Probable Cause

Earlier this week — thanks to Trace Rabern, a lawyer I know from Twitter — I was interviewed by a reporter from the San Diego CityBeat for an article about “talking smack” online.  (Tagline: Real. Alternative. News.)

Freedom of speech is something that’s been near and dear to my heart ever since I was a wee lad spouting “you can’t make me!” to my mom when she told me to be quiet.  (I was right, too.  The slap on my face only made me louder.)

The reporter interviewed me for about 40 minutes, during which I mentioned to him that I found the case interesting and would likely blog about it.  Since his article went online today, and I want to clarify something about my comments, now’s the time.

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Shut up!  I don’t like what you’re saying!

Increasingly, this is the approach Americans — Americans! — are taking to deal with speech they don’t like.  Whether this involves the hateful speech of would-be dictators, the words of electronic schoolyard bullies, or just folks with whom we disagree on government policy, the New American Way is to stop them from talking.  Extra points if we can protect our own speech while squelching theirs. 

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Adrianos Facchetti, a California “Internet Defamation Attorney,” writing the California Defamation Law Blog asks, among other things, if governments should regulate the Internet to control defamatory speech — however that might be accomplished.

I could only think of one response….

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The latest copy of the American Bar Association Journal (ABAJournal) just arrived in my office. I was planning to write about something I read in the Letters to the Editor there concerning prosecutors who attempt — and possibly succeed — at murder because of their single-minded dedication to winning at all costs, forgetting their alleged duty to seek only justice.¹

Trying to find you a link to the ABAJournal website, though, I ran across this interesting article concerning a law school graduate, Frank J. Lawrence, Jr., who was denied a license to practice law because he said mean things to the people responsible for approving his application.

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1. I promise to get to that another day. [↩]