to a core claim or defense? Even when the claim or defense for which the information is sought is deemed core to the case, the identity of the Internet users must also be materially relevant to that claim or defense. Under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure discovery is normally very broad, requiring disclosure of any relevant information that “appears reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(1). But when First Amendment rights are at stake, a higher threshold of relevancy must be imposed. Only when the information sought is directly and materially relevant to a core claim or defense can the need for the information outweigh the First Amendment right to speak anonymously. See Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Comm’n, 89 F.R.D. at 494 (<HOLDING>) TMRT has failed to demonstrate that the
holding that a party seeking to enforce a subpoena to disclose nonparty journalistic sources must demonstrate that the information is of certain relevance holding that even when the information is crucial to a litigants case reporters should be compelled to disclose their sources only after the litigant has shown that he has exhausted every reasonable alternative source of information holding that the right of access to government information or sources of information within the governments control is not mandated by the first or fourteenth amendments recognizing relevance of information and that need for this information outweighs the burden to appellants recognizing that generally a nonparty to an arbitration agreement does not have standing to invoke the agreement but considering whether the nonparty could force arbitration because it was a third party beneficiary of the contract a successor in interest to the contracting party or an agent of the contracting party