Early Withdrawal: AG Greg Abbott rethinks motion to out anonymous blog commenters

Good news: Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott is standing down, for now, on the demand that Google turn over information that could help Bexar County probation director Bill Fitzgerald identify anonymous dissidents on his staff who want to start a labor union. Here's a copy of the withdrawal motion (pdf) filed late this afternoon.

After I wrote earlier this week about the AG's motion to reveal identities of commenters on a probation officers' employee blog, the story was picked up by Elizabeth Allen at the SA Express News' Hearsay blog. I then forwarded this Grits post to Abbott and a couple of members of his staff, and was pleased to receive an email reply and a phone call in response from a high-level staffer, though one who ironically himself would rather remain anonymous.

After reading about the situation on Grits, my source says folks higher up the food chain in the AG's office decided that this "wasn't what we wanted to do." "We're not trying to mess with you guys," my source declared on background. In fact, he said the Texas AG had never before filed a motion seeking IP addresses of blog commenters, even in criminal sex predator cases, and that the AG certainly didn't want to set this precedent in a civil matter.

That said, the AG's withdrawal motion says the defendant "reserves the right to reissue the subpoena" later, so those private reservations expressed in anonymity won't necessarily restrain future legal action. But the act of withdrawing the motion in the first place counts for something.

I've never heard of this before and am still curious as to whether and when Google releases such information or whether they fight it in court. Are anonymous comments really anonymous? Maybe not ultimately - anonymous blogging and commenting could be one of those rights we lose rather than protect in the courts if we don't pay close attention and defend it.