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US Senate Passes 'Libel Tourism' Bill
Hugh Pickens writes "AFP reports that the US Senate has passed (by a 'unanimous consent' voice vote) a bill that prevents US federal courts from recognizing or enforcing a foreign judgment for defamation that is inconsistent with the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech. If the bill becomes law it will shield US journalists, authors, and publishers from 'libel tourists' who file suit in countries where they expect to get the most favorable ruling. 'While we cannot legislate changes to foreign law that are chilling protected speech in our country, we can ensure that our courts do not become a tool to uphold foreign libel judgments that undermine American First Amendment or due process rights,' said Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy. Backers of the bill have cited England, Brazil, Australia, Indonesia, and Singapore as places where weak libel safeguards attract lawsuits that unfairly harm US journalists, writers, and publishers. The popular legislation is headed to the House of Representatives, which is expected to approve it. 'This bill is a needed first step to ensure that weak free-speech protections and abusive legal practices in foreign countries do not prevent Americans from fully exercising their constitutional right to speak and debate freely,' said Senator Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on Leahy's committee."
Not that I encourage deliberately starting wildfires, but does this encompass protection if you draw Mohammed now?
There's a spot in User Info for World of Warcraft account names? Really?
So what was the last piece of legislation before this that actually was designed to protect an individuals rights? It has been too many years....
Good on you, Americans. So, now can you stop complaining if we try to stop our courts enforcing *your* mad decisions, like Gary McKinnon?
suddenoutbreakofcommonsense
Now that one can do investigation journalism in US, reverse-engineering in Finland, publish leaks in Sweden could we please recognize that preventing the publication of a file on internet is utterly silly ?
There are several projects of a "bill of rights" for "the virtual place named internet". One will maybe stick. Information may not want to be anthropomorphized, but a lot of people surely want it to be free.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
... what else is tacked on to that bill?
. . . is slightly mind boggling, but I'm glad to see that the Senate has it's collective head screwed on tightly enough to get it done, and by unanimous vote to boot.
It was a 'voice' vote though. I wonder if there were any senators who didn't give an enthusiastic 'ya' when the time was right.
I thought they were the party that's big on censoring. I guess libel-cases don't push the "morality" button like pr0n does. Oh well good for you American's anyway.
Raises an interesting question, am I the only one who thinks we'd be better of as a world if the UN Bill of Rights was as absolute in it's protections as particular clauses in some of our constitutions (like the first in America for example) and ALL U.N. member states were REQUIRED to implement it as part of their own constitutions (and where no constitution exists as in Britain be required to create one and make said bill of rights the entirey there-off ?)
We live in a global world now, life, law-enforcement and even international relations would all become a great deal simpler if we could agree on a set of universal human rights and be quite sure that in every non-totalitarian state you may visit those rights WILL receive absolute protection ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
I'm trying to figure this one out. A bill that passed the senate that reinforces some portion of our individual liberties. I'm having trouble seeing where the corporate benefit is here. I didn't think anything made its way through any part of congress without some corporation getting something out of it. I must be missing something.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
Mohammed sucks juicy big S
Now that is news!
And more seriously, this is definitely useful, because otherwise a foreign country could set up rules that heavily favors the plaintiff and abuse US citizens for, say, writing negatively about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or Posh Spice.
I am officially gone from
Yea, thats it, it is all the fault of those forigeners for using the stupid laws and has nothing to do with the US being the only country with them. Perhaps there is a reason none of those other countries have laws that can be abused so easily. There are however always leaches willing to use them even if they had to travel.
... this won't help cases like Spamhaus being sued by spammers in the US for defamation and tortious interference.
And yes, congrats for not "importing" silly laws.
Now if you might consider not exporting other silly laws *cough* *cough* DMCA *cough* software and bio patents *cough* ACTA *cough* practically infinite terms on copyright -- I'll start singing your praises loud.
And yes, the congrats in my first sentence are sincere and genuine!
