Heartland Institute Threatens To Sue Anyone Who Comments On Leaked Documents

Layzej writes "Bloggers around the world have been commenting on recently leaked Heartland Institute documents that reveal their internal strategies to discredit climate science. These posters are now under threat of legal action. According to the Heartland Institute 'the individuals who have commented so far on these documents did not wait for Heartland to confirm or deny the authenticity of the documents. We believe their actions constitute civil and possibly criminal offenses for which we plan to pursue charges and collect payment for damages'"

Comments

Re:Pants on fire.

[Anonymous Coward]

Although I agree with your sentiments wholeheartedly I don't think 'begs the question' means what you think it means

Re:authenticity confirmed

[Anonymous Coward]

Megan McArdle? Really?

Just what does an economics writer who knows nothing about either economics or simple math have to do with document authentication?

Re:Streissand

[BasilBrush]

Their target audience might just see the leaks as the work of the conspiracy of freedom haters and lap up the message.

Of course they will. The very same people that were so pleased that the CRU email server was hacked into in the so called "Climategate" affair. That said how great it was that this information was now in the public domain.

Cretins.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[Surt]

"Truth is a complete defence against defamation." And you know the disputed document is authentic how, exactly?

It doesn't matter whether the documents are authentic. The issue at stake is whether anyone who read the documents and commented upon them had reason to believe that their own comments were false.

"For example, the Minnesota Supreme Court has held:
We hold that a private individual may recover actual damages for a defamatory publication upon proof that the defendant knew or in the exercise of reasonable care should have known that the defamatory statement was false. The conduct of defamation defendants will be judged on whether the conduct was that of a reasonable person under the circumstances."

Since there's clearly no way to know whether any statement related to these documents is false, the commenters are clearly safe.

Re:what does waiting have to do with anything?

[mathmathrevolution]

The best evidence that the strategy memo is authentic is the amount of material in that memo that has subsequently been confirmed by other sources: From Desmogblog:

The DeSmogBlog has reviewed that Strategy document and compared its content to other material we have in hand. It addresses five elements:

The Increased Climate Project Fundraising material is reproduced in and confirmed by Heartland's own budget.

The "Global Warming Curriculum for K-12 Classrooms" is also a Heartland budget item and has been confirmed independently by the author, Dr. David Wojick.

The Funding for Parallel Organizations; Funding for Selected Individuals Outside Heartland are both reproduced and confirmed in the Heartland budget. And Anthony Watts has confirmed independently the payments in Expanded Climate Communications.