i'm aware of the fact that so your honors or have read the briefs and are familiar with the facts or because of the fact that we believe the statue of limitations is so central to the issues i'd like to briefly go through the timeline of the january tenth two thousand and twelve thirteen days after the publication of the comment in the fifteen traditional circuit and was in front of the honorable david jeffrey that case was initially and i will feel badly versus state house and your holdings doing business as reports journalist and house media holdings remove the case to federal court there was a motion to dismiss filed along with a motion to quash a subpoena that was filed and served on comcast media holdings in an attempt to identify who subscriber don't was described go being an individual who was assigned a certain i address by cop judge kampala dismissed the case with prejudice on july tenth two thousand and twelve a motion for reconsideration was filed three days later we think it rather telling that motion for reconsideration on july sixteenth of two thousand and twelve and he initially denied to me initially dismissed the case with prejudice as part of his ruling on the motion for reconsideration he further prejudice case well excuse me the same case was presented again to judge geoffrey in the fifteen traditional circuit with a motion to reinstate that case i never appeared on that case at that time the gate to file a new case that new case was filed on august seventh of two thousand and twelve and that was entitled had levy doe aka food boy whose legal name is unknown subscriber in this matter and i made an appearance representing subscriber joe and with all due respect to the second district somehow that got transmuted into the fact that i represent four boy oh boy is unknown and quite frankly so we subscriber doe that's why we're here the one of the key cases that has come to be part of this case cited by this court was decided on august ninth two days after the new case was filed in the fifteen traditional circuit so it was the plaintiff issued another subpoena to comcast and subscriber go through me filed a motion to quash that subpoena i filed a special limited parents understanding that there was no longer exist but in these types of don't represent a party i'm not really an intervenor we represent subscriber doe's first amendment interests and remaining anonymous the  did not overrule arguments in which i was asked by the circuit court after suggesting that there were avenues of redress in the in the illinois civil law which would provide plaintiff with the ability of discovering and  unidentified hard i was then asked what those avenues were and i responded by suggesting the respondent discovery statute and route to twenty four judge jeffrey suggested that rule three twenty four was basically a rule to twenty four petition so now we had what the trial court characterized as a hybrid because as this court is well aware ruth luke twenty four the plain language of rule two twenty four contemplates an independent action to be filed prior to any substantive complaint and it allows for the immediate appeal of the decision on that independent action by doing what was done in this case we end up with a basically procedural chaos because on april eleventh the trial court denied the motion to  i filed a motion for reconsideration because i sat in my office i wondered how i was going to explain second district court that there was a case or controversy existing in the when i was appearing in elgin arguing count two of that case or conference so by combining the substantive complaint with the independent action should have been filed prior to the substance of substan complaint i was running the risk of being sent back by the appellate court because of the case or controversy that still existed in the trial court so i asked the court to clarify pretty much wanted to get this bumped up stairs because i believe that the trial court recognized this it was some preceding irregularities here that was based upon his determination that this was a hybrid so he found that it was immediately available under three o three but in the alternative he issued a special finding under rule three or four and that ended up being the reason i believe the judge for majority rule that a plaintiff mr son thiago who filed his face under an assumed name to go back after the statute of limitations had run and amend his complaint to provide his his legal name we believe that that case is this thing wish him well from this case because in santiago there was always an identified defend it was an entity was bliss company so that initial substantive complaint with a wrongly identified plaintiff who had submitted himself to the jurisdiction of the this fictitious name what is the duty or if he's if it's a fictitious name judge or fictitious person fishes in it it bolsters our argument because according to the common law a fictitiously named party cannot be a so entity in the state of illinois that's why we have the respondent discovery statute and that's the civically why we have rolled through twenty four came in with his new case with the heading had levy subscriber go also known as food boy an entity who was on no we didn't do that and there are no allegations in the  no factual filings in the complaint which link those two anonymous entities subscriber go could be one person subscriber go would be the freeport public library subscriber joe could be an internet cafe subscriber joe would be a lawyers office with nine lawyers it's a placeholder it subscriber joe is the person that comcast basically provided for a federal case to suggest that we do have a subscriber he has this internet address we've sent him a letter state of delaware as cited by the point that that standard is quite frankly designed to help balance the interests between a plaintiffs who has a potential cause of action against the unanimous commentator and the anonymous commentators first amendment rights i don't think your honor and as i've suggested in my briefs that a motion to dismiss should be the specifically now maxes is take the position this court has not ruled on absolutely so my second question is and if i could judge just one more point because i think it's very important we're urging the court to find that in this race is entitled to protection of an item i don't imitate under the first amendment we're suggesting that this court as part of that to twenty four analysis in this  is trying to sue anonymous blogger what's the correct procedure absolutely file an independent action under rule two twenty four including not only requests that a specific entity that may be able to identify the defamer be exposed to him for example in this case complex there should be specific allegations on how that person is related to the case and how they have suffered down because in some so we don't know how he would be able to prove any damage in this case and that's why i believe in the federal case it was telling that when the district court judge dismissed the up with damages so by pleading just the defamation for say with a presumption of damages he gets around that  co chair on this case to make sure i made it here but it was a few things that need to be added to counsel's recitation of the procedure in this case is correct that within a couple of weeks of this statement being posted on the freeport journal standards website by a person using the pseudonym f you