I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
The ACLU of Michigan won a victory for an anonymous blogger against a Warren city official when a Macomb County court quashed a subpoena seeking to find out the blogger’s identity from his ISP.
A press release from the ACLU explains the circumstances:
In February 2011, the blogger posted an article on the message board www.warrenforum.net questioning the legitimacy of Assistant City Attorney Ronald Papandrea’s bankruptcy filings. The blogger’s post alleged that the Papandrea had arranged to retire, file for bankruptcy and then be rehired after his debts were discharged.
Soon after the article and link were posted, Papandrea subpoenaed the Internet service provider for information that would reveal the identity of the blogger. The ACLU represented the blogger in asking Circuit Judge Diane Druzinski to quash the subpoena and dismiss the case on First Amendment grounds.
In an April 2011 article published in The Macomb Daily, Papandrea acknowledges that his intention for filing the lawsuit is to censor critics on the message board. He is quoted as saying, “I think the web site has an undue influence on Warren politics – a bad influence. . . . If I can expose it for what it is, people are going to have to debate the real issues. Politicians in this city live in fear of this web site and it affects what they do.”
On Friday, attorneys for Papandrea dismissed the defamation case voluntarily after Judge Druzinski quashed the subpoena.
You can read the judge’s opinion here.
“Free speech is the bedrock of our Constitution and our democracy,” said Burdett. “Since the founding of our nation, anonymous speech has played a significant role in politics. In fact, the Federalist Papers, which argued for the ratification of the Constitution, were written anonymously by our founding fathers.”
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