43 furthermore nothing prevents an 34 id at 1594 n64

''43
Furthermore, nothing
prevents an
34. Id. at 1594 n.64.
35. See id. at 1604.
36. Gutman, supra note
6, at 161.
37. Pennington, supra note
30, at 1585.
38. See Rozierv. St. Mary's Hosp., 411 N.E.2d 50, 53-54
(Il1. App. Ct. 1980).
39. S. Elizabeth Wilbom, Revisiting the Public/Private
Distinction: Employee Monitoring in
the Workplace, 32 GA. L. REV. 825, 829
(1998).
40. Id. at 828-30.
41. See id. at 830-31.
42. See Gutman,
supra note 6, at 147-48 (describing the case of Steve Olafson, whose
blogging resulted in the termination
of his employment with a reputable newspaper).
43. Krause, supra note 7.

BLOGGERS AND THE
WORKPLACE
employer from not
hiring a potential employee because of his blog. 4 Thus,
bloggers should exercise
the same, if not greater, decorum and restraint
online as they would on the telephone or through e-mail,
because their
professional careers may be at stake.
IV.
RIGHT
To
ANONYMITY
A. Anonymity as a Defense to Employers
So how can employees protect themselves from employer retribution?
The EFF
advises bloggers to blog anonymously.
45
The EFF also advises
password-protecting the blog, incorporating
technical tools to prevent the
blogger from being traced via their Internet address, and removing the blog
from search engines such as Google.
46
But is posting anonymously really the answer? Can a blogger post
anything anonymously without fear of repercussion? Even the EFF warns
that
blogging anonymously is not as easy as one might think.
47
Often,
revealing general details can reveal the blogger's place of employment,
if
not identity. 48 Thus, although
the EFF does not spell out the law regarding
the legal limits of blogging anonymously,
it emphasizes that the
anonymous
blogger must still blog in a "work-safe way" to avoid
repercussions.
49
B. The Legal Limits to Anonymous
Blogging
Although the First Amendment does not protect bloggers from saying
whatever they want without risking termination
from employment, the
Supreme Court has held that there is a First Amendment
right to freedom of
expression on the Internet
5°
and anonymity.
51
In McIntyre v. Ohio
Elections Commission, the Court held that an Ohio statutory prohibition
44.
See Gutman, supra note 6, at 152 n.50.
45. Electronic Frontier Foundation, How
to Blog Safely (About Work or Anything Else),
EFF.ORG,
May 31, 2005, ("The
best way to blog and still preserve some privacy is to do it anonymously.").
46. Id.
.47. Id.
48. Id.
49. Id.
50. Reno
v. ACLU, 521 U.S. 844, 885 (1997) ("The interest in encouraging freedom of
expression in a democratic society outweighs any
theoretical but unproven benefit of
censorship.").
51. McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Comm'n, 514 U.S. 334, 342 (1995).
2006]

214 LOYOLA OF LOS ANGELES ENTERTAINMENT LAW REVIEW [Vol. 26:207
against distribution of anonymous campaign literature violated the First
Amendment.
52
The Court found that expressing oneself anonymously is
grounded within our constitutional and historical tradition.