The US Attorney for Nevada is going after a Las Vegas newspaper in order to get information on certain commenters on its website. The Las Vegas Review-Journal says that the attorney's office is asking for the identities of two specific commenters who made statements that could be construed as threatening to jurors or prosecutors in a case. This request is significantly scaled back from the original demand, however, which the attorney's office now acknowledges was overly broad.

The LVRJ originally received a federal grand jury subpoena on June 2 asking for the identities of every single commenter on a particular article posted to the newspaper's website. The article was about a federal tax fraud case against a local business owner, Robert Kahre, and a number of the comments on the story alluded to (or directly described) physical violence against those who might convict Kahre.

"The sad thing is there are 12 dummies on the jury who will convict him. They should be hung along with the feds," reads one comment on the story. Another commenter wagered a bet that one of the prosecutors would not live to see his next birthday. Newer comments, such as one posted today, read "Death to the taxman. Death to the jury."

Thomas Mitchell, the editor of the LVRJ, said that he planned to fight the request under the First Amendment, describing the anonymous speech as "a fundamental and historic part of this country." He and the newspaper never got far enough to seek to quash the subpoena, however, because federal prosecutors decided that their original action asked for too much information.

According to a new report on the newspaper's website, they told US District Judge David Ezra this week that they had issued the subpoena out of concern for juror safety, but that they decided to back off and only go after two commenters—the one about 12 dummies, and the one betting on the prosecutor's death. Mitchell said that he finds this request to be much more reasonable, and the newspaper plans to hand over whatever info they have on those individuals. "We want to be good citizens and do the proper thing," Mitchell said. "We will give them what we have, which frankly isn't much, since most postings are anonymous."

The situation is not entirely resolved, however. The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada still believes that the request is unreasonable and that it could result in a chilling effect. "We don't think any of the comments we've seen are the appropriate target of government inquiry," ACLU staff attorney Margaret McLetchie told the LVRJ, adding that the ACLU had not seen the comment betting on a prosecutor's death (the newspaper says it was deleted because it violated the site's TOS). Regardless, the organization has moved forward with its own motion to quash the subpoena in hopes of having it declared unconstitutional.

This is a very contentious issue. The courts have generally protected anonymous speech online, though they are not fully aligned on where the line should be drawn. A California appeals court ruled in 2008 that anonymous trolls on the Internet are allowed to remain anonymous, no matter how scathing their comments may be, and a Maryland Appeals Court overturned a ruling earlier this year that would have unveiled the identity of three anonymous Internet commenters. However, a judge in Texas saw it fit to order an online news site to unveil identifying details about hundreds of anonymous commenters. Of course, what could be considered death threats against prosecutors and jurors are on a whole different level than just referring to someone as the "Herpies Queen," so the outcome of the ACLU's motion may not be as predictable as it looks.