The government should not empower religious institutions to punish or deter members from inquiring about their faith. Yet, the **Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society** is attempting to exploit copyright law to unmask anonymous online speakers. The **EFF** has stepped in to urge the courts not to give Watch Tower’s attempts the force of law, with the help of local counsel Jonathan Phillips of **Phillips & Bathke, P.C.** ### The Case of J. Doe **EFF’s** client, J. Doe, is a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses who became interested in the history of the organization’s public statements and how they've changed over time. Doe created research tools to analyze those documents and created a website, JWS Library, allowing others to use those tools and verify their findings through an archive that included documents suppressed by the church. Doe and others discovered prophecies that failed to come true, erasure of a leader’s disgrace, increased calls for obedience and donations, and other insights about the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ practices. Doe also used machine translation on a foreign-language document to help the community understand what the church was saying to different audiences and also to help understand potential changes in the organization’s attitudes towards dissent. Within the church, dissent or even asking questions has often been punished by labeling members as apostates and ostracizing—or “disfellowshipping”— them. As a result, Doe and others choose to speak anonymously to avoid retaliation that could cost them family, friend, and professional relationships. ### Copyright Claims and the DMCA There is no law against questioning the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Instead, Watch Tower argues that Doe’s activities constitute copyright infringement and seeks to use the special process provided in the **Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)** to unmask them. It sent DMCA subpoenas to **Google** and **Cloudflare**, seeking information that would help them uncover Doe’s identity. The problem for Watch Tower is that Doe’s research and commentary are clear fair uses allowed under copyright law. The First Amendment does not permit the unmasking of anonymous speakers based on such weak claims. Indeed, the First Amendment protects anonymous speakers precisely because some would be deterred from speaking if they faced retribution for doing so. **EFF** stands with those who question the claims of those in power and who share the tools and knowledge needed to do so. They urge the judges in the Southern District of New York to quash these improper subpoenas and not allow copyright to be used to suppress important, legitimate speech.