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First, IANAL; this is not legal advice; see a 1st amendment lawyer that you are paying for advice for real advice.
That said, on the defamation issue, the issue was commentary on public employees' performance of their duties. As I understand the law, that would put this firmly within the ambit of Sullivan v. NY Times, and they would have to prove "actual malice" to recover anything.
Actual malice requires a statement made with knowledge of its falsity or reckless disregard for its truth or falsity. (Note that statements that are clearly opinions are protected.) In practice, that means that it would be kicked on a pretrial motion. You might be even able to get sanctions against any lawyer that would seriously try to press this, since it's pretty clearly a frivolous claim.
Let's just say that I'm not even slightly worried about the statements that a posted in those threads, and I got a bit heated at times.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Doug on malice, etc.
How do you guys acquire so much knowledge??
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Sullivan is pretty basic, and 1st Amendment law is something that a periodicals editor* should have at least a passing familiarity with. For more information, you could take a look at the Wikipedia page on the case, which also references some of the significant sequels to that case and has several external links.
* Haven't been one for years, but spaced repetition ensured that the knowledge is persistent. 8-)
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