This is an excellent move. Now, how about if the US stops trying to impose its laws on other countries? ACTA, anyone?
If you go to open secrets you'll notice that TV/MOVIES/MUSIC are a decent distance up the list. And notice how many contributions come from Time Warner. That's the smaller part of the reason though. The rest of it is that the media can spin any story to manipulate us one way or the other. Every legislator knows this, so none of them want to be the guy that stops this and gets pointed at. Big media wants its journalists to feel safe, and a public pat on the back or pointed finger isn't too far to go to get it as far as they are concerned.
This is a good thing that happened for the wrong reasons.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
So I've got to ask: how many libel suits must be pending overseas against BP America/Monsanto/Dow Chemical/United Healthcare/Disney/et al to get Congress to get off their butts and act?
Software piracy is victimless theft.
The Libel TERRORISM bill that will allow us to kidnap and torture any foreign journalist we don't like.
I kid you not, some of the ugly bags of meat on capitol hill actually think this is a good idea...
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
So we can talk about this all we want?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_C%C3%B4te_d%27Ivoire_toxic_waste_dump
There's something a lot of folks have missed:
Since when did our courts have either the jurisdiction or authority to enforce foreign judgments that are Constitutionally inconsistent to begin with?
Why did anyone *ever* think that was acceptable or feasible?
That's a serious question, with a *fascinating* answer for anyone with the perseverance to dig until they find it, the honesty to accept it, and the bravery to confront the meaning.
A bill that passed the senate that reinforces some portion of our individual liberties. I'm having trouble seeing where the corporate benefit is here.
I know you're being facetious, but most magazines, radio stations & tv stations are owned by corporations, they can't just have foreigners suing them for their dramatic, yet wildly inaccurate and poorly researched news stories.
Actually, it's the other way around.
Where this law came from is because of England. Basically, journalists would publish something about a dictator and regardless of how true it was or where it was published (they always found a way to sue in the UK), the dictator would sue and many times win (England's liable laws are idiotic) - costing the newspaper millions in the process and then they have to retract what they said.
The Economist reports on this every once in a while.
Actually, that'd be a trip of the Economist/Financial Times move over here.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
If the UN suddenly claimed the power to force member states to pass laws on their citizens, the "US out of UN" movement would probably quintuple in size overnight and they'd be looking for new office space to lease.
Well shoot, when you put it that way it almost makes me want to support it!
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
While I of course applaud the aims of this particular legislation, I think Senator Sessions may not like the consequences of starting an international game of "we won't recognize your court judgments because of your 'abusive legal system.'" The US legal systems for IP and class action recovery are the poster-children for 'abusive', and at a time when so much of the US economy depends on IP lawsuits (to say nothing of some no-doubt imminent class action suits against a certain British oil company), being the first to start ignoring foreign court judgments on principle might prove ill-advised.
While we cannot legislate changes to foreign law that are chilling protected speech in our country...
Why not? The US effectively legislates copyright law in my country (Australia). The only thing that stops them implementing free speech laws or any of the rest of the bill of rights is that they are uninterested in doing so.
Americans, I accept that there is always a dominant world power and right now it's you, that doesn't bother me at all. What bothers me is that in spreading US law, you neglect the best you have and give us the crap (DMCA). Please step up to the plate and address this with your federal representatives.
As far as Catholics, they have and still do require at least 16 y/o for males, 14 y/o for females. Which is more stringent requirements than the laws of some existing states. Really in most societies couples got married a lot earlier than people do now adays.
There are potential law suits against a British oil company? I didn't realise we still had any. I know there are former British companies that are now multi-national conglomerates, and I know they're having issues that could lead to legal situations, but I didn't know there was another oil company in a similar situation.
