February 2, 2007

Anti-Blogger Legislation Not Dead Yet

The Nashville City Paper is out with a follow-up story and an editorial on yesterday's news of the anti-blogger legislation filed in the state House. The legislation - pulled by its sponsor after this blog and other pointed out how it was a direct assault on First Amendment free speech rights - was filed in the House by state Rep. Rob Briley at the request of state Sen. Jaime Woodson, who is still vowing to bring some kind of legislation dealing with online defamation this sesion.

The legislation would have required website operators in Tennessee to remove any allegedly defamatory statements about a person within either 15 days or two days after being put on notice by that person - and created the "presumption of malice intent," a key element in court when trying to prove a public figure has been defamed, if the website operator failed to remove the allegedly defamatory statements within that timeframe.

From the City Paper's report:

As it's written, the bill "would be subject to serious attack under federal and state constitutional law," Robb Harvey, an attorney who works in intellectual property and media litigation for Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis, said. "This proposed statute goes as far to essentially impose liability if you don't take down statements as demanded by the person about whom the comments being made," Harvey said. "And that's not consistent with federal and state cases."

Both legislators backed away from the bill after media scrutiny this week. Briley said he will withdraw as the bill's sponsor. Woodson said the bill was drafted by a third-year law students and added it would look much different later in the session. Both lawmakers called the filing of the bill inadvertent. On one level, it is very disturbing state resources are being used to haphazardly file bills that there is no intention to even pass. On a much deeper level, it is beyond concerning that two lawmakers - attorneys no less - appear to care so little about people's First Amendment rights.

In whatever form it returns, the media need to follow up and fight the bill vigorously.

Here's a round-up of bloggers' reaction to yesterday's developments...

SayUncle considers the stories told by Rep. Briley and Sen. Woodson and concludes that, "Briley was either 1) a toadie, 2) incompetent; or 3) a liar."

Those do seem to be the only alternatives.

Bob Krumm considers the implications of two attorneys "inadvertently" filing legislation with obvious First Amendment problems:

Both sponsors of the bill, Rep. Rob Briley in the House, and Sen. Jamie Woodson in the upper chamber, excuse their actions with a careless nonchalance that is concerning.

Sen. Woodson, an attorney herself, blames a third-year law student for the bad wording, and Rep. Briley blames Sen. Woodson for giving him the legislation and his staff for mistakenly filing it. Leaving aside the concept of taking personal responsibility instead of blaming underlings, are bills really filed so carelessly on Capitol Hill? If so, that might explain a lot.

Journalist and blogger Newscoma wonders if legislators are worried about bloggers:

I have one Rep. and one Senator who represent my district. I'm going to be asking about this when I head to the TPA next week. My questions will be simple.

What is the buzz in the General Assembly about bloggers and blogging rights? Are members of the house and senate worried about us? Who is talking about or are we, as bloggers the only one talking about issues like this? Is there a sense of fear of political bloggers creating a discussion that mainstream media in the state might not be covering? Does the political machine just see bloggers as instruments creating "malice intent?"

Is that how they see bloggers? Being that I work in both journalism and keep this little site on the side for my own amusement, I know that some people in journalism are very leery of the blogging community. Not all of them, but some. I also know that with the power of blogging's influence during recent elections and political scandals has created a very big voice.

I'll accept the credit this time, but what I did yesterday was something that any blogger could do - and more should.

I found out about a piece of legislation - thanks to Donna Locke - and compared it to existing law. Next I used Google to search for context information, and then I wrote about it. I also sent Rep. Briley an email asking questions, and promised to publish his response.

You can do the same thing regarding legislation on any issue. Filed legislation is available online via the Tennessee legislature's website here under the "Legislative Bill Search" link. Filed legislation always lists the section of Tennessee Code Annotated that it affects. You can access TCA here under the "Tennessee Code and Constitution" link. And you can find contact info for every single member of the legislature here.

I'll be using the legislative bill search function to watch for Sen. Woodson's next assault on the First Amendment.