This is not a Brooklyn story, per se, but because virtually any blogger or online journalist could potentially be the subject of acts intended to intimidate them into not publishing things or of government legal action, this is a crucial First Amendment tale. The founders of Room 8 were recently the recipients of grand jury subpoenas ordering them to turn over the identity of some people leaving comment on their blog and ordering them not to disclose or post about the subpoena. They got a lawyer, threatened to sue the Bronx DA and the subpoenas were dropped. The Times writes:

There is no better way to get a blogger talking than by telling him what he cannot publish — although you might forgive a government prosecutor for thinking otherwise. A grand jury subpoena sent by prosecutors in the Bronx earlier this year sought information to help identify people blogging anonymously on a Web site about New York politics called Room 8. The subpoena carried a warning in capital letters that disclosing its very existence “could impede the investigation being conducted and thereby interfere with law enforcement” — implying that if the bloggers blabbed, they could be prosecuted.

Read the Room 8 take on all of this here. All’s well that ends well in this case, but from overzealous prosecutors to groups trying to intimidate bloggers from posting freely circulating emails or information, the struggle isn’t over by a long shot.