From my American informants, apparently only Fox is still making that mistake and most TV stations have started intentionally correcting themselves ;)
Fair point; but even a multi-national conglomerate by definition has its assets in multiple nations. In order for US plaintiffs to reach those assets, foreign courts will have to recognize the US judgments. The US probably doesn't want those foreign courts deciding that a system based on scumbag lawyers putting up "Have you been injured by the Gulf Oil Spill?! CALL NOW!" ads on cable TV and collecting their 33% is an "abusive legal system" whose judgments can be ignored. On the other hand, it might not be such a bad thing for the rest of the world if they did make such a decision.
The Senate unanimously agreed to do something that is actually good?
Of course, they are basically saying that US priorities take precedence over foreign priorities, so I suppose it doesn't really count.
I wonder how fast they would backpedal if Israel wanted to try a US journalist. <ducks>
Technoli
I approve of any measure that enhances national sovereignty. The world is far too corrupt for the idea of world government by treaty to be anything but a way to screw people who obey those treaties, so the sooner nations reject the laws of others the better.
"The US legal systems for IP and class action recovery are the poster-children for 'abusive',"
International law itself is abuse, because it is internal government of nations by treaty with other nations while excluding voters. Such concessions should have to pass the test of becoming Constitutional amendments (effectively killing them) to be enforced.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Who will protect me from the TSA at the boarder, where they tell me "YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS - USA IS 30 FEET BEHIND ME- and I WILL MAKE A DECISION IF YOU ENTER IT OR NOT"
Wowsa, you're a naive fella, huh? You know what this would cause? Every single islamic country in the UN would work to pass an amendment to that document outlawing blasphemy and ridicule of religion.
First, you can't ban "hate speech" in the U.S. and liberals (i.e. the ACLU) have been fighting *for* the right of idiots to spout hateful, racist bullshit for years.
Second, saying that hate speech is just "opinions" is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. It's the sort of thing only someone who says stupid racist/sexist/homophobic shit in public and then gets all butt-hurt when he's called out for being a clod.
Hate speech does exist, but it is only legally punishable when it is accompanied by physical intimidation or violence - as it should be, regardless of what the clods say! Hate speech is designed to intimidate or threaten a group of people. Hate speech backed up by violence not only harms the victim, but also all other members of the group. This is why hate crimes are punished more severely in this country, and you *can* thank liberals for that.
And right on schedule, the slashbot army of moderators leaps into action to stifle the free speech of somebody who dares point out their hypocrisy.
Since I no longer care about Karma, and have been opted-out of moderation by the Slashcrew, and as a result have opted out of the whole metamodertion circlejerk, be my guest and waste your irrelevant mod points.
www.eFax.com are spammers
The founding documents are not law in the U.S. except for the Constitution; neither are the personal views of the founding fathers. As much as I think you're right in a moral and ethical sense, the letter of the law in the U.S. is that you are entitled to your own opinions and speech - ALWAYS, regardless of the validity of what you say/think and if it offends anyone. Civil liberties groups like the ACLU exist, in part, to defend speech even when it is hurtful and unpopular. Legal precedent states that the only speech which is ever punishable is something like the old "yelling fire in a public theater" example.
So yeah, you're just wrong. And judging from some of the religious defamation laws that have been floated lately in Europe, I'm kinda glad you are.
slang changes. Chalkboards always were chalkboards where I grew up, confused the hell out of me when I heard people calling them blackboards (they are green damn it!). Changing locations, changing demographics, new generations, all of them can change slang.
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
Perhaps Congress could pass a law guaranteeing that "abusive legal practices in foreign countries [the US] do not prevent non-Americans from fully exercising their rights to play legally purchased audio/video content and write code without paying protection money to US patent trolls".
Does this mean that congress can by law dictate what the court system has jurisdiction on now? What's to keep them from passing a law saying the courts no longer have jurisdiction in campaign finance reform or abortion cases?
Congress doing something that makes sense? We shouldn't extradite someone for a foreign crime unless it's also a crime here? Courts shouldn't recognize foreign convictions without first trying US citizens here?
There must be some angle I'm not seeing.
Yeah, that's already happening... even the director who fucked a minor was not extradited to the US by Switzerland...
