by Jonathan D. Wallace

About the author: Jonathan D. Wallace is an attorney and the author of Sex, Law, and Cyberspace: Freedom and Censorship on the Frontiers of the Online Revolution.

In a 1997 decision, a Federal district court in Georgia invalidated a state law criminalizing anonymous and pseudonymous Internet communications. In so doing, the court issued a decision consistent with centuries of American tradition and jurisprudence. Throughout the history of the U.S., pseudonymous and anonymous authors have made a rich contribution to political discourse. Had the court held any other way, it would have fallen into the common trap of treating the Internet as being unique, unrelated to any prior communications media. Instead, the court recognized that there is no distinction to be drawn between anonymous communications on the Net and...