Saturday, January 25, 2014

SLAPPstick Farce: Getting Sued for Speaking Out


Mark Steyn   "America is a land of acronyms, and, useful as they are, acronyms can quickly curdle into jargon. SLAPP stands for "strategic lawsuit against public participation" — i.e., using legal action to cow an opponent into silence, and withdrawal from the public square. It was coined in the Eighties by Penelope Canan and George W. Pring at the University of Denver, and in the Nineties they turned it into a book: SLAPPs: Getting Sued for Speaking Out." ...
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[National Review] "runs specialized blogs on both legal matters and climate change, yet they too have been all but entirely silent. I assume, from this lonely outpost on NR's wilder shores, that back at head office they take the view that it's best not to say anything while this matter works its way through the courts. In other words, a law explicitly intended to prevent litigious bullies from forcing their victims to withdraw from "public participation" has resulted in the defendants themselves voluntarily withdrawing from "public participation." That's nuts.

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