Judge: Abourezk can sue Web site

Associated Press - Rapid City Journal ^ | March 21, 2004 | AP Staff

[Condor51]

SIOUX FALLS — A federal judge has ruled that a lawsuit filed by former U.S. Sen. James Abourezk can continue against an Internet site that put Abourezk on a "traitor's list" for criticizing President Bush.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol denied a motion on Wednesday from ProBush.com to dismiss Abourezk's lawsuit. Abourezk, who was a Democratic U.S. senator from 1973 to 1979, accused the site of libel.

Abourezk sued last year after his name and photograph showed up on the list along with those of several others, including actress Susan Sarandon, Sen. John Kerry and Sen. Hillary Clinton.

[RightWingAtheist]

This does NOT bode well for free speech. Will the same liberals who have been crying and wringing their hands over the so-called "suppression of dissent" oppose this decision?

[AmishDude]

Oh, the ADC is a lovely website.

First, they have decided to take on the juggernaut of Merriam-Webster over their definition of anti-Semitism.

The second story is the Rachel "Roadkill" Corrie National Day of Action.

Oh, these are lovely people.

[tutstar]

surprise, surprise,surprise (be sure to say in your best Gomer Pyle voice LOL)

Friends we have a real problem with the judiciary in this country. I just read something here earlier regarding NM ranchers being forced out of business by bogus judicial decisions. We have plenty of equally poor decisions being made here in FL and we need to start petitioning to have have these judges removed from the bench.

[Diogenesis]

The Defendants should grab that page off of the web site.
It would seem reasonable that a putative traitor might try to "honor" another traitor.

[expatpat]

Not unless they are frivolous.

[Peach]

They'd have to sue thousands of us who have said the same thing.

[AmishDude]

Check out "ProBush.com". Here is the Traitor List^TM

The former Senator should be ashamed of himself. So should the judge. It is barely a serious comedic website. The Traitor List is over 100 long and filled with noxious celebrities. It's tongue-in-cheek. (The disclaimer: "*Parody. Not to be taken seriously. These "traitors" are not legal "traitors" of the United States." has probably appeared since the lawsuit.)

The former Senator has really diminished himself with this.

[Bonaparte]

We are at war.

Giving aid and comfort to the enemy during a war is treason.

From Front Page Magazine...

2. American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)

[www.adc.org]

ADC was founded in 1980 by former U.S. Senator James Abourezk [he stills chairs it], Democrat of South Dakota, as a non-religious civil rights group. It was clearly created in imitation of, and even as a rival or counterweight to, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish civil rights organization. It originally concentrated its attentions on Christian Arab Americans, who make up a majority of the Arab American population, and has established chapters around the U.S. Its current officers are Dr. Ziad Asali, its president, its executive vice president Khalil Jahshan and its flamboyant and controversial communications director, Hussein Ibish.

Until September 11th, ADC mainly focused on paralleling the ADL, by mounting legal campaigns to defend Palestinian advocates. It frequently allied with leftist groups in campaigns against U.S. support for Israel.

After the beginning of the U.S. war against terror, a perceptible shift occurred in the orientation and activities of ADC. It became a strident voice protesting what it said were plans of the Bush administration to curtail the civil liberties of Arab Americans. ADC has labelled all efforts by the Justice and Treasury Departments against terrorism as unfair persecution based on ethnic discrimination. ADC has also fostered the belief that ‘ethnic profiling’ is rampant in official U.S. dealings with Arab and Muslim Americans.

These claims are arguable, but such issues fall within the legitimate purview of ADC as a civil rights group. Nevertheless, after September 11th, ADC extended its range of concerns. It suddenly became a leading defender of Palestinian ‘martyrdom’ campaigns inside Israel, as well as of Saudi Arabia, whose role in funding Wahhabism, the extreme sect rejected by the majority of Muslims worldwide, had come under scrutiny after disclosure that 15 out of 19 suicide pilots on September 11th were Saudi subjects. Such foreign topics should have had little or nothing to do with discrimination against Arab Americans. Further, ADC began to speak in the name of Islam even though its original constituency was mainly Christian.

