{"id":2809,"date":"2013-01-31T03:01:40","date_gmt":"2013-01-31T11:01:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/?p=2809"},"modified":"2015-06-13T03:06:04","modified_gmt":"2015-06-13T11:06:04","slug":"corporate-bullies-attack-free-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/corporate-bullies-attack-free-speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Bullies Attack Free Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

January 31, 2013<\/span><\/p>\n

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With all the recent brouhaha about the second amendment,\u00a0firearm regulation and out of control gun violence, one would think that\u2019s the only amendment under attack.<\/p>\n

Not so\u2026<\/p>\n

\"\"There exists a different form of violence assaulting our first amendment rights \u2014 cowardly legal attacks meant to silence free speech and intimidate their victims. They\u2019re called SLAPP suits:Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. Typically they are made with spurious claims of slander or libel, but virtually any law can be bent to fit the means of legal bullies.<\/p>\n

Designed to silence and financially destroy their targets, they are the legal tool of choice of corporate bullies\u00a0that wish to quash critics, opposition, competition and unfavorable opinions. Although illegal in\u00a028 states, SLAPP suits continue to\u00a0thrive in\u00a0our litigious nation. The suits are hollow and the plaintiff\u00a0rarely intends to win \u2014 just to silence free speech. Both common and constitutional law have evolved to set a very high substantive burden to claims that restrict free speech, particularly that which involves the public realm. But that doesn\u2019t stop the legal bullying.<\/p>\n

TransCanada, the multinational corporation building a tar sands pipeline in Texas SLAPPed activists who protested the project. The corporation demanded $5 million in damages. Although the activists were well represented by the Civil Liberties Defense Center, the defendants opted to reach a settlement in which they agreed to cease their protest just to put an end to the legal nightmare. Tamie Carson, A Texas grandmother said\u201cI had no choice but to settle or lose my home and everything I\u2019ve worked for my entire life.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The Civil Liberties Defense Center characterizes SLAPPs such:<\/p>\n

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\u201c[They]\u2026<\/em>function by forcing the target into the judicial arena where the SLAPP filer foists upon the target the expenses of a defense\u2026The purpose of such gamesmanship ranges from simple retribution for past activism to discouraging future activism\u2026Those who lack the financial resources and emotional stamina to play out the \u201cgame\u201d face the difficult choice of defaulting despite meritorious defenses or being brought to their knees to settle\u2026Persons who have been outspoken on issues of public importance targeted in such suits or who have witnessed such suits will often choose in the future to stay silent. Short of a gun to the head, a greater threat to First Amendment expression can scarcely be imagined.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sadly, I can relate. Several years ago my family, and several of my friends\u2019 families,\u00a0were the target of a SLAPP suit from Meijer Corporation over a development they planned in our community. After several agonizing years of litigation, we jointly agreed to file what\u2019s called a SLAPP-back suit. In the face of legal discovery, it was only a matter of months before the corporate bully folded like a deck chair. The problem is, the fear never goes away. As a political activist and campaign manager I have been threatened twice more with SLAPP suits \u2014 the worst part is, the threats came from individuals that knew about the ordeal my family had been through.\u00a0That\u2019s extreme cruelty.<\/p>\n

SLAPPs are not uncommon. Just this week, one was filed against a woman in Atlantic City, another against a group in Washington state, a SanClemente developer SLAPPed a local political action committee.\u00a0The family of Ray Charles fought back against a SLAPP filed to prevent them from exercising their right to regain\u00a0copyright to their father\u2019s music.<\/p>\n

Some consider SLAPP suits a fascist tool designed to enable corporate interests to trample individual first amendment rights. It\u2019s about more than our rights \u2014 it\u2019s about the lives of very real people.\u00a0I witnessed the stress \u2014 the emotional and physical toll\u00a0the SLAPP suit inflicted on my family and friends. Just thinking about it makes me sick all over again\u2026but I will never forget.<\/p>\n

Source:\u00a0http:\/\/www.democracy-tree.com\/corporate-bullies-attack-free-speech\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Amy Kerr Hardin <\/strong>This article also appears in Voters Legislative Transparency Project<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January 31, 2013 With all the recent brouhaha about the second amendment,\u00a0firearm regulation and out of control gun violence, one would think that\u2019s the only amendment under attack. Not so\u2026 There exists a different form…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[1292],"class_list":["post-2809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-2","category-featured-news","tag-corporate-bullies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2809"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2811,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2809\/revisions\/2811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.info\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}