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One of the first things we do when we sign up for a new website or platform online is to pick a name a username, screen name or handle sometimes unrelated to the name on our government ID. Part of the fun of creating an online persona can be picking a creative or funny pseudonym.

Its not all puns and games though. Anonymity can protect privacy and keep people like whistleblowers and activists safe; it can also shield bad behavior.

How can we balance the right to hide our identity with the potential harms of anonymity?

According to Jeff Kosseff, associate professor in the United States Naval Academy Cyber Science Department and author of The United States of Anonymous: How the First Amendment Protects Online Speech, this question is not new. Anonymous speech really is fundamental to the history of the United States.

In fact, many arguments for independence during the colonial era were made anonymously or pseudonymously with a pen name. So were arguments in support of the Constitution while it was being drafted.

In 1958, the Supreme Court protected the right to associate anonymously , saying the NAACP in Alabama could not be forced to reveal its membership lists. NAACP leaders at the time were regularly targeted with violence. Florida organizer Harry T. Moore and his wife Harriette were murdered in a bombing of their home on Christmas 1951 thought to be motivated by their anti-racist activism. Revealing the names of NAACP members would likely have endangered those members too.

Why do we need anonymity?

According to Kosseff, there are good reasons to protect anonymity. The ability to speak freely can help separate the content of the speech from the identity of the speaker. Sometimes, if people know who the speaker is, they might think differently about the message. Anonymity can lessen this bias.

More importantly, being anonymous can protect vulnerable people. People who need to have a voice but dont have the ability to associate their real name with that speech have a very good reason to want to speak anonymously, Kosseff says.

The civil rights movement provides several examples of how anonymity can help keep people safe, like the NAACP v. Alabama case. In a 1960 case, the Supreme Court protected the right of civil rights activists to call out via an anonymous pamphlet a supermarket that was discriminating against Black customers. Because of resistance to new civil rights laws, activists could have been in danger if they had been forced to reveal their identities.

This right, Kosseff says, has been reaffirmed by liberal and conservative justices . One example is a 1995 case overturning an Ohio law that required election publications to include authors names.

What about anonymity protecting bad actors?

The First Amendment protects anonymity (in most cases). It also protects the right to say unpopular or even abhorrent things (with some exceptions), anonymously or otherwise. You cant just use a subpoena to unmask someone whos been mean to you, Kosseff says. The courts have set a fairly high First Amendment standard for being able to subpoena identifying information of online posters.

Getting rid of anonymous speech online wouldnt prevent disagreeable speech, Kosseff says, because people say bad things using their real names, too. Some research shows that being able to use pseudonyms could have mixed or even positive impacts on online civility .

That said, different platforms have different policies. Some, like Facebook, technically require user profiles to use real names.

Online pseudonyms arent absolute or perfect, either. Criminals can and do get unmasked for speech that is truly beyond the protections of the First Amendment. In criminal cases or instances of speech that isnt protected , like true threats, it can be possible to pursue whos behind the screenname.

What does online anonymity look like around the world?

Kosseff says anonymity online is a spectrum. People can control what level of identifying information that they post online. So, to some extent, its up to everyone to decide if theyll provide no clues as to their identity at all or be fully transparent about who they are. Kosseff notes that its often possible for other users online to compile various facts youve shared about yourself to learn a lot about you even potentially your identity.

Theres also spectrum to how anonymity online is treated legally around the world. In Europe, privacy is a fundamental human right. Legal protections for anonymity there are more grounded in privacy than in free expression arguments. In authoritarian places, anonymity is difficult or prohibited.

Do we need a national privacy law?

One question Kosseff says we should ask is How do we better safeguard identifying information so that people can operate anonymously, and we can preserve the values that really underlie so much of our First Amendment precedent?

A national privacy law, he says, could place less burden on individual users to protect their data and provide much-needed guidance for users on how their data can be shared by companies.

First Five is a monthly column on First Amendment issues produced by The Freedom Forum, a nonpartisan nonprofit founded by Al Neuharth. First Five is an effort to inform citizens on the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.

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First Five: How the First Amendment protects anonymous speech online - INFORUM

OKLAHOMA CITY Two former top-ranking members of the Oklahoma Veterans Commission filed suit against Gov. Kevin Stitt on Friday, alleging that he violated their First Amendment right to support his political opponent.

Larry Wayne Van Schuyver, former Veterans Commission chairman and a retired Navy command master chief, and Paul D. Costilow, former vice chairman and a retired Army brigadier general who served in Vietnam, filed the suit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma.

