A preliminary injunction issued Friday against Dave Mitchell, former publisher of the Point Reyes (CA) Light, bars the Pulitzer Prize winner from posting a weekly column to the web-based Bodega Bay Navigator. Marin County Superior Court Judge John A. Sutro's indictment also bars Mitchell from assisting the Navigator in its coverage of West Marin County.

The Light's new owner, Robert Plotkin, who purchased the paper from Mitchell five months ago for $500,000, claims that publication of Michell's "Sparsely, Sage & Timely" column violates a non-competition clause in the sale agreement. According to Mitchell's attorney Ladd Bedford, the agreement prevents Mitchell from writing for another Marin County newspaper, but "does not prevent (Mitchell) from maintaining his own Web site as long as the Web site is not set up in competition with the corporation's (the Light's) Web site."

The Navigator website is owned by Joel Hack, who decided to publish online only after it became too costly to continue to publish in print. Hack invited Mitchell to write for the Navigator after a heated dispute between Mitchell and Plotkin resulted in legal action against Mitchell.

Mitchell had no part in the development nor in the ownership of the Navigator.

On the non-competition clause, Peter Scheer, executive director of the San Rafael-based California First Amendment Coalition, believes the non-competition clause would need to be specific on the matter of online news outlets. For the clause to hold up in court, Mitchell would have to specifically and willingly give up his rights to write for the web. "Major ambiguities would be interpreted in favor of the party that wants to continue writing," Scheer said. "Otherwise, it would be hard to enforce such a restriction because of First Amendment concerns."

On Thursday, the House of Representatives passed, by a margin of 410-15, the Delete Online Predators Act (DOPA). DOPA will require that social networking sites and chat rooms be inaccessible to minors from computers in public libraries and schools. Adults can ask for permission to use these sites.

One troubling aspect of DOPA is its broad definition of a social networking site. Steve Yelvington notes that any site "offered by a commercial entity," "permits registered users to create an online profile that includes detailed personal information;" "permits registered users to create an online journal and share such a journal with other users;" "elicits highly personalized information from users;" and "enables communication among users" could be banned in accordance with DOPA as directed by the Federal Communications Commission.

"Social networking sites such as MySpace and chat rooms have allowed sexual predators to sneak into homes and solicit kids," said Rep. Ted Poe, a Texas Republican and co-founder of the Congressional Victim's Rights Caucus. "This bill requires schools and libraries to establish (important) protection."

American Library Association president Leslie Burger on the passing of the legislation: " This unnecessary and overly broad legislation will hinder students' ability to engage in distance learning and block library computer users from accessing a wide array of essential Internet applications including instant messaging, email, wikis and blogs. Under DOPA, people who use library and school computers as their primary conduits to the Internet will be unfairly blocked from accessing some of the web's most powerful emerging technologies and learning applications. As libraries are already required to block content that is "harmful to minors" under the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA), DOPA is redundant and unnecessary legislation."

DOPA now heads for the Senate, which has not yet decided to vote on the legislation before the end of its term.