You can file this story in a number of different categories: the inability of many New York politicians to grasp the nature of blogs, the cozy way in which political machines do business, the heavy-handed means by which these same machines preserve their power, and lastly, the perils of hosting a forum where anyone can speak out above stuff.

And by stuff, I mean "things people in positions of power would prefer not be talked about".

Per Room 8, that site was served with a criminal subpoena, coupled with a gag order, demanding the release of logs pertaining to a single anonymous blogger on the site. The subpoena was issued in January by the Bronx District Attorney, who was one of the subjects of the posts of the anonymous blogger; you can deduce from the fact that a subpoena was issued that these posts were not in the nature of praise. Unfortunately, the anonymous poster in question deleted all of his entries, but some of them are cached here (.pdf). As an aside, CultureKitchen Media, the publishing entity of this site and others, keeps a lawyer on retainer as a precaution against precisely this scenario.

Ben Smith and Gur Tsabar, the publishers of Room 8, decided to fight the subpoena with the help of a public-interest law firm, and filed papers in state court demanding it be withdrawn.

So we chose to fight the subpoena, and were lucky to be referred – by our friend Orthomom, whom he’d represented – to a talented, dynamic lawyer at the Public Citizen Litigation Group, Paul Alan Levy, a national expert on online free speech. (Support his work here.) He and our smart, thorough, generous, and knowledgeable local counsel – Charlie Spada and Deepa Rajan of Lankler, Siffert, & Wohl – first determined that the Bronx DA was, in fact, seeking the information. Then, in May, they filed a motion to quash the subpoena in state court. (You can read the legal paperwork here.)

Two months later, after we asked the judge to move on the case, the DA withdrew his subpoena. They withdrew the threat of prosecution for speaking about it only after we threatened to sue them in federal court. We’re thrilled by the outcome, and grateful to our lawyers.

With the immediate legal peril removed and the gag order lifted, it's time to take a look at what actually happened here. The outlines of that are damning. An anonymous poster made comments and posted diaries on a blog that were critical of the bi-partisan Bronx machine, including of the local District Attorney, one Robert Johnson. Shortly thereafter, a Grand Jury empaneled by the same D.A. issued a criminal subpoena demanding details captured by the site in an attempt to identify this poster. Subsequently, the poster - his handle is "Republican Dissident" - or someone presumably acting on his behalf deleted the diaries in question.

The New York Times discusses some of the underlying constitutional issues here.

Lawsuits over information posted online are usually civil, not criminal — that is, they are filed by private citizens or companies trying to keep something off the Web. Courts have developed ways to evaluate the claims, often using tests to balance the First Amendment’s protections of speech against the harm caused by whatever someone wrote or said.[...]

But there are fewer precedents explaining how courts should evaluate criminal subpoenas, according to legal experts. Perhaps that is because prosecutors are more cautious about the risk of violating the First Amendment and so issue fewer criminal subpoenas, or because the subpoenas themselves carry language prohibiting disclosure of their terms.

“In the criminal context it’s trickier because it’s the government asking for stuff, and I think it’s going to be harder to fashion a rule, especially when the government is not exactly willing to part with the reasons” for requesting the information in the first place, said Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor at Harvard.

Without knowing the motives of prosecutors, he continued, judges may be hard-pressed to balance their needs against the importance of free speech.

The core of First Amendment jurisprudence is the concept of a chilling effect on Free Speech; broadly, the government may not take certain actions that might intimidate a citizen from exercising his or her right to speak on whatever he or she may choose. There are obviously restrictions to the general principle, including for libel, obscenity, national security, trade secrets, and the like. What was at stake in this case, however, wasn't any of these concerns; it seems, rather, like an attempt to promote the job security of various elected officials, including the issuer of the subpoena, the elected District Attorney himself.

In short, this looks entirely too much like an abuse of power and of judicial process in the furtherance of strictly political goals. Of course, there may be perfectly reasonable justifications for the subpoena, reasons that outweigh the chilling effect.

We could learn about those reasons by means of an independent investigation. State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, who has oversight of the District Attorneys, would be the right man to talk to about that.

Tracey Brooks, running for Congress in the 21st District, sent out a remarkable press release today.

Democratic Congressional candidate Tracey Brooks today announced the launch of her online advertising campaign, posting her first ad to The Albany Project, www.thealbanyproject.com, a leading political and campaign blogosphere resource.[...]

"We're so excited to launch our first online ad -- and do it on a blog -- as we continue to bring our message of change directly to the people in new and exciting ways," said Brooks.

"We are the first campaign to post an online ad, as we were the first to reach thousands of voters in a single night through a telephone town hall meeting. We were also the first to launch YouTube videos, online volunteer registration, online fundraising, and internet social networking tools." [Emphasis added]

What's remarkable is that she's right: her campaign is the first in this entire cycle to buy an ad on a blog. Think about this for a moment: only one campaign in the state of New York has bought an ad on a Progressive blog for the 2008 elections. Or maybe that's not so much remarkable as it's sad.

