- Minnesota Voters Alliance v. Mansky: SCOTUS considers state ban on political apparel at polling places [Ilya Shapiro, Cato]
- Under American law governments cannot sue persons for defamation, and “slander of title” won’t do as substitute ploy for lawyer representing city of Sibley, Iowa [Jacob Sullum]
- “Someone Trying to Vanish My Post About Someone Trying to Vanish Another Post” [Eugene Volokh]
- “Free Speech and the Administrative State”, George Mason/Scalia Law Center for the Study of the Administrative State conference with videos;
- “Influencer Marketing Remains in FTC’s Crosshairs” [M. Sean Royall, Richard H. Cunningham, and Andrew B. Blumberg, WLF]
- Worth recalling: it was legal academia’s Critical Race movement that helped reinvigorate Left support for censorship and speech repression [Alan Dershowitz]
Filed under: campaign regulation, free speech, FTC endorsement rules, Iowa, law schools, libel slander and defamation
3 Comments
And why, pray tell, does the lawyer representing the Iowa city still have a law license?
In the Jacob Sullum Reason article cited, Daniel DeKoter, the lawyer representing the City of Sibley, closed his letter to Josh Harms thus: “this letter is not a threat of litigation and is not in any way intended to deter your exercise of your legal rights.”
Perhaps Mr. Harms should reply along the lines of the legendary British case Arkell v. Pressdram (1971), say:
“I acknowledge your letter contending that I have committed a tort but that you are not threatening to sue me for it. My thanks for your beneficence can be expressed in two words: F**k Off!”
Meanwhile, Sibley may be discovering the damage incurred by the Streisand Effect, over and above the actual damages and costs they are setting themselves up for in the federal suit.
I am particularly impressed by the line, “this letter is not a threat of litigation and is not in any way intended to deter your exercise of your legal rights.”
As in, “This loaded gun I am holding to your head is in no way intended a as threat or coercion, and therefore I am not committing assault.”
And what was Harms doing talking to a lawyer for deKoter’s firm in any case? That’s even ignoring the alleged implied threat from said lawyer. It sounds like until the ACLU stepped in, Harms had no lawyer, was too naive to have a lawyer, or that Sibley [< 2 sq. miles, < 3,000 population] is the kind of Boss Hoggs town where nobody would represent him in this case.