New York to Protect Writers from Foreign Libel Suits
New York Governor David
Paterson signed into law yesterday the “Libel Terrorism Protection Act,”
according to the New York Sun.
This bill, for which Harvey and his
colleague Samuel A. Abady have lobbied in the Boston Globe
and the New York Post,
is the direct result of the recent censorship of New York journalist and
counterterrorism expert Rachel Ehrenfeld. In her book, Funding Evil, Ehrenfeld
named Saudi billionaire Khalid bin Mahfouz as a leading financier of Islamic
terrorism based on an exhaustive review of government documents. While
Ehrenfeld’s scholarship, particularly her characterizations of Muslim
charities, are controversial, there’s no doubt that her attack on bin Mahfouz
is fully protected speech and does not even approach the threshold set for
libel by New York Times v. Sullivan. Nonetheless, bin Mahfouz has been
able to effectively muzzle Ehrenfeld by suing her in England, where 23 copies of her
book were ordered online and where libel laws are much more plaintiff-friendly.
Like most journalists, Ehrenfeld could not afford to battle a litigious
billionaire in a foreign country. She had no choice but to accept a declaratory
judgment that she pay $225,000 in damages and pulp remaining copies of Funding
Evil. The “Libel Terrorism Protect Act” now allows her to challenge the British court’s judgment on American
soil, where she will enjoy the full protections of the First Amendment. Let’s
hope that civil libertarian groups around the country understand the importance
of rallying their state legislatures to pass similar legislation
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