Caesar David Kalinowski

I want to offer a special message of thanks to Bruce and Caesar Kalinowski for protecting my First Amendment rights and my identity. The right to speak and write anonymously has been a fundamental right and component of First Amendment since the birth of our country. Anonymity as a positive speec...h right was developed by the framers to encourage frank public debate about political affairs in the earliest newspapers, and anonymous pamphlets and newspapers. But things have changed during the internet age. Websites, blogs, and other digital media publishers have been subpoenaed to unmask anonymous or pseudonymous comment/review posters and confidential sources. My Story Almost one year ago I was researching personal injury attorneys in Seattle. I contacted a firm that I had internet ads that said that they were “Seattle’s Top Injury Attorney”. I’d seen their bright red advertisements on the side of buses. I filled out their website form, had online chats with them, exchanged emails and had phone calls with them. But I quickly discovered that they were primarily based in Florida. I thought that it was strange that a Florida firm would advertise in Washington. So I researched the firm on websites for the Washington State Bar Association, Washington State Department of Revenue, and the Secretary of State for the State of Washington. I found that the firm had just opened an office in Seattle less than 60 days before and that none of the attorneys listed on their website were licensed to practice law in Washington State. I thought that the claim that the firm was “Seattle’s Top Injury Attorney” was misleading given that the firm had no lawyers licensed to practice law in Washington State and had a Washington business license for less than 60 days. So I decided to write a Google review. I have sometimes used an internet pseudonym and associated email address in order to avoid advertising email spam; to allow me to post comments on articles or in online groups without being stereotyped by race, ethnicity or religion; and to protect my privacy and avoid retaliation by those that may disagree with my views. I used my pseudonym to post the review. The review was 100% factual and accurately described my communications with the firm. A few months later I learned that the firm had filed a lawsuit against me in Washington State and had issued a subpoena in California to try to obtain my identity and user information from Google. That’s when the nightmare began. I contacted the law firm and said I would take down the review. They didn’t respond. I had research First Amendment lawyers. I contacted firms in multiple states (because I didn’t know any better) before I ultimately hired an attorney in California to try to stop the release of my Google information. Meanwhile they were also filing multiple court motions in Washington State. I was scared out of my mind. I frequently cried. I began researching lawyers in Washington state. Late one night in October I found an online blog article talking about a case in which Bruce worked to protect the identity of someone who had posted an anonymous review on Avvo. In fact, Bruce is a nationally recognized speaker and expert on First Amendment issues----he teaches other attorneys about how to handle these kinds of cases. I reached out to Bruce. He was so generous with his time. He spent time on the phone with me and answered dozens of emails over the course of several months. Initially Bruce thought that the Florida firm would eventually drop the suit as the Google review was factual and true. But they didn’t. They kept filing more motions in court. They misrepresented information in court documents. I was so scared. I was falling apart. And in January I went on anti-depressants for the first time in my life. Eventually it because clear that the Florida firm was not going to give u