Slashdot Mirror
Blogger Wins 1.5 Year Legal Battle
FixYourThinking writes "After nearly one and a half years of harassment from a relentless attorney, it seems that quietly a blogger in South Carolina has won a monumental ruling in favor of bloggers. In a summary judgement requested by the Defendant, Philip Smith was able to obtain a special sanction after the Plaintiff attorney put a 'notice of lien' (called lis pendens) on Smith's residence. The judge also reprimanded the Plaintiff attorney for abusive deposition and court procedure. The case set forth the following; 'It's not the format; it's the content and intention that make text journalism / reporting.'"
FYI, You're confusing the word 'right' with the word 'priviledge'.
Half sarcasm and half serious: Give me one good reason that someone with a press pass deserves rights that you don't have without it.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
When will companies understand that if they launch a big campaign against something/someone found online, it just spreads like wildfire and usually ends up with their humiliation. Dear companies, just suck that bad review up and give better service next time.
So much for the right to a fair and speedy trial...
It's a right the incriminated must invoke.
"I've worked with people who are considered processional journalists and with citizen journalists in my community, and there is no reason to legally distinguish between the two."
... there is probably good reason to distinguish between the two, where a citizen journalist may be more reliable (in general) than a "professional" one. Plenty of Professional Journalists have been found fabricating stories / events just to spice up the copy to increase viewership/circulation.
...
I'd actually go further
I trust the more "raw" version of an amateur over the sanitized (aka Doctored) versions coming out of many journalists. Remember too, that lately it was the less than "professional" journalists that have broken the news on these types of doctorings, from Photoshoped photos to CBS' fictional documents about GWB
So, count me as one of the few that no longer trusts his news from major sources. they aren't reliable enough for me.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Slander of title?
Probably would work. Usually you can't sue for slander of title over a lis pendens, but since there was no actual basis whatsoever for the lis pendens litigation immunity probably wouldn't apply. Might also be a basis for malicious prosecution and/or abuse of process.
Morally, you're correct. In practice, the people with the laws and the guns can trample them fairly easily. And, they're doing it.
Oh, I understand that, in the abstract, a right should be recognized as something which is inalienable and not something which is granted or revoked. In practice, I believe there are a lot of situations in which the theoretically immutable right can be stripped away by someone who doesn't care.
See, as much as I believe that (ideally) what you say should be true, there's that little practical measure by which the rights of some people are being taken away (or trampled on, or ignored, or infringed, or abrigated, or what have you) -- that is happening now.
Infringe upon them long enough, pass laws saying they were never there in the first place, and get your AG and justice department to erode them long enough, and they're eventually gone. Failure to fight for your rights can, in fact, mean that they get taken away from you by someone who isn't quite so concerned with the niceties as you.
People who rule by force don't give a flying fsck about your theoretical rights. They just do it how they want to. When the man with a gun doesn't agree with your assertion that you have a right to do something, he's not going to get the finer points of your argument. Once people decide your 'quaint' notion of inherent rights is something they don't want to listen to any more
Failure to prevent it happening now means in a few generations, asserting you ever had these rights will be a matter of historical curiousity -- and, of no immediate practical benefit. At present, the current administration is trying very hard to undermine both the constitution and your rights
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Compare and discuss amongst yourselves. Is it constitutional to say that you can express dissent locked up inside of this fence after we've already corralled and ID'd you, or do you have the right to free speech everywhere. Don't taze me bro!! And then... The current administration, with the help of their crack (head) legal minds, have allowed all sorts of things to happen which are blatantly unconstitutional. It needs to be pointed out that Free Speech Zones were a Democrat invention, and the "don't taze me bro!" incident occurred at a Democrat "open question/answer session." (Although not so open that they won't Tazer you for asking the wrong questions!)
The problem is that too many people paint a picture where the Republican Party is to blame for everything, while the reality is that the Democrats have just as atrocious a record.
The solution isn't to make this into a "current administration" issue, but a general issue with the USA government. Yes, the current administration hasn't been all that great, but the previous administration was no better.
You sound like a complete ass that is assuming I'm wrong. A one-word order? Thanks, but I think I'll not bother doing your work for you. Any of the top-10 results on my Google search would have been sufficient, indicating that you are too stupid or too lazy to search yourself, but that you have your mind made up and even if I did post a reference, your response (even if just an internal response) would be "that's not credible."
If you are, in fact undecided on this issue and would like more information, perhaps you should try asking politely. Or try a search engine, they have lots of results.
Learn to love Alaska
No, blogs are a communication medium. As was clarified in this ruling and subsequent statements, it's the intent and method that make journalism.
Consider this: If a journalist from a "real" newspaper decided to do reporting for a "blog", would that somehow lower the quality of the work he's doing -- even if he writes in the same manner as he did for the "real" publication?
Dead trees do not a worthy statement make.