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Interesting title for a bill...
Posted by David Hardy · 30 January 2008 03:18 PM
Eugene Volkh points out it's a rather strange title for legislation: The Libel Terrorism Protection Act. Is it protection for libels, for terrorists, for persons defaming a terrorist? Turns out it it would bar domestic enforcement of defamation judgments secured in places that don't have our first amendment. One of the ways to suppress a book these days is to bring or threaten defamation actions in, say, Great Britain, where they don't have NY Times v. Sullivan and its related doctrines.
This makes no sense. Besides the fact that this law could arguably apply immediately to the courts of every single foreign country in the world (e.g. Germany because of their ban on speech denying the Holocaust,) why the hell are we enforcing the judgments of foreign countries in the first place?? What’s the precedent behind that?