There's a special place for those who quash hyperbole in online comments

[Commentary] On June 2, Reason.com, the website of the libertarian political magazine I edit, received a federal grand jury subpoena from Bharara, Manhattan's U.S. attorney, and his assistant Niketh V. Velamoor demanding “all identifying information” about six people who left comments on a May 31 blog post we published about the harsh sentencing of Ross William Ulbricht, founder of the “dark Web” illegal drug emporium Silk Road. Reason's commenters had been furious at the actions and words of U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest, who sentenced Ulbricht to life in prison without possibility of parole — a harsher punishment than prosecutors had asked for — and accused him of harboring the “deeply troubling, terribly misguided and very dangerous” belief that he “was better than the laws of this country.”

Imagine the fun: A libertarian magazine, which has been criticizing the drug war and government overreach for 47 years while fighting constantly to expand the parameters of free speech, legally barred from talking about an egregious free-speech clampdown in its own lap. Fortunately, other outlets were not so restrained. Before Bharara and Velamoor obtained the gag order, Reason was able to alert the commenters to the subpoena, which was posted June 8 (and criticized witheringly) by the legal blog Popehat. This in turn led to coverage and commentary in scores of publications (sample headline, from Bloomberg View: “Reason Magazine Subpoena Stomps on Free Speech”).

[Matt Welch is the editor in chief of Reason]