Thursday, July 1, 2010

A Great Bill Being Sponsored by Jeff Sessions and Pat Leahy

There is a bill coming out of the Senate Judiciary Committee called the "Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act", which hopefully will be passed into law. It would protect American journalists from foreign libel lawsuits in countries where free-speech protections are much weaker than in the US.

This bill is being sponsored by Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and my good friend Pat Leahy (D-VT). Leahy is pictured below.

(Heh heh)

In spite of the silly-sounding name, this legislation is very necessary here in the US. The reason is a case in the UK by which Rachel Ehrenfeld, an American, was sued in the UK by a Saudi billionaire over her book, "Funding Evil-How terrorism is financed-and how you can stop it". In this book, Ehrenfeld named Khalid bin Mahfouz as a financier of Hamas and al-Qaeda. Mahfouz sued in a UK court and was awarded $250,000. Ehrenfeld was ordered to burn all her books and retract her statements. She told the British court to stick it where the sun don't shine.

Of course, we all know by now that British standards of free speech are nowhere near what they are here especially when it comes to offending people like Mahfouz. But why in tarnation should a Saudi be allowed to sue an American in a British court over a book published in the US and expect the US to enforce any judgement?

If we don't take measures to protect American writers from this kind of frivolous action, who knows what will be next? Why, yours truly may find himself being sued by those no-good, radical, stupid, obnoxious, ugly, ridiculous, British horse's asses George Galloway and Anjem Choudary for libel.
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1 comment:

  1. Siarlys JenkinsJuly 2, 2010 at 12:13 PM

    I entirely agree. I'm not sure why such a law is needed, but it certainly will short circuit attempts to collect a debt, lawful in Great Britain, in an American court, without reference to whether an American court would have assessed the same penalty, or even recognized a violation. So let's go for it.

    In today's complex world, it may be true that the British judgement would prevent sale of the book in Britain, allow proceeds collected on sales in Britain to be seized to satisfy the judgement, etc. So, she can stick to American publishers. We'll read the books we want to read.

    In light of the little unpleasantness we had with Great Britain around 1775, and previous tensions on similar subjects, I would suggest calling this the John Peter Zenger Legacy Act. It is shorter, easier to remember, has more zing to it, and is a bit of a poke in the eye to our former colonial masters, who couldn't have rebuilt after WW II without our generous aid.

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