The Free Speech Protection Act

Early this year we alerted our members to legislation introduced in the New York Assembly called the “Libel Terrorism Protection Act,” now commonly known as “Rachel’s Law.”

Rachel Ehrenfeld, a member of the Advisory Board of our sister organization American Congress for Truth, was sued in a British court by a Saudi billionaire who claimed her book, Funding Evil, was defamatory. This Saudi has filed dozens of lawsuits in foreign courts in an attempt to intimidate authors and publishers.

“Rachel’s Law” was introduced to provide legal protections from this kind of “libel terrorism” to New York authors and publishers.

Many of our members signed our petition to the New York Assembly calling for the passage of “Rachel’s Law,” and many others contacted New York legislators directly. In a tremendous victory for free speech rights the bill passed both the Assembly and the Senate and was signed by the Governor.

Now, similar legislation to protect authors and publishers has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives (bill number H.R. 5814) and Senate (bill number S-2977). Entitled the “Free Speech Protection Act”, the bill was introduced by Representatives Peter King (R-NY) and Anthony Weiner (D-NY) and Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA).

This bill would protect American journalists from libel suits brought in foreign courts that do not have the same protections for free speech that are found in the U.S. Constitution. The bill has been assigned to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.

We’re asking you to contact your U.S. Senators and Representative today to urge them to support the bill. And if any of your two Senators or your U.S. Representative is a member of the Senate or House Judiciary Committees, it is especially important that you contact them and urge them to support efforts to report the bill out of committee as soon as possible. The members of both Judiciary Committees are listed below.

To contact your U.S. Senators or U.S. Representative, click this link:

http://www.actforamerica.org/contact-congress/

Please ACT! today on this very important legislation!

House Judiciary Committee Members

(Party and congressional district number included after each name).

Democrat Hon. Berman (D) California, 28th Hon. Boucher (D) Virginia, 9th Hon. Nadler (D) New York, 8th Hon. Scott (D) Virginia, 3rd Hon. Watt (D) North Carolina, 12th Hon. Lofgren (D) California, 16th Hon. Jackson Lee (D) Texas, 18th Hon. Waters (D) California, 35th Hon. Delahunt (D) Massachusetts, 10th Hon. Wexler (D) Florida, 19th Hon. Sánchez (D) California, 39th Hon. Cohen (D) Tennessee, 9th Hon. Johnson (D) Georgia, 4th Hon. Sutton (D) Ohio, 13th Hon. Gutierrez (D) Illinois, 4th Hon. Sherman (D) California, 27 Hon. Baldwin (D) Wisconsin, 2nd Hon. Weiner (D) New York, 9th Hon. Schiff (D) California, 29th Hon. Davis (D) Alabama , 7th Hon. Wasserman Schultz (D) Florida, 20th Hon. Ellison (D) Minnesota, 5th

Republican Hon. Sensenbrenner Jr. (R) Wisconsin, 5th Hon. Coble (R) North Carolina, 6th Hon. Gallegly (R) California, 24th Hon. Goodlatte (R) Virginia, 6th Hon. Chabot (R) Ohio, 1st Hon. Lungren (R) California, 3rd Hon. Cannon (R) Utah, 3rd Hon. Keller (R) Florida, 8th Hon. Issa (R) California, 49th Hon. Pence (R) Indiana, 6th Hon. Forbes (R) Virginia, 4th Hon. King (R) Iowa, 5th Hon. Feeney (R) Florida, 24th Hon. Franks (R) Arizona, 2nd Hon. Gohmert (R) Texas, 1st Hon. Jordan (R) Ohio, 4th

Senate Judiciary Committee Members

Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT)

Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA)

Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-DE)

Herb Kohl (D-WI)

Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Russell D. Feingold (D-WI)

Charles E. Schumer (D-NY)

Richard J. Durbin (D-IL)

Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD)

Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

Arlen Specter (R-PA)

Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT)

Charles E. Grassley (R-IA)

Jon Kyl (R-AZ)

Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

John Cornyn (R-TX)

Sam Brownback (R-KS)

Tom Coburn (R-OK)

From Monkey in the Middle:

We must never take our Freedom's for granted. The Freedom of Speech was so important to our Founding Fathers that they made it part of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution. Now a foreign court can silence us if they choose. It is time for us to take a stand and say that our Constitutional Rights must be maintained. Contact your representatives and tell them to get this law out of committee and passed now.