Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

Posts Tagged ‘hate speech’

Australian government to U.S.-based website: remove that hate speech or face prosecution

Not just anti-free-speech, but extraterritorial as well [Popehat]:

…Joseph Evers, one of the “owners” of Encyclopedia Dramatica, reveals that he got a threatening letter from the Australian Human Rights Commission, which based upon its logo may or may not be controlled by AT&T. The Human Rights Commission announces that it has gotten multiple complaints about Encyclopedia Dramatica’s Aborigine page, and that the page “constitutes racial hatred” and appears to Racial Discrimination Act of 1975 in that it constitutes an act “likely to offend, insult, intimidate or humiliate” another person based on their race. The Human Rights Commission also announces — rather triumphantly, I think — that it does not matter that Encyclopedia Dramatica is hosted and written in the United States, because Australian law, as reflected in Dow Jones v. Gutnik, treats web pages written and hosted elsewhere as if they were published in Australia, subjecting their authors and/or hosts to jurisdiction there.

Australian authorities have compiled a blacklist of sites that internet providers must filter from Australian users’ access, and many sites apparently make the list on the grounds of forbidden opinion content. More on “hate speech” here; also note our recent post on Canada and Ann Coulter, where an anonymous visitor is defending Canada’s speech-penalizing laws.

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Canada’s Coulter climate

“I was hoping for a fruit basket, not a threat to prosecute,” says controversialist Ann Coulter about the menacing letter she got from the provost of the University of Ottawa. [Big Government, Popehat, Legal Blog Watch, WSJ Law Blog] Part of Coulter’s Canadian tour was subsequently called off after security officials said they could not guarantee her safety from protesters. [Moynihan/Reason “Hit and Run”] More: Mark Steyn, Binks. The somewhat attenuated nature of Canada’s rights of free speech is a topic familiar to our readers.

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March 6 roundup

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“Cyber-harassment” and speech codes

Eugene Volokh and Scott Greenfield worry that free speech could be the loser from a buzz of law school interest in the topic of “cyber-stalking” or “cyber-harassment” — rather broadly couched in one description to include law students’ “using websites to make outrageous gender– or race-specific comments.” Volokh:

I’m sure that most backers of these restrictions would stress that of course they’re not trying to shut down substantive debate, only incivility. But once viewpoint-based restrictions are accepted, once speech can be suppressed because it’s “outrageous” or “smearing,” it’s pretty hard to have much confidence that substantive (but to some “outrageous”) discussion of ideas will remain untouched; and even if actual punishments for such speech are rare, the risk of punishment may powerfully deter the substantive debate as well as the nonsubstantive smears (of which I agree there is plenty). That has certainly been the experience with “civility codes” at university campuses, and governmentally coerced restrictions on “harassment” in workplaces.

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“Troubling signals on free speech”

In “a little-publicized October 2 resolution … [the U.S.] State Department joined Islamic nations in adopting language all-too-friendly to censoring speech that some religions and races find offensive, notes Stuart Taylor, Jr.’s new column for National Journal. Legal academics, including some who have gone on to join the Obama Administration, have sketched out doctrines indicating “how the resolution could be construed to require prosecuting some offensive speech and how it could be used in the long run to change the meaning of our Constitution and laws… In my view, Obama should not take even a small step down the road toward bartering away our free-speech rights for the sake of international consensus.” More: Reason, Jonathan Turley/USA Today. And (h/t comments): A Monday statement by Secretary of State Clinton is being widely greeted as reaffirming a free-speech position, but Taylor is not convinced that it undoes the damage. Nor, it seems, are Eugene Volokh and Ilya Somin.

P.S. What Rick Brookhiser told the Yale Political Union about that cartoonless Mohammed-cartoons book from Yale University Press [NRO] And here’s word that in the U.S., liberal church denominations will ask the FCC to probe conservative broadcasters [Jeffrey Lord/American Spectator]