So I just cruised on over to Room Eight, which I very rarely do, and found this bit of piffle. My apologies if this isn't, shall we say, timely. The subject is the state blog credential to the Democratic National Convention in Denver, which for this state, to everyone's astonishment, went to that blog.

Under the heading of Room Eight Envy, we find this:

The DNC [Ed. note: Actually, it was the DNCC, which is a different animal] earlier this month unveiled its 55 picks. Predictably, complaints from the feisty independent blogosphere started to emerge, the most high profile of which came from the progressive blogfathers themselves, DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas and OpenLeft co-founder Matt Stoller.

The piece is a teaser for this article in Wired (to which I contributed a number of emails, so I'm somewhat surprised it came out as it did), which deals with the controversy over state blog credentials at the DNCC.

So I just have to point out that envy isn't really what's being felt on the subject. Surprise, consternation, amusement, sure. Envy? No, not really, or not at all.

I'd further suggest that, honestly, this type of rhetoric isn't going to further the kind of era of good feelings some of us have been trying to foster over the entire mess. Something that looks like a sharp stick in the eye or even, heavens forfend, gloating, isn't all that helpful. Because, you know, that would tend to piss people off royally.

You may have heard of the monicker, "netroots". It's used to define bloggers who emerged "organically" online --without any intervention of mainstream media or political institutions-- and have been transformed into a powerhouse of meshed political interests. That may be a bit debatable in some cases, yet it's clear that many digital grassroots movements have indeed started without the intervention of corporate or political interests.

Which is why the word astroturfing was invented. Originally it was used to define how a company or interest group would deliberately open up webiste or blog to make make it look as if a random citizen is advocating their cause. Nowadays you can find such activity in forums, discussion lists and in the recent astroturfing scandal, tampering with Wikipedia.

Now we have the potential astroturfing shenanigans of a certain Mr. Caputo. To say that there's more than a few things I love about this whole drama, is to put it mildly.

Chris Bowers on Open Left has a fun and easy project eminently suitable for New Yorkers still flabbergasted that it could occur to anyone to consider Three Wives Rudy for the Presidency: a Google Bomb. The idea is simple: If you have a web site, add the words Rudy Giuliani and link them to an article that's a little bit more illustrative of the real Rudy than the Panglossian spin produced by the lame-ass media, let alone his campaign.

Bowers:

# That Rudy Giuliani was the only candidate not invited to speak to the Firefighters presidential Forum is now #10 on a Google search for Rudy Giuliani

# Rudy Giuliani is worse than Bush is now #25 on a Google search for Rudy Giuliani.

# How Rudy Giuliani was kicked off the Iraq Study Group because he never showed up for meetings is now #26 on a Google search for Rudy Giuliani.

Go for it, New Yorkers. We know better than most that this guy can't be let anywhere near the White House.

Briefly noted via The Albany Project comes this bit of surprising news: the editors of Capitol Confidential have never heard of Rochester Turning, in my considered opinion one of the best blogs in the state of New York.

What Phil said:

That the writers of what is likely the most widely read political site in New York were completely unaware of one the state's best written and most effective blogs is completely astounding. It's even worse when you consider that RT front pager Jrviper is making the rest of the statewide media look silly by completely owning them on a potentially significant story. This is citizen journalism at its finest and it should shame those in the media who have so far been completely unaware of such a great site and the great work that they do.

Amen. But there's more.

Eliot Spitzer's first foray into blogging created a huge splash on Daily Kos.

His diary on Kos was recommended by 378 Kosacks, making the Recommended List in record time. The diary, at this writing, attracted 395 comments. This makes the Spitzer diary probably the top diary of the day in terms of impact and response the #5 diary on all of Daily Kos on August 6th, 2007.

His tip jar was the top-rated comment of the day on all of Daily Kos. That comment is here.

Governor Spitzer officially became a Kossack today, with his first posting on Daily Kos and The Albany Project.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the netroots community on a successful weekend in Chicago. The continued success of Yearly Kos is a testament to the power of the ideas you support.

The vitality and quality of the debate on sites like this one proves that there is a powerful movement growing to fundamentally change government. You’ve demonstrated that on-line activism and discussion can advance our national dialogue in significant and meaningful ways.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Sir. We look forward to welcoming you here as well.

Good Lord, what a fantastic experience; if y'all didn't make the YearlyKos in Chicago, take it from me, you've missed an absolutely amazing experience.

Most of the sizable New York delegation has crawled made its way home by now; here are some of the participants.

Liza Sabater

Ben Smith

Brian Keeler

These good-looking, fine folks publish Rochester Turning, the best blog about upstate New York. You City people: go read it.

More over the fold...

Well, here's some good news: some of the folks from the News Blog, the platform of the late Steve Gilliard, are carrying on his mission at a new venture - the Group News Blog.

That's a fine development, and we wish them all the best. Blogroll addition forthcoming.