So the real lesson for tourists is that they should think of Paris as having no-speech zones [Poynter, Volokh]
Posts Tagged ‘libel slander and defamation’
Free speech and free expression roundup
- Boss Tweed, in legend, railing against cartoonists: “I don’t care so much what the papers write about — my constituents can’t read — but damn it, they can see pictures.” [David Boaz, Cato] “Jyllands-Posten Not Reprinting Charlie Hebdo Mohammed Cartoons Because ‘Violence Works'” [Ed Krayewski, Reason]
- “Police Scotland will thoroughly investigate any reports of offensive or criminal behaviour online and anyone found to be responsible will be robustly dealt with.” That includes TV personalities’ tweets disparaging to Glasgow [BBC, Alex Massie/Spectator, Elizabeth Nolan Brown] More: Calls mount for repeal of Australia Section 18C speech-crime law, which would ban the French magazine Charlie Hebdo if someone tried to publish it down there [Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, earlier on Andrew Bolt case]
- “Hate speech” concept got rolling when Stalin used it as weapon against democracies [Jacob Mchangama, Hoover, a while back] More on history of speechcrime: antebellum North (not just South) repressed abolitionist opinion, and how the great Macaulay erred on blasphemy law under the Raj [Sam Schulman, Weekly Standard, also a while back]
- “Campaign Finance Laws Don’t Clean Up Politics, But Do Erode Our Freedom” [George Leef, Forbes]
- In case against personal injury lawyer/legal blogger Eric Turkewitz, court rules that critical commentary about medical examiner is protected opinion [Turkewitz, Daniel Fisher/Forbes, Tim Cushing/TechDirt]
- “It is unusual for Swedish courts to hand out prison terms for art works.” [The Guardian on Dan Park case]
- Australian man arrested after loitering around campaigners of incumbent political party wearing “I’m with stupid” T-shirt [Guardian]
Free speech roundup
- “Court agrees that Google’s search results qualify as free speech” [Megan Geuss, ArsTechnica]
- “Manassas detective in teen sexting case sues teen’s lawyer for defamation” [Washington Post]
- Reports of SLAPP suit out of Chicago not quite as initially portrayed [Ken at Popehat]
- Compelled-speech update: Lexington, Ky. anti-bias commission orders employee training for t-shirt maker that objected to printing gay-pride messages [Kentucky.com, earlier]
- “NY high court says anti-cyberbullying law won’t pass First Amendment muster” [ABA Journal] New Arizona law against sending naked photos without subject’s consent could criminalize many sorts of speech [ACLU]
- UK scheme to muzzle nonviolent “extremists” just as horrid as it sounds, cont’d [Brendan O’Neill/Reason, earlier] Political director of U.K. Huffington Post calls for “sanctions” for press outlets that engage in “dishonest, demonizing” coverage of Muslims, immigrants, and asylum seekers [Guardian]
- SCOTUS should hear case re: right to engage in political advocacy without registering with government [Ilya Shapiro and Trevor Burrus, Cato; Vermont Right to Life Committee v. Sorrell]
Citing lack of jurisdiction, judge tosses GreenTech suit against critics
UK local council spends $350K trying to unmask political blogger
In the North of England, “South Tyneside Council has abandoned its hunt for notorious blogger Mr Monkey after spending more than £200,000 of taxpayers’ cash.” [Chronicle] The widely read blog had made scurrilous charges against council members and others. “The authority said it had a ‘duty’ to protect staff and councillors against” what it called “cyber-bullying and harassment.” “Councils cannot sue for libel. Any action against the ‘Mr Monkey’ blogger could only be taken by named individuals.” [BBC] More: Daily Mail, Taxpayers Alliance.
“Yankees fan caught sleeping on TV sues ESPN, MLB”
“A New York man who was caught sleeping at a recent Yankees game against the Red Sox on ESPN is filing a $10 million defamation suit against broadcasters Dan Shulman and John Kruk for their ‘avalanche of disparaging words,’ according to the New York Post.” Andrew Robert Rector’s complaint over the broadcasters’ “vituperative utterances” appears to have been translated awkwardly into English from some other language, a sample sentence reading: “It is well known that rivalry between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox is always the biggest in all of sport.” [Sporting News]
Free speech roundup
- “Tenured Wisconsin Prof Sues Former Student Over Online Comments on Her Teaching” [Caron/TaxProf]
- Recent Paul Alan Levy profile: “The web bully’s worst enemy” [Washingtonian] HHS signals it won’t pursue case against blogger [Levy, earlier] Arizona Yelp case angle [Scott Greenfield]
- Get your ideas out of town: threats against hotel “have escalated to include death threats, physical violence against our staff and other guests” [Deadline Detroit; “men’s rights movement” conference]
- UK police investigate Baptist church after “burn in Hell” sign reported as “hate incident” [Secular Right]
- Please don’t give him ideas: “Should it be against the law to criticize Harry Reid?” [Trevor Burrus, Boston Herald]
- “MAP: The places where blasphemy could get you punished” [Washington Post]
- Only three states – Wisconsin, Michigan, and Kansas — have laws inviting vengeful secret John Doe probes [Ilya Shapiro, earlier]
Costs of criticizing a physician
The defendant in the Duluth doctor-rating defamation case that we recounted here and here “told the Star Tribune he spent the equivalent of two years’ income, some of which he had to borrow from relatives who supplied the money by raiding their retirement funds.” The Minnesota Supreme Court eventually ruled that his comments were protected opinion. The doctor/plaintiff, for his part, spent $60,000 pursuing the suit. [Twin Cities Business]
The same article, a “Lawsuits of the Year 2013” feature, also recounts how a couple under the influence of “sovereign citizen” teachings “filed more than $250 billion in liens, and other claims, against those they considered the cause of their problems, including [Hennepin County Sheriff Rich] Stanek, county attorneys and other court officials. The liens were filed against vehicles, houses and even mineral rights.” When Stanek went to refinance his property, he discovered he had been hit with $25 million in liens which took “several years” to remove entirely. The husband of the couple was sent to prison.
Alt-medicine personality menaces critic
Author Jon Entine, associated with George Mason U.’s STATS project and a visiting fellow at AEI, wrote a highly critical piece at Forbes.com about Mike Adams, whose extremely controversial views on science, medicine, vaccines, GMOs and other topics get wide circulation through the site Natural News, much shared on the internet. Adams’s resulting legal threats led Forbes to pull down the Entine piece (the publication of which Adams deemed “cyber-bullying” and “electronic harassment”), and Keith Kloor at DiscoverBlogs prints choice excerpts from what is said to be Adams’s electronic correspondence with Entine. More: Sharon Hill, Doubtful News.
Threatening blogger over satirical posts
Not a good idea for anyone, really, but an especially bad idea for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [Ken at Popehat; Paul Alan Levy (reminding that “the government itself cannot be defamed”)]
Down the same alley: when the mayor of Peoria seized on a misdemeanor law banning “impersonating a public official” as grounds for sending police after a clearly satirical Twitter account, he bit off more than he might be able to chew [Ars Technica, earlier]