boy that we in to their website we was using the name f u boy we did that and it turns out in their responses subpoena that f you boy had actually use another totally anonymous name and address to be able to gain access to that website so that was the failure from the beginning follow the law get the miscellaneous remedies action get a subpoena as well as required by law that's why we couldn't find out because you boys and used a different name of a nonexistent person to gain access to the website apparently to be able to post such as a result of  the internet service service provider and the journal stayner had given us the specific ip address that this food boy it used to gain access a website which we did then gave house because we had them as a party based on the first intersection now controversy appeals to federal court i am fine everybody is following the law after which we request aid and discovery under the out dismissed the case against a house media claiming that since it was an internet service provider it was a new under the federal act and therefore the case was dismissed all there's no question that we're not here to change my client not strong evidence of the first we believe in the for free exchange of ideas and opinions even though what time but there is no constitutional right to by the name they're using the other part of this is then you have this party an interest proceed under in the state court filing a substantive motion a plan you know a legal procedure that you like me i'm walking down the street and i walk in the whorehouse here locally and cite even as an attorney i'm just going to jump in on occasion start talking you can't do that you filed a substantive motion i would like to point out procedure that motion that was filed with several weeks before you filed a special limited areas which clearly states on the statute this court every portnoy i believe has always held that if you're going to do that you can always challenge a jurisdiction of the court over that take her purse after they have filed the substantive motion they call whatever they want a motion to quash but it was under i believe to six fifteen or concern about the first amendment issue but what i'm trying to change that law it may very well be that routine twenty four needs to be cleaned up for all due respect  tweet whatever all that stuff is facebook it's just a different view just like the newspaper this doesn't change a lot anything they can it is more permanent and more damaging because so many people if i could just address the issue of whether or not this is one person at one private residence even if that does turn out to be the case and i'm not admitting that it does you can park in front of someone's house if they have an unprotected wireless network  can go through that ip address and the subscriber might never know who it was that access the internet through that subscribers ip address if that's so there why would the standard be to protect the identity of someone has taken steps to basically protect their own network most people are well not most because it's becoming more and more evidence today but if you go to any large neighborhood and just turn on your computer and look at all of the different networks that are available you're going to find probably ten percent of them that are unprotected in point of fact comcast is doing it themselves every time you get a wireless access point from  which is both a modem and a wireless router you have your protected network but they have an open network which allows people that are wandering through the network to access the internet through that wireless access point and whether or not they're what using it through your ip address or some other ip address comcast has never actually publicly announce and what they're doing is they're providing wireless internet throughout small communities and large communities by putting together all of their a republican candidate for county board we have the chairman at one point during this litigation of the republican party who's representing him this is a political case judge in a small town specifically telling isn't very likely is someone that is a publication on the internet if we agree with the proposition that the plaintiff could be considered child molester isn't it more likely that they're doing that reserve their own integrity rather than do it least as likely that they're looking for another they're looking for what the law this comment in that context would be a context a context suggesting that he was some type of child molester this was a story about someone running for political office and my arguments in the brief suggest that if you take the story itself if you take the comments before comments that were put in room in a low that that that story and you you take the entire context together with the fact this is an unregulated  the individual name for the boy might have been trying to stir the pot judge and the first comment suggested that this guy meaning mr hadley  has what it takes or knows what's going on the second comment which was by food boy suggests that mr hadley is not specifically what this from political boxset suggest and the and the common law suggests that the proceeding by or against a party by a mere fictitious name will be unlucky this is in variation of the common law  the statute which allow someone to proceed anonymously is a very specific statutory authorization and derivation of the common law biggest difference between santiago and boxset in our opinion j serve you have subscriber joe was an anonymous entity at this point and you have food boy was an anonymous and this one and regardless of the conclusory allegations those two individuals may be the same and may not be the same we have no idea subscriber dough and food what i represent subscribed did you use both names in a pleading no i never did judge and the only way that this became subscriber doe aka a few boy was in the head it that was used in the complaint that was filed in august the twenty twelve no where in any pleading did i suggest in any way that subscriber supposed to judge the allegations by that is the six fifteen standard that's why in our motion to quash and our memoranda in support we addressed it to six fifteen stand that got turned into  facto motion to dismiss we're not a party we've never been served we in fact quite frankly subscriber dough may or may not be the party interests the ultimate tortfeasor here we don't even know quite frankly if publish the publish in an attempt to try to get personal jurisdiction over subscriber got our it didn't say anything about that because quite frankly we sat there and said to ourselves go ahead said initially anybody who uses a place name is trying to find the ultimate party interest so regard late regardless of whether it's a fictitious party or a real part or an anonymous name if you're really trying to find the ultimate party interest and subscriber dough may or may be may or may not be able to identify the ultimate  believe me your honour's i do not envy you your positions because we are we're in the wired society now and quite frankly everywhere you go there are people who are having access to the internet and i point again is that pedo paste where the delaware supreme court wrestled with these issues and decided that a motion for summary judgment standard was the way to go they also fig and mr smith we thank you for your arguments today or soused at this time