Anonymity online

I have written in the past (see here) about posting anonymously to blogs and forums. Well, now a judge in Texas has ruled that the First Amendment doesn't offer the right to libel someone, anonymously or otherwise. Tarrant County District Court Judge Dana Womack served a subpoena to Topix.com to turn over any potentially identifying information it has on 178 people. The people had anonymously posted allegedly defamatory comments on the site about two individuals involved in a sexual assault case. See Computerworld's article about the case here.