ADC never seriously concerned itself with the suffering of Muslims in the Balkans or Chechnya. However, during the Afghan and Iraq interventions, ADC was among the most voluble entities in painting these military operations as conspiratorial intrigues controlled by Israel. ADC also engaged in extensive efforts to depict the regime of Saddam in Iraq as innocent of terrorist associations.

In addition, Hussein Ibish, its communications director, quickly rose after September 11th to status as a major national media figure. This is paradoxical for several reasons, above all because Ibish himself is an inveterate and publicly declared enemy of Islam, as well as of religion in general. Ibish is a leftist and defender of personal decadence, whose published statements include advocacy of homosexual affairs between college teachers and students, alcoholic intoxication, and other proclivities repugnant to Muslim believers.

Ibish is also an intemperate, insulting and uncivil speaker whose debates on national media typically feature him shouting down his opponents, emitting wildly libellous charges, and otherwise breaching polite standards of public discourse. For this reason, many of his former adversaries understandably now refuse to appear on TV with him.

ADC is active on many campuses and in many communities, and may be expected to inject itself into peace meetings, interfaith activities, and related events. Traditional Muslim groups, Arabs committed to peace, and Jewish peace groups, as well as other sincere peace activists, should be encouraged to boycott ADC, given the irresponsible nature of its rhetoric. ADC is also subject to internal conflict between its mainstream and ultraleftist members, which gives it an especially volatile character.

_________________________________________________________________________

As I said, giving aid and comfort to the enemy during war is treason. Abourezk (Lebanese American, btw) did the same thing during the Vietnam war that he is doing now while we are at war with AQ and the rogue states that support AQ.

This is a SLAPP suit, intended to either force a retraction or put a small website out of business. Not much different from the same sort of suit the WP/LAT pursued against FR.

[AmishDude]

You know. I wasn't sure at first, but this sure looks frivolous to me.

[rvoitier]

Leave it to a democrat to take away our freedoms of speech.

[Grut]

...MoveOn.Org and the gang can criticize Bush's views but cannot call him a liar, warmonger, etc.

They can call him those things because there's no legal meaning to them; but there is to 'traitor'. A first-time bank robber isn't a 'felon' until he's been convicted of his felony and you could get into trouble for calling him one before the verdict, however guilty he may be. Likewise, a traitor isn't a 'traitor' until he's been convicted.

Anyway, some conservatives are inclined to use the word pretty freely, not to say wildly.

[Boundless]

> This is NOT a good decision and does not bode well
> for internet sites.

As I understand it (not a lawyer), for the action to
succeed, given that the plaintff is a public figure,
he has to prove that the statement is false, that the
author knew it was false, and that it was posted with
intentional malice.

Or, he has to prove it was "libelous per se". Calling
someone a "traitor", absent any evidence, might well be
held to be so by some judges.

I doubt the suit will succeed, but it does serve to remind
us that libel laws apply to the internet.

This isn't new law - it's the same old ink&paper law,
just extended to the internet. Blog authors and BBS forum
posters need to know that they cannot, in fact, say anything
they please with complete impunity (unless they are really,
really sure they're anonymous :-).

[Diogenesis]

Could there be another reason? Diversion?

