By Lisa Piraneo, Director of Government Relations
Act! for America
Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed a modified version of H.R. 2765, the “Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act,” (aka the “SPEECH Act”) originally introduced by Representative Steve Cohen (TN), and recently passed in the U.S. Senate. It will now be sent to the White House for the President’s signature, at which time it will become law.
H.R. 2765 deters individuals from bringing a libel or defamation suit against an American in a country that has less protective free speech laws. This increasing practice is not used to pursue legitimate claims of defamation and libel, but to silence journalists, publishers, authors as well as anyone else who seeks to exercise their First Amendment right of Free Speech. It is referred to as “libel tourism” or “lawfare” and it is being used successfully to silenced authors and journalists, like Rachel Ehrenfeld, who write about issues critical to our national security.
As Representative Peter King recently stated, “We cannot change other countries’ (libel) laws, nor would we want to. We must respect their laws, as they ought to respect ours. However, we cannot allow foreign citizens to exploit these courts to endanger Americans’ First Amendment protected speech; especially, when the subject matter is of such grave importance as terrorism and those who finance it.”
ACT! for America has a history of aggressively and successfully working to defeat libel tourism and to protect every American’s constitutional right to Free Speech. We have supported and helped pass similar legislation at the state level in New York (“Rachel’s Law”), as well as similar legislation in Florida, Illinois, Utah, Tennessee, Maryland and California. It was time for the U.S. Congress to address libel tourism protection at a national level as well.
ACT! for America is supportive of H.R. 2765’s provisions—namely banning enforcement of foreign libel judgments, and allowing authors to request exoneration in court. However, we endorsed, The Free Speech Protection Act introduced in the House as H.R. 1304, by Rep. Peter King, and in the Senate as S. 449, by Sen. Arlen Specter, as we feel it is stronger legislation. The proposals were on our list of “High Priority Legislation” in the current session of Congress and we actively supported them.
The Free Speech Protection Act contains not only provisions included in H.R. 2765—namely banning the enforcement of foreign libel judgments—but it goes a step further: The legislation would also allow American authors and journalists to sue those foreign plaintiffs here in the United States—something that we feel will be a strong and successful deterrent to libel tourism litigation.
The bottom line: Legislation that codifies any of our constitutional rights is critically important, and passage of H.R. 2765 can certainly be categorized as a “score” for us on the constitutional scoreboard. We remain hopeful, however, that stronger legislation, such as the King/Specter Free Speech Protection Act, will be addressed and ultimately passed into law during the next session of Congress. Doing so will ensure that the harassment of libel tourism will finally be significantly diminished, if not eliminated altogether.
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