Volume I

Issue : 6: September 18, 2003

• Three Privacy Studies Recently Released
• Florida Supreme Court Rules State Employees Are Not Required to Disclose Emails
• Over 27 Million Victims of Identity Theft In The Last Five Years
• CIRA s New Policies and Amendments Effective as of September 25 2003
• UKs Advertising Standard Authority Issues First Spam Decision
• Delivery of Pop up Ads Found to be Legal
• Harvard Publishes UDRP Guide
• U.S. Court of Appeals Upholds City Refusal to Include Link To Publication Critical of City Officials
• U.S. Recording Industry Takes Action Against Individual Users and Announces Amnesty
• U.S. Justice Department Files Injunction to Shut Down RxDepot
• First Case Under Amber Alert Legislation
• Ontario To Use Software to Meet Privacy and Access to Information Laws
• Alberta Court of Appeal Upholds Acquittal of Spammer
• FDA Warns Website Selling Canadian Pharmaceuticals

Home > Volume I > Issue 6: September 18, 2003 > U.S. Court of Appeals Upholds City Refusal to Include Link To Publication Critical of City Officials

U.S. Court of Appeals Upholds City Refusal to Include Link To Publication Critical of City Officials

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Putnam Pit v. City of Cookeville upheld a jury decision that a City acted constitutionally when it denied a request to include a hypertext link to the tabloid Putnam Pit, an online tabloid critical of local officials.

Putnam Pit is owned and published by Geoffrey Davidian, a journalist, who became interested in Cookeville, Putnam County, Tennessee when he learned of the unsolved murder of a Cookeville woman in 1995. He decided to publish the Putnam Pit, first in print form and then exclusively electronically, to expose alleged government corruption. In a case that attracted international interest in 1998, Davidian unsuccessfully sued to obtain access to cookies stored on the City's computers to investigate alleged improper computer-use. He has also sued City officials and an attorney for allegedly hacking his website.

At the time of his hyperlink request, the City had various links to organizations and businesses on its website. In response, the City adopted different linking polices, finally denying his request on that basis that the City's policy only permitted links to other websites that "promote the economic welfare, commerce, tourism and industry of the local area." Davidian altered his site to have a page entitled "Commerce and Tourism" but the content did not meet the approval of the City Manager. The City has since stopped posting links to any site.

At trial, the jury concluded that the Putnam Pit site did not met the City's eligibility criteria and thus could not entertain the question of whether Davidian's constitutional rights were denied. The Court of Appeals found the conclusion was amply supported by the evidence, including the publication's satirical and critical tone. Putnam Pit intends to petition the Supreme Court for certiorari.

For a copy of the decision, visit:

http://www.putnampit.com/databases/opinion01-6599.pdf