From an OpEd by Frank Miniter:
Even if you didn’t commit a crime, and so no warrant has been issued (per your Fourth Amendment rights), the government can still take away your online anonymity, says a court. Even if all you did was use your First Amendment-protected right to speak about a private company online, the government can unmask you.
This is what occurred in a ruling against Glassdoor, an online job-review website. Judge Diane J. Humetewa of the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona ruled that the U.S Department of Justice (DOJ) can compel a private company—say, Facebook, Yelp, Twitter…—to give up your private information just because you expressed an opinion online.
Read more on Forbes. It helps to have some background on the case to understand why the DOJ is trying to unmask posters. You can find some of that in this earlier WSJ article. Does the government, who obtained a criminal grand jury subpoena, have a compelling need to identify commenters in this case? What do you think?
h/t, Joe Cadillic