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right, such as to communicate your ideas and complaints, comes with a corresponding responsibility and price. Often quoted is the situation where the Federalist papers were promoted by an anonymous author (actually James Madison). If not for the anonymity we would have no Constitutional guarantees. Not so. Nom de Plumes were a common way of writing, everyone knew who it was.

We should think about returning to taking responsibility for our words and actions. When e-mail first came out the practice of "flaming" offered an anonymous method of expressing displeasure with an opinion or person. Not exactly an overt First Amendment problem, but one of decency and responsibility. Today the blog and blogging on newspaper websites seems to draw out the opinionated, uninformed and severely prejudiced. All under anonymous guidelines. We can never have a civil discussion unless we stand behind what we say and take the responsibility to back it up with facts; and even apologize for a mistake.

We do have a crisis in privacy. The way to solve it is to use electronic communication responsibly, stop hiding behind anonymity, examine our beliefs and eliminate those that are wrongheaded, and xpect that a means of limiting or removing inaccurate, deliberately untruthful or personally harmful messages be devised. The First Amendment has reasonable limits: so should electronic communication.

Learn more about this author, Tom Brennan.
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