In the landscape of mind, Web and law, New Jersey is right here in the South.

What the elected officials of the New Jersey Township of Manalapan would do to the anonymous Blogspot blogger "datruthsquad" (http://datruthsquad.blogspot.com), some whom I knew well during my years as a newspaper journalist would gladly do here to any voice they found inconvenient.

Unrestrained by apparent lack of cause, the township has had its attorneys subpoena Google for the identity of and contact information of "datruthsquad," even though the blogger has apparently not even gone so far as to make a factual error which required correction.

Deliberately stilted language notwithstanding, the blog has somewhat the tone of responsible newspaper commentary one can still find on the editorial page of a good, small-town newspaper.

Everything about the case suggests to me that elected town officials are stinging from the revelations by and criticisms of "datruthsquad," and seek to silence him/her by filing an inappropriate legal action.

There is public business they would prefer to conduct in the dark, again, that "datruthsquad" has brought into the light -- political deals, odd costs, a statement with ethnic implications and the like.

IMHO, we are all fortunate that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has taken up legal arms on behalf of "datruthsquad" and has moved to quash the subpoena.

Democratic government cannot be well-conducted in the dark, and this anonymous author is casting goog light.

Yet anonymity is sometimes required if one is to both make responsible contributions to public discourse, and also put bread on the family table.

              

Reading of Kathy Sierra's travails, I was reminded that occasional death threats, anonymous and face-to-face harassment were small parts of putting out a daily newspaper editorial page during the decades before the dawn of the Web.

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