the claimant to identify the person who posted the statement. United States In the United States, the right to speak anonymously online is protected by the First Amendment and various other laws. These laws restrict the ability of the government and civil litigants to obtain the identity of anonymous speakers. The First Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press". This protection has been interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court to protect the right to speak anonymously offline. For example, in McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, the Supreme Court overturned an Ohio law banning the distribution of anonymous election pamphlets, claiming that an "author's decision to remain anonymous ... is an aspect of the freedom of speech protected by the First Amendment" and that "anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent", as well as a "shield" against the so-called tyranny of the majority. Various courts have interpreted these offline protections to extend to the online world. Identifying the author of an anonymous post may require a Doe subpoena. This involves gaining access to the IP address of the poster via the hosting website. The courts can then order an ISP to identify the subscriber to whom it had assigned said IP address. Requests for such data are almost always fruitful, though providers will often effect a finite term of data retention (in accordance with the privacy policy of each—local law may specify a minimum and/or maximum term). The usage of IP addresses has, in recent times, been challenged as a legitimate way to identify anonymous users. On March 21, 2012, the New York State Senate introduced the bill numbered S.6779 (and A.8668) labeled as the "Internet Protection Act". It proposes the ability of a website administrator of a New York–based website to take down anonymous comments unless the original author of the comment agrees to identify themselves on the post. In online communities Online communities vary with their stances on anonymous postings. Wikipedia allows anonymous editing in most cases, but does not label users, instead identifying them by their IP addresses. Other editors commonly refer to these users with neutral terms such as "anons" or "IPs". Many online bulletin boards require users to be signed in to write—and, in some cases, even to read—posts. 2channel and other Futaba-based image boards