They allege that Stitt removed them from the Oklahoma Veterans Commission for supporting Joel Kintsel in his bid to unseat the governor. They were notified of their removal two days after Stitt defeated Kintsel in the primary.

Kintsel is executive director of the Oklahoma Department of Veterans Affairs. The commission hires and fires the executive director.

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Stitt has replaced commission members who voted to give Kintsel a leave of absence to run for governor, Van Schuyver said.

Mark Hammons, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said Stitt violated the right of political affiliation.

Ironically, he has denied that right to the people who fought to make sure we would have that right in this country, Hammons said.

Retaliating against someone for exercising a First Amendment right is unlawful, he added.

The suit also says the plaintiffs did not support a plan by Stitt to privatize the states seven veterans centers.

Van Schuyver, who was wounded while deployed to Iraq, opposed the plan because he believes it would outsource management of veterans care, reduce the quality of service and increase the cost, according to the suit.

About half of the Oklahoma veterans in the homes would not qualify to continue living there under privatization, Van Schuyver claims, adding in an interview with the Tulsa World on Friday that he thinks Stitt probably wants to give operation of those homes to his cronies.

Hammons said another suit will be filed next week to challenge one of Stitts appointees.

Stitt appointed Robert W. Allen Jr. on Thursday to replace Van Schuyver and Scott B. Sweeney to replace Costilow.

Hammons claims that Stitt did not follow the law in appointing Allen. Hammons said the appointment had to come from among five names submitted by the Military Order of the Purple Heart, and Van Schuyver, who is commander of the organization, said he had never heard of Allen. The organization did not offer Allens name for consideration, Van Schuyver said.

He doesnt get to go out and pick a political buddy, Hammons said.

Van Schuyver said the end goal for him is to put the governor in his place and make it a fair process for appointing commissioners.

Despite the two new appointments, the nine-member Veterans Commission failed to reach a quorum to meet on Friday.

An agenda item for the slated meeting was a discussion about the roles of the commission and the secretary of military and veterans affairs.

Stitt recently appointed John Nash to that post, and Nash received Senate confirmation.

Kintsel said Nash is trying to exercise power over the agency, for which there is no legal authority.

We are starting to struggle mightily as to who is in what lane, Kintsel said. Under the law, the secretary plays no role operationally. And this seems to be difficult for this appointee to understand.

Stitts office did not respond to a request for comment.

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Veterans sue Stitt for alleged violation of First Amendment rights - Tulsa World

A bill making its way through the South Carolina legislature would place a near-total ban on abortions, prohibiting the procedure except in cases where the life of the mother is at risk.

The measure, a draft of which is currently being considered by the state senate's Medical Affairs Committee, would also criminalize helping a person obtain an abortion including providing information about how to obtain an abortion. Under the current bill draft, a person who provides information could be prosecuted if they know the information "will be used, or is reasonably likely to be used for an abortion" and could face up to 25 years in prison.

Indiana-based attorney James Bopp, general counsel for the National Right to Life Committee, which opposes abortion rights, helped draft the South Carolina bill.

National Right to Life wants to restore full legal protection to the unborn under the law, Bopp said. Since Roe v. Wade has been overturned, we can now do that.

But some legal experts think parts of the bill are on shaky legal ground and may violate the U.S. Constitution.

This particular law is constitutionally overbroad, Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles who specializes in First Amendment law, said. It covers speech that is constitutionally protected.

According to Volokh, the "aiding and abetting" portion of the draft bill would have more legal standing if it was narrowly focused on illegal abortions in the state.

If abortion is illegal and Supreme Court has said that it could be made illegal, then that does allow punishing at least certain kinds of speech related to abortion just like this is true with all crimes, he said.

The courts have repeatedly decided speech that encourages or solicits a person to commit a crime is not constitutionally protected, Volokh said. Just like assisting in a robbery could carry criminal penalties, he said, assisting in someones illegal abortion could legally carry penalties, too.

Jessie Hill, a law professor at Case Western University, said the problem with the South Carolina bill is it doesnt seem to distinguish between illegal and legal abortions.

For example, there's nothing that says specifically that the abortion being facilitated or about which information is given, Hill said. It doesn't say that that has to be an illegal abortion.

That, Hill said, could lead to punishing people who provide information about how to get abortions in other states, like North Carolina, where the procedure is legal.

If the abortion services are legal in those other states, then giving information about that is not normally a crime. And it can't be, Hill said. The states can't generally apply their laws beyond their own borders in that way.

Hill said criminalizing speech about a legal procedure likely violates the First Amendment since its not inciting or encouraging someone to commit a crime.

