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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."
Good on you, Americans. So, now can you stop complaining if we try to stop our courts enforcing *your* mad decisions, like Gary McKinnon?
Now all we need is for other countries to protect their citizens from similar patent tourism.
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 ?
Nope. Servers live places. The people who do the uploading live places. The people who run the servers can be punished. The people who do the uploading can be punished. There's no legal basis for your theory that criminalizing the publication of a file on the internet (I assume that's what you meant since nobody is preventing the publication of anything, if I assume incorrectly please let me know WTF you were thinking) is "silly". First we'd need to throw away IP law entirely, which is pretty much the opposite of what is going on in the world today. A significant part of IP law is written into international conventions to which the USA and GB are both signatories.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you think the republicans have a monopoly on censorship, you've had your head buried in the sand too long.
Heard of the fairness doctrine?
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.
On the contrary, from my point of view, the Democrats are much bigger on censorship (such as so-called "hate speech", AKA opinions) and political correctness than the Republicans, but let's not fight. These opposing fundamental viewpoints are really not arguable effectively; i.e., stating this one way or the other will never sway anyone on the other side. Can we just agree that it is very gratifying that both sides of the aisle joined together on this?
AFAIK, none of those companies (with the possible fringe example of Disney) are in an industry where libel is a serious issue.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
The US does not have the power to dictate legislation to foreign lands.
Unfortunately, this does not stop the U.S. from trying to do so, at gunpoint if necessary.
Yes, but only from law suits. It will not protect you from actual bombers or bullets. --This is not really a joke because it is way to accurate.
You're exaggerating. As far as I know not a single shot has been fired anywhere on earth because of a picture.
Does a moving picture count? Because Theo van Gogh has definitely been shot. (8 times. And then stabbed.)
Your freedom of opinion does not INCLUDE the freedom to think I or anybody else is less than you.
Yes. Yes, it does.
Since it's a provable fact that I am NOT less than you, and nobody else is either
How would you go about proving that? I believe that all people are of equal value, but I would be hard pressed to prove that as a fact. In truth, I think it would be trivial to "prove" that some people are of less value than others (for certain definitions of "value").
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The moment it DOES - you've lost the right to. The moment you pass me over for promotion because I'm the wrong color even though I'm the best candidate you SHOULD be committing a crime.
Well that's where we differ. If you let your racist hiring decisions affect how you run your business, I may dislike it but it's your business. You should be able to choose not to hire me because you don't like my skin color, or eye color, or because the your hallucination of St. Peter told your enfeebled brain that if you hired me your moustache would turn green. Freedom is freedom; if you have to qualify it like you want to do it's not freedom anymore.
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