimes leads the discussions into less than worthwhile directions.