Bopp, of the National Right to Life Committee, maintains the bill is focused on illegal abortions and is fully constitutional.

South Carolina only has authority over acts committed in their own state," Bopp said. "And this would be an illegal abortion, which means an abortion illegal under the laws of South Carolina. If an actual abortion occurred outside the state, then it's not covered and it can't be covered.

The Medical Affairs Committee has scheduled a full-day of public input on South Carolina abortion legislation post-Roe for Aug. 17. The draft measure could be changed before going before the full state Senate for a vote.

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Draft version of SC abortion bill raises concern among First Amendment experts - WFAE

LocalThe American flag, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts flag, and the City of Boston flag, from left, fly outside Boston City Hall. Charles Krupa/Associated Press

By Danny McDonald, The Boston Globe

Following years of controversy and First Amendment litigation that ultimately wound its way to the nations highest court, a flag bearing a red Christian cross is slated to fly outside Boston City Hall later this week. Wednesdays flag-raising will take place three months after the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that the City of Boston violated the First Amendment rights of Camp Constitution, a Christian group, when city authorities refused to fly the banner outside City Hall in 2017.

In a ruling written by the since-retired justice Stephen Breyer, the high court said that Boston was wrong to deny the group, run by West Roxbury resident Harold Shurtleff, a permit to raise a white banner with a red Christian cross in connection with Constitution Day on Sept. 17, the date the US Constitution was signed in Philadelphia in 1787.

The legal organization Liberty Counsel, which represented Shurtleff in the litigation, said in a Monday press release that the flag will be raised on one of the public flagpoles on City Hall Plaza at 11 a.m. on Wednesday. Mayor Michelle Wus office confirmed Monday the flag-raising ceremony was scheduled for Wednesday, but did not immediately offer further comment.

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Christian flag at heart of Supreme Court First Amendment case is scheduled to fly at Boston City Hall - Boston.com

The Supreme Court declared organized prayer in public schools unconstitutional in 1962. My grandfather ended it in my mothers elementary school class earlier than that. According to the story, one night when my mother was saying her prayers, she said a line that my grandmother detected was the Protestant version. She asked my mother where she learned it and my mother said that she learned it in school. School prayer was common back then, even in East Haven.

The next day my grandfather went to the school. He told the principal that it wasnt right for Catholic kids to have to say Protestant prayers. He might have also said some other things. My mothers class didnt say another organized prayer. Thereafter, in 1962, the Supreme Court decided Engel v. Vitale, holding that a compulsory, state-sponsored prayer in public schools violated the First Amendment. Writing for a 6-1 majority, Justice Black reasoned It is neither sacrilegious nor anti-religious to say that each separate government in this country should stay out of the business of writing or sanctioning official prayers and leave that purely religious function to the people themselves and to those the people choose to look to for religious guidance.

A year later, in Abington School District v. Schempp, the court held that public schools could not lead religious exercises, which included reading Bible verses and reciting the Our Father over the loudspeaker. Justin Clarke wrote in that decision, In the relationship between man and religion, the State is firmly committed to a position of neutrality.

We learn in elementary school that the Pilgrims came to America to worship freely. Religious liberty in the United States, however, developed over the next few centuries. The Constitution prohibits a religious test to hold federal office. Although the First Amendment was ratified in 1791, its Free Exercise and Establishment clauses bound only the federal government until they were incorporated against the states by the Fourteenth Amendment by Supreme Court decisions in the 1940s. Cases involving organized prayer in other public events have continued to reach the Supreme Court since Engel and Schempp.

This past term, in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Supreme Court sided with a public high school football coach who led prayers on the field after games. The school district considered the action to raise Establishment Clause concerns. The majority, contrary to the facts in the record, considered the prayers to be private, not compulsory. While the decision did not overturn the cases of the 1960s that prohibited school prayer, it signaled the courts preference for religion in general and prioritized the religion of an authority figure over the liberty of those under that authority, student athletes.

The Washington Post recently reported that in the month since the Bremerton decision, school districts in various parts of the country are facing efforts from parents and even board members to introduce prayer into school activities. The United States has numerous religions and denominations, very likely because of the First Amendment. Organized or sanctioned prayer in public schools is government endorsement of religion and the imposition of specific beliefs, which may conflict with the beliefs of students, and thereby violate their religious liberty, as they did with those of the Engels, who were Jewish, the Schempps, who were Unitarian, and my own Catholic family, just 60 years ago. In matters of state and religion, be careful what you pray for.

Chris DeMatteo is an attorney based in New Haven.

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Opinion: The thinning wall between church and state - CTPost