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October 12 roundup

  • Speech-curbing proposals continue to get polite academic reception: NYU’s Jeremy Waldron, big advocate of laws to curb “hate speech”, delivered Holmes Lectures at Harvard this past week [HLS, schedule]
  • Lawsuit over collectible baseball hit into stands by Phillies’ Ryan Howard, his 200th career homer [Howard Wasserman, PrawfsBlawg; NJLRA]
  • Orchid-importer prosecution a poster case for the evils of overcriminalization? Maybe not [Ken at Popehat]
  • Texas State Fair and city of Dallas don’t have to allow evangelist to distribute religious tracts inside the fair, judge rules after three years [Dallas Observer blog]
  • Drug maker: FDA’s curbs on truthful promotion of off-label uses impair our First Amendment speech rights [Beck and Herrmann and more, Point of Law and more]
  • Did plaintiff Eolas Technologies go to unusual lengths to ensure Eastern District of Texas venue for its patent litigation? [Joe Mullin, IP Law and Business via Alison Frankel, AmLaw]
  • Update: “Lesbian Denied Infertility Treatment Settles Lawsuit” [San Diego 6, earlier]
  • Even in the Ninth Circuit, “psychological injury resulting from a legitimate personnel action” is not compensable [Volokh]

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October 17 roundup

  • Anyone suing over anything dept.: Kansas City attorney Mary Kay Green sues McCain, Palin, for supposed hate speech against Obama [KC Star, Feral Child, Above the Law; related, my article the other day for City Journal]
  • Got $331K from victim fund claiming severe injuries from Pentagon 9/11 attack, yet “kept playing basketball and lacrosse and ran [NYC] marathon in under four hours two months after the attacks” [Maryland Daily Record]
  • Krugman claims Fannie/Freddie not big culprits in mortgage meltdown, but Calomiris and Wallison show him wrong [Stuart Taylor, Jr., National Journal; also note this Goldstein/Hall unlabeled opinion piece from McClatchy pushing the Krugman line]
  • Government bailout of newspapers? Who’s trying to float this idea, anyway? [Bercovici/Portfolio via Romenesko] Update: maybe this?
  • Colluded with chiropractor to generate bills for imaginary treatment, then pocketed clients’ insurance settlements without telling them [Quincy, Mass., Patriot-Ledger; Bruce Namenson sentenced to 5 years and “cannot practice law for at least 10 years after he gets out of jail”]
  • Ontario: “Killer awarded $6K over wrong shoes in prison” [National Post]
  • “Is there any doubt that Lucy grew up to be a lawyer?” [Above the Law on Doyle Reports, Judge Robertson ruling in patent case]
  • Jury hits Jersey City, N.J. rheumatologist with $400K verdict (including $200K punitives) for not hiring sign language interpreter at his own expense for deaf patient [NJLJ, Krauss @ PoL]

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Blog-comment speechcrimes in Canada

“Anyone who runs an online message board, from the lowliest vanity blogger to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, can be charged under federal human rights law if visitors to their site post hateful comments, according to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. … ‘If a message board owner can’t manage to ensure the content of the message board is complying with Canadian law, then the message board should not be operating,’ [CHRC lawyer Margot Blight] said.” (National Post via Western Standard Shotgun blog; more; StageLeft.info via Reynolds).

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August 14 roundup

  • 47% of those polled believe traditional media should offer equal time to opposing viewpoints.  Although 57% polled say blog sites should not have to allow other viewpoints, 31% believe the government should “force” them to.  Can you believe that?  In a related story, help me in welcoming John Edwards as next week’s guest blogger.  (“47% Favor Government Mandated Political Balance on Radio, TV”, Rasmussen Reports, Aug. 14).
  • Speaking of John Edwards–is he the new Bill Clinton?  Some may think he’s the right person to carry on his legacy.  (“John Edwards is the new Clinton, Spitzer, Craig”, MiamiHerald.com, Aug. 13).
  • I thought the law was well-settled that you could say ignorant, mean and hurtful things (and, shame on those who do).  But, anyway the Oregon Supreme Court unanimously agreed.  (“Oregon court says racist, insulting speech is protected”, OregonLive.com, Aug. 14).
  • Also from Oregon–a young man’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in the police shooting death of their son.  “We were forced to go ahead and file this to shed light on the events of that night” his mother said.  Shed light?  So, what’s with the $14M demand?  And, what’s this about him threatening police with a knife? (“Tigard teen’s family sues for millions in fatal police shooting”, OregonLive.com, Aug. 13 & Sep. 17 ’06).
  • Let the plaintiff’s bar go to bat for you on this one–after a Utah school learned of a bat infestation it partnered with the county health department to exterminate them.  Meanwhile, the district made intercom announcements asking students who may have had contact with bats to seek assistance, and made voluntary payments to seven students for rabies vaccinations.  A student’s mother sues despite no evidence her son contracted rabies or suffered any other injury.  (“Lehi Mom sues Alpine School District over bats”, Deseret News, Jul. 17).

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