An Interesting Ruling For Oregon Bloggers, Commentors and Journalists

Thanks to Oregon's Shield Laws, the discussion in Oregon just got a lot more open:

When Terry Beard became the target of nasty Internet postings, the Portland businessman discovered that a quirk in Oregon law can make it impossible to clear your name, no matter how outrageous the attack.

A judge in Clackamas County ruled that an Oregon law that allows newspapers to shield the identity of news sources also protects anonymous writers who post comments to media Web sites.

The Web sites could not be compelled to identify the writers, Circuit Judge pro tem James Redman ruled and, under federal law, were not responsible for the comments.

In other words, Beard found out, you can say almost anything about anybody on an Oregon media Web site without fear of being unmasked by a lawsuit or prosecuted for libel, defamation or invasion of privacy.