Speech act

• 1. The Book That Sparked A War

  ›

  In 2003, Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld published a book titled Funding Evil. The work detailed financial connections between charities and terrorist organizations. Khalid bin Mahfouz, a wealthy Saudi businessman, sued her in the United Kingdom for libel. He claimed the book damaged his reputation. The British court ruled against Ehrenfeld and ordered her to pay damages. She refused to appear in the UK proceedings because she believed the law was unfair to American speech rights. This legal battle became the catalyst for new federal legislation years later.

  14

• 2. Unanimous Approval In Congress

  ›

  The SPEECH Act passed through the 111th United States Congress without opposition. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate voted unanimously to approve the measure. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law on the 10th of August 2010. Two earlier attempts to address similar issues had failed during previous sessions. Those bills were called the Free Speech Protection Act and were introduced in 2008 and 2009. They did not gain enough support to become law before this version succeeded. Several major organizations supported the final act including the American Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union.

  56789

• 3. Defining Foreign Judgment Rules

  ›

  Section 4104 of the statute creates a new cause of action for defendants facing foreign defamation judgments. U.S. courts cannot enforce any foreign libel judgment unless specific conditions are met. One condition requires that the foreign jurisdiction offers free speech protections at least equal to those found in the First Amendment. Another condition states that enforcement is allowed if the defendant would have been found liable under U.S. law anyway. The law also mandates that due process guarantees must be respected by the foreign court. Claims involving online content remain protected under Section 230 of the Communications Act unless they align with what a U.S. court would decide.

  314

• 4. Early Court Battles And Rulings

  ›

  The first case to apply the SPEECH Act was Pontigon v. Lord heard in Missouri courts during April 2011. InvestorsHub.com v. Mina Mar Group became the first federal judgment referencing the act though it settled out of court. Trout Point Lodge v. Doug K. Handshoe marked the first appellate level ruling issued under the legislation. A Nova Scotia judgment was declared unrecognizable and unenforceable in the United States. In 2013, the trial court awarded Handshoe $48,000 in legal fees pursuant to the fee-shifting provision. The Electronic Frontier Foundation successfully used the act in EFF v. Global Equity during 2017 to block a South Australian defamation claim.

  1112131519

• 5. Critiques Of Scope And Exceptions

  ›

  Academic critics argue the act fails to distinguish between legitimate forum selection and illegitimate forum shopping. Nicole Manzo wrote in the Roger Williams Law Review that exceptions to non-enforcement are illusory. She stated the act affords too little protection to foreign defamation plaintiffs. An article in the Journal of International & Comparative Law described the law as overly broad and in need of reform. Critics point out that the statute penalizes plaintiffs filing claims in good faith within appropriate fora. The judge in the Handshoe case later rejected attempts to use the SPEECH Act for copyright infringement judgments involving property rights rather than speech allegations.