Getting dooced

I honestly think a company "doocing" (firing someone over what they anonymously wrote in a blog) is a heinous (I love that word) violation of the First Amendment.

Here's exhibit A: dooce.com (I wonder if this is where the term was coined...)

...and here's exhibit B: Jolie in NYC, as featured on MSNBC (and previously on here, as well).

On Waiter Rant (dated December 14, 2004 for this post), Waiter quotes something of very great relevance here. I quote:

Thomas Paine wrote "Commonsense" anonymously because he was afraid the British would hang him. Waiters don’t want to get fired, blacklisted, or sued as you indicated you would like to do [Waiter said in response to a respondant]. The Supreme Court upheld anonymity in political discourse saying: "Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny ofthe majority” (McIntyre v. Ohio Election Commission) Some legal scholars believe that the Court’s decision has implications for blogs and websites like this one.

I feel that if employers continue to oppress free speech via the Pink Slip for what people say outside company time, they're going to end up in a major legal morass.

As long as the blogger isn't using company time to write these blogs, and as long as the blogger isn't naming names or places that can help the reader identify the company, it could end up becoming a financial nightmare in the future to fire the blogger. At the very least, it would be bad PR.

Stop oppressing the little guys! You've got your Lexuses (Lexi?). Let them have their say.