A new way to harass authors whose controversial message one disapproves of? The lawsuit, which demands $5 million, claims that the former President’s 2006 volume “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” contains “numerous false and knowingly misleading statements intended to promote the author’s agenda of anti-Israel propaganda and to deceive the reading public instead of presenting accurate information as advertised.” Sanctions, please! [Washington Post “Political Bookworm”]
Posts Tagged ‘Israel’
September 9 roundup
- “Bullying Busybody for Senate: How Connecticut’s attorney general beat Craigslist into submission” [Sullum, Harper] Blumenthal’s Senate campaign sputtering despite huge advantages [Jack Fowler, NRO] Lloyd Grove interview with challenger Linda McMahon [Daily Beast]
- “How Much Does Defensive Medicine Cost? One Study Says $46 Billion” [WSJ Health Blog, NY Times] Plus: a cardiologist’s comment;
- “Man sues over parking ticket, says it disclosed too much info” [Obscure Store, suburban Chicago Daily Herald]
- New allegations emerge in much-discussed “rape by deception” case in Israel [FrumForum, earlier, an academic comments]
- A Connecticut village turns down money from Hartford and tackles a historic preservation project on its own [me at Cato]
- NY Governor signs bill giving housekeepers, nannies new powers to sue employers for overtime, vacations [Workplace Prof] Plus: Hans in comments wonders whether the duty to avoid “hostile environment” harassment will collide with the right of free speech on sexual matters taken for granted (heretofore, at least) in a home environment.
- “Lawyers sue Facebook for letting kids like advertisements” [Gryphon, PoL]
- Per his foes, Gilded Age NYC trial lawyer William Howe used onion-scented handkerchief to summon tears at command [five years ago at Overlawyered]
“Rape by deception” in Israel
“A Palestinian man has been convicted of rape after having consensual sex with a woman who had believed him to be a fellow Jew.” [Guardian] Rape by deception is a crime in many although not all jurisdictions, with impersonation of a woman’s husband or lover being one classic fact pattern giving rise to charges; two years ago, in a debate over such a law in Massachusetts, critics expressed unease about which other sorts of misrepresentations might be reached as well [CBS News]
As for the civil-law side, a few years back (to quote from the manuscript of my forthcoming book Schools for Misrule):
a Northwestern law professor, building on the undeniable fact that many persons behave badly on the dating market, proposed as a remedy the development of a new tort of “sexual fraud,” which would allow lawsuits for cash damages against persons who use lies or insincerity to get others to sleep with them (“Of course I’m not married.”) It was one of the year’s most widely hailed and talked-about articles.
More: Max Fisher, Atlantic Wire (rounding up reactions); Eugene Volokh (including link to discussion of Massachusetts bill). And: comments from Andrew Sullivan’s readers.
May 26 roundup
- Oh dear: Elena Kagan praised as “my judicial hero” Aharon Barak, ultra-activist Israeli jurist flayed by Posner as lawless [Stuart Taylor, Jr./Newsweek] Kagan and executive power [Root, Reason]
- More on efforts to get feds to redesign hot dogs and other choking-risk foods [NYT, earlier]
- Amid brouhaha over Rand Paul views, Chicago firefighter-test case provides reminder of how discrimination law actually plays out in courts today [Tabarrok, MargRev]
- So please, Ken, tell us what you really think of this Mr. Francis (“Girls Gone Wild”) and his nastygrams [Popehat]
- More on SEIU’s tactic of sending mob to banker’s home in suburban Maryland [Volokh and more, earlier]
- “Intensive Parenting Enforced: Parents Criminal Liability for Children Skipping School” [Gaia Bernstein, ConcurOp on a California bill]
- Julian Ku unimpressed with United Nations officials’ claims that Arizona immigration statute violates international civil rights law [Opinio Juris] Plus, a complaint to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights [Kopel, Volokh] Ilya Shapiro analyzes statute’s constitutionality [Cato]
- Bill moving through Congress would force states, localities to accept unionization, arbitration for public safety workforces [Fox, Jottings] And here comes the giant federal bailout of union pension funds [Megan McArdle]
December 15 roundup
- “Truck drivers with positive drug tests should not file lawsuits … period.” [Jon Hyman, Ohio Employer’s Law]
- Tiger Woods hires a Hollywood law firm famous for its nastygrams to the press [Bronstad, NLJ; earlier on Lavely & Singer]
- “Mom Who Let Kids Play Outside Threatened by Cops” [Aliso Viejo, Calif.; Free-Range Kids]
- When you’re embarking on the business of not raising pigs, best to start small and ramp up from there [Coyote, U.K.]
- Harvey Silverglate, author of Three Felonies a Day, guestblogging at Volokh Conspiracy on, inter alia, “honest services fraud“;
- If you’re uneasy about the FTC’s claims to regulate blogger freebies and other entanglements of commerce with online speech, wait till the agency gets the beefed-up enforcement powers it’s seeking [WSJ editorial]
- Replaying a discussion familiar in this country, Israel wonders whether it’s got too many lawyers [Jerusalem Post]
- “Wrongful Death Suit Filed Against O’Quinn Estate Over Fatal Car Crash” [Texas Lawyer]
Conference tomorrow: “Libel Lawfare”
From the Federalist Society, which is among the sponsors of the D.C. event tomorrow, along with the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression and other groups:
Lawfare is the use of the law and legal institutions to achieve military, political or strategic objectives. In recent years, lawfare has come to include libel litigation aimed at suppressing public dialogue about radical Islam and terrorism. Parties with financial means have been filing lawsuits, in American courts and abroad, against people who speak out against or write critically about radical Islam. Defendants include authors, researchers, journalists, politicians, and human rights advocacy groups.
“Libel Tourism,” is a form of forum shopping, where plaintiffs bring actions against American citizens in foreign jurisdictions that lack the free speech protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution. As a result New York State has passed the Libel Terrorism Protection Act, and the U.S. government is considering the Free Speech Protection Act, both of which operate to nullify said foreign libel judgments.
Our conference will address these fundamental issues: What does freedom of speech truly mean? Is U.S. legislation prohibiting the enforcement of foreign libel judgments necessary? What should be the role of the European Union and the United Nations in addressing these issues?
Some further reading: Brooke Goldstein/Family Security Matters, Aaron Eitan Meyer/New Majority.
The costs of universal jurisdiction
“International human rights law” — what could sound more cuddly and humanitarian? Who could disapprove of such a thing? That’s one reason it’s so popular at almost every law school nowadays following years of generous support by the Ford Foundation, Soros, and other donors. In practice, as is now clear, it often tends to furnish a set of handy weapons for carrying on “lawfare” — warfare by means of courtroom action against one’s adversaries, particularly in the courts of third countries. (Anne Herzberg, “Lawfare against Israel”, WSJ, Nov. 5). For the closely related issue of laws empowering private attorneys and litigants to pursue foreign entities over alleged terrorist support whether or not such actions advance U.S. diplomatic goals, see Sept. 12, 2007.