The law of blogging

    The new X-Men? Disappointing? How can it be? In any case, I hope my answer is at least somewhat fulfilling. First, I have to echo my support for your unflinching stand on free speech in cyberspace. The Electronic Frontier Foundation out of San Francisco has been the vanguard of the "bloggers' rights" movement. Why should, within reason, companies rein in what their employees say and do in their private lives?

    But it's this "within reason" caveat– painful but necessary– that comes around to haunt our theoretical defense of Internet free speech. Nondisclosure agreements are the lifeblood of many companies, especially in an idea-based economy. But where do we draw the line? Is blogging publishing, per se? What, exactly, is a "trade secret?"

    These are thorny questions, to be sure. And I can't provide clear answers to them because so much (of life and of law) is contextual. In response to your idea that a Cleveland desk jockey has little in common with the radical, the cafe owner, and the stablehand– I agree partially. You're right that these disparate people have little in common; and even though they can connect via the Web, it doesn't mean they will. This view has dominated some arguments about whether blogging is "publishing" in a meaningful sense. Like many debates before it, however, technology has drastically changed the terms of the debate. Through aggregators and blog-specific search engines, more people are accessing more blogs than ever before. And they don't need to know where to look– just what they're looking for.

    There's a lot I can and will blog about in law school this fall. It's practically expected of me. But I would dare say there are some things about your job that you may not be allowed to share on this blog. Call it a cop-out, but I think the answer here is balance– a case-by-case approach that reconciles the privacy, property, and free speech rights of employer and employee.

—Daniel Corbett