City of Memphis v. Does [1]

The City of Memphis and the Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin filed a petition for pre-litigation discovery in Tennessee state court, seeking the identity of  a number of unknown defendants, including the pseudonymous blog operators of MPD Enforcer 2.0 [2], who go by the collective moniker "Dirk Diggler."

MPD Enforcer 2.0 is a blog popular with Memphis police officers, and Diggler and many of its users are not fans of Godwin. They have been critical of his leadership [3] and have set up a petition calling for his resignation [4], and the blog features an online voting poll asking users whether the police chief should resign.  According to Paul Alan Levy [5], counsel for the blog operators, the City claimed in its petition that the blog authors "misappropriated the image, likeness and name of Director Godwin and the City of Memphis' Blue Crush trademarks." (source [6]) The city also alleged that the operators posted a photograph of an undercover officer. 

On July 10, 2008, Godwin and the City obtained a subpoena from the Chancery Court of Tennessee for the Thirtieth Judicial District at Memphis, which commanded AOL to produce identifying information for the subscriber who created the email account associated with the blog [7]. They then applied to the Clerk of the Court in Loudon County, Virginia -- where AOL is located -- asking that the subpoena be issued. On behalf of the blog operators, Levy then moved to unseal the petition and prepared to file a motion to quash based on First Amendment protection for anonymous speech. It is not clear whether the motion was ever filed.  In early September 2008, the City withdrew its subpoena.