Memphis police seek ID of critical bloggers

[flashl]

MEMPHIS - The Memphis police director has gone to court trying to find out who's behind an Internet blog that's often critical of his department's leaders.

Director Larry Godwin and the city have filed suit trying to force Internet service provider AOL to release records identifying the producers of the blog called MPD Enforcer 2.0.

The bloggers, using the name of Dirk Diggler after a porn-star character in the movie "Boogie Nights," are often critical of police management and invite e-mails from readers with similar views.

The suit before Chancery Court Judge Kenny Armstrong is under seal and the police department refuses to talk about it, citing the pending litigation.

Knox News

[Radical Activist]

1. Dirk Digglers. That's awesome.

I can't believe the police are going after the guy. Thin skinned morons.

[MadMaddie]

2. So now police departments feel they can't be criticized?

So they are going to out and harrass their critics. This is what a police state looks like. Besides that if the department is not doing anything wrong what are they worried about?

[Ian David]

3. I am Dirk Diggler!

[Ian David]

4. Someone at The Memphis Police Department needs to google, "The Streisand Effect"

Streisand effect
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Streisand effect is a phenomenon on the Internet where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized. Examples are attempts to censor a photograph, a file, or even a whole website, especially by means of cease-and-desist letters. Instead of being suppressed, the information sometimes quickly receives extensive publicity, often being widely mirrored across the Internet, or distributed on file-sharing networks.<1><2> Mike Masnick said he jokingly coined the term in January 2005, “to describe {this} increasingly common phenomenon.”<3> The effect is related to John Gilmore's observation that "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it."<4>

More:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect