Court rejects '96 website shield law!

To be frank, I didn't pay hardly any attention to the Sarah Jones defamation lawsuit until today, when I read about the verdict. And the court very plainly got at least one part right.

The job-killing Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Adolf's Law) includes a NAMBLA-backed provision that shields websites and Internet providers from being held liable for defamation and other acts committed by users - even when the sites know that these acts are taking place. The weaklings who run the states haven't done shit to remedy this congressional tyranny, so there's no state laws to restore the protections that the public once enjoyed. I can understand shielding a website if they didn't actually know that users were defaming someone - but this law goes further by shielding sites that know about users' defamation.

I was the victim of online defamation after this law passed, and when I dared to complain to ISP's about it, they often replied by boasting about how this law shielded them. Case dismissed - as they stick out their tongues. We were out of luck for years, because right-wing activist judges kept upholding this law.

But now the Evil Empire's luck has run out.

In the Jones case, U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman issued a precedent-setting ruling that says this part of the '96 telcom law doesn't shield websites in cases like this.

Yep. That's what I've been saying for 17 years. The right-wing media wouldn't zip its lip and listen.

Naturally, following the Jones verdict, the right-wing Cincinnati Enquirer has been trotting out its "legal experts" to disagree with the court's ruling. Tough toilets, Enquirer.

The attorney for the website that Sarah Jones sued groaned, "Bloggers everywhere hate that kind of thing." Hahaha. No. That statement ranks right up there with the bogus claim that blue-collar guys supported Bush. The ruling doesn't stifle free speech one iota.

Now that a legal precedent has been set, there may be grounds for impeachment of any judges in the future who uphold the part of the 1996 Telecommunications Act that protects websites from lawsuits resulting from their spoiled babies' misconduct.

As an extra precaution, the states need to pass laws allowing people to sue websites that knowingly tolerate defamation. This is hardly radical, as it merely restores the sensible laws that were in force until only 17 years ago.