Originally Posted by
rickair7777
That's not quite how it works...
The plaintiff sues the poster, not website operator. The plaintiff is then entitled to gather evidence to support his case.
Usually the "request" would be a subpoena/discovery order...those are not requests, they are court orders which you must comply with. The website operator is not usually getting sued, so he has to comply or face contempt charges...most will not sit in jail to defend some random forum poster whose mouth got the better of his brain.
It would be difficult and unusual to mount a legal defense against a subpoena...you would need to show that the request was not lawful, or that the judge was in collusion with the plaintiff or something like that.
You have to know the identity of someone before you can sue them. Duh! How do you think someone learns the identity of an anonymous poster/blogger? They have their lawyer write a scary letter to the host website asking for their information, and threatening a lawsuit for hosting defamatory comments if they don't. The website then hands over the information and washes their hands of the matter. I know this from personal experience as a mod at FI for 8 years and a friend of the deceased FI founder.