Did The Department of Justice Get A Gag Order Silencing Reason About The Grand Jury Subpoena?
...Since my June 8 post, I've become convinced that it is likely that there is an under-seal gag order, probably obtained on Thursday, June 4, 2015, purporting to prohibit Reason.com from disclosing the existence of the grand jury subpoena. The U.S. Attorney's Office would have gotten such an order by making an under-seal application to a United States Magistrate Judge under authority discussed below, and obtaining an under-seal order in return. It's impossible to obtain such filings from the courts until the matter is unsealed....

...Third, Reason has now gone ten days without commenting on the story. This story — the federal government using grand jury subpoenas to uncover anonymous commenters — is squarely in Reason's wheelhouse, and would normally provoke justifiable outrage from them. A slight delay in commenting was consistent with them waiting until their lawyers figured out what was going on; this prolonged silence strongly suggests compulsion....

How Government Stifled Reason's Free Speech
For the past two weeks, Reason, a magazine dedicated to "Free Minds and Free Markets," has been barred by an order from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York from speaking publicly about a grand jury subpoena that court sent to Reason.com.

The subpoena demanded the records of six people who left hyperbolic comments at the website about the federal judge who oversaw the controversial conviction of Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht. Shortly after the subpoena was issued, the government issued a gag order prohibiting Reason not only from discussing the matter but even acknowledging the existence of the subpoena or the gag order itself. As a wide variety of media outlets have noted, such actions on the part of the government are not only fundamentally misguided and misdirected, they have a tangible chilling effect on free expression by commenters and publications alike....