I was unaware US courts could do anything regarding liability for things done elsewhere that are not illegal in the US. Especially things that cannot be made illegal in the US.
Do treaties override Constitutional protections? I thought they could not.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
You said it yourself, 40% of children failed to reach adulthood. Most numbers that are thrown around are the average at birth; the high infant mortality rates of the past lead to artificially low numbers (e.g. you have 6 babies, 4 of them die within a year but the remaining two live to be 65, your average expectancy is...well, a lot lower than 65, the math is more involved than I want to get atm). In Rome, the average expectancy was 24, but if you made it to 5 years old your new average was 48, more than enough time to bear and raise children even if you married in your mid-20s.
I suspect the early marriage of yore was so you could start producing children as soon as possible, to insure you could bear enough that at least one or two would make it through childhood and get to the point where they could reasonably expect to see 50.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
The US already commonly ignores lawsuits for precisely that reason:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aUZQr9RexJ5c&refer=us
So why should other countries enforce idiotic American laws, such as software patents and continuously extended copyrights ?
Moreover, (without reading the bill) what about foreign judgments from actions that didn't occur in the US?
Say I go to Belarus and violate the libel laws there (also assume the libel laws there are not in accordance with the US 1st Amendment). I'm taken to court there, and the victim of my blather wins. Assume this is in accordance with the law, so no corruption or funny business. Not being from Belarus, but instead from the US, all my assets (money) are in the US. So the winning plaintiff brings the judgment to the US and asks the court to enforce the judgment against me. Still quite reasonable, as I did violate the law of Belarus in Belarus. Does this legislation prevent the enforcement? If it does, why should it? This, to my mind, is a legitimate situation to enforce the judgment.
Avoiding the 1st Amendment by bringing an action elsewhere shouldn't work and should be stopped, as this would do. But this may be overbroad, essentially infringing on the sovereignty of other nations to apply their laws in their countries to Americans and have that recognized. Comity of nations may often be a comedy, but it isn't always, and the US Congress would do well to remember that and be careful in the drafting.
IAAL and an American. AC because I only occasionally lurk on /.
LOL! A troll caught itself.
While I of course applaud the aims of this particular legislation, I think Senator Sessions may not like the consequences of starting an international game of "we won't recognize your court judgments because of your 'abusive legal system.'" The US legal systems for IP and class action recovery are the poster-children for 'abusive', and at a time when so much of the US economy depends on IP lawsuits (to say nothing of some no-doubt imminent class action suits against a certain British oil company), being the first to start ignoring foreign court judgments on principle might prove ill-advised.
I'm pretty sure that everyone has been freely ignoring foreign court judgments since anyone first came up with the idea of a "court" sometime in prehistoric times. Foreign court rulings are not generally enforceable against someone outside the country, unless a specific agreement exists. Usually agreements do exist, at least between developed nations, but they tend to be very limited when it comes to civil cases, AFAIK.
IP and class action suits are entirely different, because there you're often talking about suing a multinational corporation. Likewise BP. As soon as they have assets in the country, the court can enforce its orders without asking permission from another country. Otherwise, you're out of luck. When the MPAA tried sending DMCA takedown notices to The Pirate Bay, they were indeed told to go jump off a cliff, IIRC. The suit had to be filed in the local nation's court to actually get an enforceable judgment.
MediaWiki developer, Total War Center sysadmin
Exactly!
This has to be one of the BIGGEST misunderstandings over averages (means) I've ever seen. It has wide reaching impact as well. It gives people a false notion that modern times have extended our lives greatly or that poor nations have people who do not live long, etc. The perception has wide reaching impact. Those starving diseased places in the world don't actually have a whole lot less of a lifespan than we think they do - they just have huge child mortality rates knocking it down for the most part - the war torn places have an impact too but it is not as great as the hugely skewing child death rates. Just fixing up the birth process brings up the stat in large ways; although, again you are then focusing effort based upon a misunderstanding of averages instead of working on more important factors which simply lack the pull on the numbers.