PARTIAL LIST OF TERRORIST ACTIVITIES

1968 Robert Kennedy assassinated
1972 Munich Olympics Sep-5,1972 (Black September)
1976 Entebbe Hostage Crisis, June 27, 1976
1979 Iran Hostage Crisis, Nov. 4, 1979 444 days
1979 Grand Mosque Seizure, Nov 20,1979
1981 Assassination of Egyptian President, Oct 6,1981
1982 Assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister, Sept 14, 1982
1983 Bombing of US Embassy in Beirut6, April 18,1983
1983 Bombing of Maring Barricks, Beruit, Oct 23,1983
1984 Hizballah Restaurant Bombing, April 12,1984
1985 Egyptian Airliner Hijacking, Nov 23,1985
1985 Rome Airport murders
1985 TWA Flight 847 hijacked, U.S. Navy diver murdered
1985 Achille Lauro hijacking, Homacidal maniac lived in saddams Iraq
1986 Aircraft Bombing in Greece, March 30, 1986
1988 Pan Am 747 Flight 103 Bombing, Lockerbie, 100's murdered
1988 Berlin Discoteque Bombing, Dec 21,1988
1992 Bombing in Israeli Embassy in Argentina, March 17,1992
1993 Attempted Assassination of Pres. Bush Sr., April 14,1993
1993 First World Trade Center bombing, February 26th, 7 Killed, Hundreds injured, Billions
1994 Air France Hijacking, Dec 24,1994
1995 Attack on US Diplomats in Pakistan, Mar 8,1995
1995 Saudi Military Installation Attack, Nov 13, 1995
1995 Kashmiri Hostage taking, July 4,1995
1996 Khobar Towers attack
1996 Sudanese Missionarys Kidnapping, Aug 17,1996
1996 Paris Subway Explosion, Dec 3,1996
1997 Israeli Shopping Mall Bombing, Sept 4, 1997
1997 Yemeni Kidnappings, Oct 30,1997
1998 Somali Hostage taking crisis, April 15,1998
1998 U.S. Embassy Bombing in Peru, Jan 15, 1998
1998 U.S. Kenya Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1998 U.S. Tanzania Embassy blown up, 100's murdered
1999 Plot to blow up Space Needle (thwarted)
2000 USS Cole attacked, many U.S. Navy sailors murdered
2000-2003 Intifada against Israel - 100's dead and injured
2000 Manila Bombing, Dec 30,2000
2001 4 Commercial airliners hijacked, 250+ murdered
2001 World Trade Center attacked, 2800+ murdered
2001 Flight 93 murders
2001 Pentagon attacked, 180+ murdered
2002 Reporter Daniel Pearl, kidnapped and murdered
2002 Philippines American missionary, Filipino nurse killed
2002 July 4, El Al attack Los Angeles LAX, several murdered
2002 Bali bombing - 200 dead, 300 injured
2002 Yemen, French Oil Tanker attacked
2002 Marines attacked / murdered in Kuwait
2002 Washington D.C. sniper
2002 Russian Theater attacked, 100+ dead
2002 Nigerian riots against Miss World Pageant, 200 dead, dozens injured
2002 Mombasa Hotel Attacked, 12 dead, dozens injured
2002 Israeli Boeing 757 attacked by missiles, fortunately no one injured
2002 August Hotel bombing in Jakarta, Indonesia. 12 dead, dozens injured.
2003 Rusian concert bombing
2003 Phillipines airport and market bombing
2003 Foiled SAM plot in the USA
2003 UN Baghdad HQ Bombing
on and on and on and on it goes .........

[dennisw]

Main Entry: trai·tor
Pronunciation: 'trA-t&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English traitre, from Old French, from Latin traditor, from tradere to hand over, deliver, betray, from trans-, tra- trans- + dare to give -- more at DATE
1 : one who betrays another's trust or is false to an obligation or duty
2 : one who commits treason

[Naspino]

Perhaps -- I say we do a fact finding mission and then file lawsuits on the thousands of websites that contain libel against George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh, etc. I think the point would then be clear.

[Wheee The People]

Truth is a defense.
End of discussion.

[Cicero]

It's very unlikely that the suit will succeed, but it could cost money defending it. Basically it's a form of legal harrassment.

[F.J. Mitchell]

You are a brave man, Jim, and knowing full well they would shop for a Clinton appointee Judge too.

[Naspino]

Wouldn't libel in this case be to claim "so and so was found GUILTY of treason" leading the reader to believe that it was the case. For someone to state their opinion that "so and so is a traitor" is clearly protected speech -- otherwise no one could EVER be found guilty of it as the mere discussion of it would be illegal.

[dennisw]

Abourezk (Lebanese American, btw)............


Yes, a Christian Arab. But he's working with disgruntled Islamics.... doing their heavy lifting with his ADC.