The U.S. Supreme Court, in Doe v. Reed, soon will decide whether the names and addresses of those who sign an initiative petition must be disclosed to the public. State officials have defended compulsory disclosure of this information, arguing that citizens endorsing a petition for the ballot must be willing to accept the "consequences" for doing so. In their view, free speech shouldn't be so free. We disagree.

Speaking anonymously is a venerable form of political expression, and a choice which enjoys First Amendment protection. Founding Fathers James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay understood that the freedom to remain anonymous was integral to the fundamental right to speak freely, and in fact exercised this right when they published The Federalist Papers under pseudonyms. They saw that their principles, however eloquently explained, might be eclipsed in a debate about who authored them. Writers such as George Eliot and A.S. Byatt have used pseudonyms or initials for names, so that their work will be valued on its merits rather than devalued on account of their identities as women. The Tribune's editorials contain no byline, giving them a collective, institutional force. They aren't easily dismissed because "so and so, the publisher, is nothing but a lowdown" ... pick your epithet.

The "consequences" for those who have signed initiative petitions across the country have, in some instances, been dire. Signers have received death threats. Their homes and vehicles have been vandalized. They risk job losses or demotions when they will not conform to the political views of their employers, who have found their names by scouring the Internet. Because their addresses, as well as identities, are found on the petition, signers must accept the risk that they will be called at all hours of the day and night, or that picketers will appear on their doorstep — all because they exercised the right to be wrong in their political thinking.

If it is in the state's interest that the public must know about our endorsement of a petition, so that these "consequences" can follow, then, by logical extension, all of our political choices — our votes in caucus meetings, at political conventions and at the ballot box itself — should be subject to disclosure and scrutiny. Never mind that, in 1896, the Utah Constitution guaranteed the right to vote in secret, and that, in 2003, the Utah Supreme Court equated the right to sign an initiative with the right to vote. Some of our state officials despise these constitutional protections and judicial precedents. Do they long for a darker age, when the test of civic virtue was how much harassment voters could endure for exercising their rights of conscience? After all, if you're not willing to be badgered for your political thoughts, you must not be much of a real American.

It is said that citizens endorsing a petition can't have any reasonable expectation of privacy, since in signing they know that their names will be public. The circularity of this argument is obvious. But for the state's coercive disclosures, we could and might choose to exercise our rights of political conscience privately rather than publicly.

John Hancock was willing to be a martyr for his principles and signed the Declaration of Independence with a flourish that resounded through the ages. Of course, he was acting as his colony's delegate to the Continental Congress and in a representative, rather than an individual, capacity, a fact which, where accountability is concerned, makes all the difference.

The choice for individuals, acting for themselves rather than others, to speak privately is all important. Justice Antonin Scalia, at oral argument in Doe v. Reed, had some fine rhetoric about the need for citizens who engage in politics to show "civic courage" by "standing up" and "being counted." The good justice forgot, however, that we applaud acts of courage only because they are products of volition. Behaviors which are compelled by the state — as where citizens are forced to disclose their voting preferences — don't reflect much if any virtue, civic or otherwise. (And speaking of "standing up" and "being named," let's not forget that, in Bush v. Gore, the most controversial decision of this decade, a majority of justices, including Scalia, chose to write anonymously, hiding the true author behind a per curiam opinion.)

Voting on an initiative is the purest form of political speech, and we protect it with secret ballots and private voting booths. Signing a petition to get an initiative onto the ballot requires privacy for all of the same reasons. Utah's initiative statute, however, denies this most fundamental, original, freedom of choice to its citizens; and that is simply wrong.

David R. Irvine and Alan L. Smith are Salt Lake City attorneys and two of the drafters of the legislative ethics initiative.