It also undermines the belief that modern medicine is as great as we think it is... not completely, but it doesn't look as great as the numbers make it look... so we get a few more years out of it...at huge massive expense... alters one's perspective a little bit.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
You have no perspective.
The US already has one-way extradition treaties with numerous countries, including major ones. A situation which is decidedly more abusive than just choosing to ignore a few foreign court judgments. Considering this only applies to speech, it's not going to get anyone in much more of a huff than they already are over the current relationship.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I dunno. It might not be a bad thing for foreign legal systems to start ignoring us when we want to punish their citizens for things they did while not on US soil.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
There are plenty of things wrong with the US legal system. Don't pin OJ's acquittal on that. Blame it on incompetent lawyers.
Would that mean the US will also cease in trying to strong arm US law onto foreign, sovereign states?
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
I suspect astroturfing is going on. There's too many trolls, and too many opinions that seem unreasonable.
Never think that only corporations engage in astroturfing. If anything, governments have more need to shape public opinion.
Imagine, though, what kind of a job it would be for a non-geek to have the job of reading slashdot, and deciding how to post. That's probably why so many of the opinions seem wrong-headed.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
What event precipitated this bill? Did the US courts actually do this? I was not aware that the US courts ever upheld foreign judgments. I thought that was what extradition was for -- you send the person to the other country, and they judge and enforce their law. I find it difficult to believe that even if the US did uphold a foreign judgment, that it would happen on something that violated hte first amendment. The US courts are pretty consistent on that one. It seems like an easy appeal.
What happened?
Wait, so now it's safe to call Tom Cruise a fudge packer? And he can't even sue me in England? Because I thought I saw him at a fudge factory, packing up boxes, and had to tell someone.
NO.
Society has a right to restrict the actions of free men when those men recognize the need to restrict various activities including but not limited to murder, rape, tax evasion, racial discrimination, etc. We, freely, choose to form a society that limits certain behaviors. We, freely, determine how those limits will be defined and how transgressions will be judged.
Society has the right to hunt down and kill free men who do not recognize the need to restrict activities that harm the social contract of free men. We call these men who need to be hunted down and killed "sociopaths".
Ayn Rand disagreed. She felt that brutal psychopathy was the highest expression of freedom, and that kidnap, murder and rape were the admirable actions of truly free men. See http://www.michaelprescott.net/hickman.htm or just Google "Ayn Rand Hickman" for details.
Are you a sociopath?
This is admirable, and good news for US citizens. If only the same principle could be applied to the Bush-Blair extradition treaty, which allows British citizens to be deported to the US for trial on the unsupported word of US law enforcement authorities (but not, notably, the other way round).
In Europe there is a saying of ancient and probably italian origin: Honour is stronger than death!
This means if a person cannot obtain remedy for insult on his/her person via the authorities, the greater family is morally obliged to wash the insult away with blood. Yes, I mean vendetta, sawn-off barreled shotgun and dagger with a handle made of rose-wood, according to noblest corsican traditions.
Rather than being forced to pay compensation or spend time in jail, libelous journalists will be lying in a pool of their own blood in plain sight, to serve as a deterrent for all.
America has become too much legalized and its people no longer recognize that even if you exhausted all venues in courts, direct action is still available. How come the negro O. J. Simpson, self-confessed killer of a blond lady and a white boss, is stil alive? The families of the victims have no honour at all to avenge their deaths? Even if they are too weak to do it personally, they could ask a respected godfather to look at their misery and intervene. As a european who values honour above anything, I am ashmed of their behaviour! How can they look in the mirror day after day while that OJS ape is still alive?
The loss of honour among americans is what causing the downfall of the once great nation. The chinese are not lazy to punish cimes and sins and they are to become rulers of the 21st century and probably 150-200 years beyond.
P,S.: Check into the "Church of Perfect Liberty" if you want to see how the current laws apply. (That's no me, I don't qualify. But THEY do.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.