MARYLAND: IN THE CmCUIT COURT FOR MONTGOMERY COUNTY BRETT KIMBERLIN, Plaintiff

v.
SETH ALLEN, Defendant

Case No. 339254V

EMERGENCY MOTION TO PLACE PLAINTIFF'S "MOTION TO UNSEAL" UNDER SEAL

Now COMES, John Doe, an anonymous blogger who writes under the names "Aaron

Worthing," and "A. W." and files this motion to place the Plaintiffs "Motion to Unseal Pleadings Related to [Name Redacted] a.k.a. Aaron Worthing" under seal. From here on in, I will refer to myself in the third person as "Mr. Worthing." Mr. Worthing files this emergency motion under this pseudonym in order to maintain the very anonymity he is asking this court to preserve. I
Mr. Worthing will file his full response to the Plaintiff s motion in due time, but

respectfully requests immediate consideration of this motion.

As a preliminary matter, this court has granted Mr. Worthing's motion to file anonymously or to file under seal. In it, Mr. Worthing requested that the court grant Mr. Worthing the right to file anonymously, or to file one copy under seal under his real name, and then file a public copy of the document with his real name omitted. Mr. Worthing interprets the judge's ruling as giving him the option pursuing either option. However, if this court prefers that Mr. Worthing file a copy under seal under his real name, he will happily do so.
I

FACTS

1.

Mr. Worthing is an attorney in good standing in two foreign (U.S.) jurisdictions.

Mr. Worthing is not admitted into practice in Maryland.

2.

He has blogged2 at Patterico's Pontifications, Big Government, Big Journalism, Those blogs can be found at http://bigjournalism.com!,

Allergic to Bull and Everyone Draw Mohammed. http://patterico.corn!, http://biggovernment.com!,

http://allergic2bull.blogspot.com!,http://everyonedrawmohammed.blogspot.com! respectively. 3. At all times Mr. Worthing has maintained his anonymity by the use of the

pseudonyms "A.W." and "Aaron Worthing." 4.

Mr. Worthing's blogging activities have, by the Plaintiff's own admission

"inflame[d] [the] hostilities of Muslim hardliners." Google.com" ~ 4 (filed on or about December 19,2011). 5.

See Plaintiffs "Motion To Compel

On Friday, January 6, 2012, the Plaintiff filed a Motion to Withdraw as Moot

Plaintiff's Motion to Compel and Subpoenas to Comcast and Google Seeking Identity of Aaron Worthing." 6. other means. The basis of this motion was that he had obtained Mr. Worthing's identity by

For the benefit of the court each "blog," short for weblog, is composed of a series of posts which discuss various topics, sharing facts, opinion and analysis. Then, with all of the blogs relevant to this motion, the post allows a broad swath of the public to compose and attach "comments" to each post, allowing for praise, criticism and even off-topic remarks. Regular cornmenters often even communicate, in public, in this fashion. For more discussion of how such features of the internet work, see Independent Newspapers v. Brodie, 966 A.2d 432 (2009), especially starting at 437.
2

7.

The Plaintiff only had to reveal the bare fact he had obtained Mr. Worthing's true

identity in the context of the motion. It was not even necessary to mention Mr. Worthing's name. 8. Instead, and with an manifestly improper purpose in violation of Maryland Rule

1-311, he put the following information in his Motion to Withdraw: a. Mr. Worthing's true name. b. His home address. c. His birth date. d. Where he went to high school. e. Whether he graduated from that high school.

Where and when he went to undergraduate school and the degree obtained.

g. Details of a lawsuit that was supposed to be under seal. h. Where and when he went to law school.
1.

His current employer and that employer's address.

9.

On the same day, he emailed the FBI, the Fairfax County Police, the Prince

William County Police, informing them that he had filed this document with the court, revealing

Mr. Worthing's identity and addresses to the world, specifically stating to them that he was
afraid that the very same "Muslim Hardliners" would seek to harm Mr. Worthing, or any person who happened to be near him, due to his filing. 10. Therefore he confessed that he had intentionally exposed Mr. Worthing to the

danger of terrorist attack. 11. The following Monday, January 9, 2012, Mr. Worthing made an emergency

motion to this court asking for the Plaintiff s plainly improper motion to be placed under seal.

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That motion was immediately granted as this court found that Mr. Kimberlin had no valid purpose for putting that personal information in the document. 12. Now, once again, Mr. Kimberlin is seeking to use this court to expose Mr.

Worthing's true identity to the world, this time by putting Mr. Worthing true name in the Motion to Unseal itself, so that any person searching the Maryland Judiciary Case Search online database would be able to determine Mr. Worthing's identity. 13. Once again, this revelation is gratuitous and manifests an improper purpose in

violation of Maryland Rule 1-311. 14. The Plaintiffs plain purpose is to put out this information into the public sphere

so that others can disseminate this information with the "fig leaf' of claiming that they are just reporting on the contents of court papers. 15. This is because if they revealed Mr. Worthing true name on their own, without

that "fig leaf," their conduct would likely run afoul of VA CODE 18.2-46.5 (C) which makes it a Class 4 felony if any person "solicits, invites, recruits, encourages, or otherwise causes or attempts to cause another to participate in an act or acts of terrorism." (Emphasis added).

WHEREFORE the Mr. Worthing requests that the court (1) immediately seal the Plaintiffs entire Motion to Unseal and instruct the appropriate authorities to ensure that the Mr. Worthing's true name be redacted from any entry in the Maryland Judiciary Case Search database, (2) file a protective order against Mr. Kimberlin prohibiting him from filing any motion revealing Mr. Worthing's true name, (3) sanction Mr. Kimberlin for his plainly improper conduct under Maryland Rule 1-311, and (4) any other relief that this court considers to be just and equitable.

Dated: January 18,2012

Respectfully submitted,

/s/ Aaron Worthing Edmd5.20.10@gmail.com AaronJW@gmail.com