OK….so what ever I do, could after the fact, expose me to untold liability?!?!?!?!

Bull pucks.

This is where lawyers are messed up. Matt is right. Plain English (ok, latin) is plain English. No after the fact changing of the rules, period. The Constitution makes no distinction between Civil and Criminal. Where does (who ever) make this up? What whole cloth are they cutting this distinction from?

If it’s legal to do something today, then you can’t hold me to account tomorrow, next month, next year, 20 years from now.

Free press advocates should start calling such measures “Climate Pravda” laws. “Pravda,” of course, means “truth” in Russian, but was given an unintentionally ironic twist by the official Party newspaper. The Stalin and Brezhnev versions of the Soviet constitution guaranteed free speech and free press rights, but these were collective rights, eg of the people through their government to organize May Day parades and publish enlightening newspapers.

Climate change activists claim that political resistance to their agenda is illegitimate if not treasonable, but would die out if debate were shut down. But nothing would serve more to harden opposition than a rational certainty that the climate crusaders had outlawed access to scientific debate. Out of such overreach, civil wars are born.

“this could rightly be viewed as a problematic place to draw the line, but it’s where the line currently is.”

But there is absolutely nothing in the text of the constitution that suggests the line should exist at all.

The courts have generally ruled that the ex post facto clause forbids application of retroactive criminal but not civil liability. Since the two exist on a continuum with each other — consider punitive damages, the stigmatizing and moralizing aspect of concepts like civil fraud, and so forth — this could rightly be viewed as a problematic place to draw the line, but it’s where the line currently is.