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If a journalists mouths off to his editor, he is immune to being fired, because being fired would hinder his ability to report the news.
That depends on whether the journalist or the editor is the libertarian in the conversation. Remember, libertarians define "rights" as "immunity for consequences in whatever _I_ want to do."
So if the libertarian journalist is fired, it clearly violates his First Amendment rights to say whatever he wants without consequences. If the libertarian editor is prevented from editing his reporter's news stories, it clearly violates his right to publish whatever he wishes without consequences.
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None of the freedoms granted by the Bill of Rights has ever been considered absolute. Invoking your right to free speech will not protect you from the consequences of either yelling fire in a crowded movie theater or phoning bomb threats to your local high school. Likewise freedom of religion does not absolve you of the legal consequences of performing an animal (or human) sacrifice or performing a disruptive activity in public. Simmilarly the right to a free press can be abridged when it's used for libelous slander or undue invasion of private spaces.Actually, that's exactly what it does mean.Just because something is not limited by the government does not mean freedom of the press is not impugned.This is a terrible president for freedom of the press.Not really. "Freedom of the press," like any other Constitutional right, has its limits. And in particular, "freedom of the press," like any other Constitutional right, does not apply in disputes between private parties (like this one). The government may or may not have the authority to tell Gawker not to publish something -- even there, there's a lot of case law saying when the government actually does have that authority -- but Hulk Hogan certainly has the right to say to Gawker "you injured me, now make restitution."
Furthermore, Hulk Hogan has the constitutional right to petition the government for redress of this grievance, and the government has not only the right but the duty to consider both sides and render judgment. Which they did. Gawker is in the wrong and owes Hogan $100 million plus. With punitive damages atop that.
Hobby lobby established that freedom of religion can absolve an entire corporation of legal consequences for enforcing religious beliefs on others.
The Hobby Lobby case didn't establish that. The employees still could get Health Insurance from other locations that included the items they desired.
The problem was more to do with how the ACA is written and how it can be applied.
There are certain mandated items in the ACA, but at the same time, it also leaves plenty of room for Insurers to pick and choose insured areas.
The area which HL sued about was not one of those pick and choose areas, but where one is able to pick and choose, in regards to religion, other implications were brought forth.
It's a tricky road and a tricky argument to decide on, but the applications of the HL case, and the decision specific enough to the owners of the Individual (cause corporations are now individuals...doncha know?), that it may be hard to apply to other individuals or businesses.
Furthermore, with ACA also being selective in who it allows to get help in their insurance costs and who it doesn't, is also in a way, far more restrictive than I think reasonable. There are many instances where a person should be allowed FAR more access to the health networks available via ACA, then what is currently allowed, and in many ways is discriminatory itself against those who are fully employed and offered some sort of health insurance via their employment.
I don't really read Gawker or have any interest in it. I think some of our current fascination with voyeurism is a little absurd, and can understand why that could be disturbing and perhaps wrong in many applications.
I have no real opinion of the case (haven't really researched it, heard about it in passing, no indepth knowledge), but it probably rings out that we should be careful in what we allow to be filmed, or to be aware whether we are even being filmed...and what happens with the said film, in many of our more intimate moments as it appears there are many who are more than willing to exploit us in our vulnerabilities.
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And a previously-civil thread has devolved into political bashing. Just another day at Paizo.
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And a previously-civil thread has devolved into political bashing. Just another day at Paizo.
how exactly? While there has been one instance of some heat, the two involved seem to have let it die. Others don't agree with each other, but there has been no instance of hair pulling or finger biting. If anything, a post like this could fan the flames- which do exist, I'm not saying everyone is quietly agreeing with each other here- to give you the conflagration you complain of.
I disagree that the video should have been left private, and the initial judicial order was wrong. Choosing to post a newsworthy video should never put a news organization in the position of defending itself from a lawsuit.I'm just curious why, exactly, Hogan having sex on-tape is newsworthy?
I mean, I'm not seeing the connection between "Dude has sex." and "It needs to be shared."
Certainly Hogan's racial views are extremely disappointing (I never watched wrestling, but even I was aware of his public personality back then). It's worth clarifying when a hero has failed to live up to our expectations in that regard.
But having sex? No. That's needless.
in this case, we would not have known about the bigoted views without seeing the sex.
Which is a weird sandwich, but still.
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Freedom of Speech only protects you from retribution from the Government.
While a private citizen has the freedom to call a guy's wife a name in front of him, the husband in turn has the freedom to punch said citizen in the face.
He may get arrested for assault, but certainly not for infringing on anyone's Freedom of Speech.
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But using the (government) courts to sue someone for their speech is bringing the government into the picture.Freedom of Speech only protects you from retribution from the Government.
While a private citizen has the freedom to call a guy's wife a name in front of him, the husband in turn has the freedom to punch said citizen in the face.
He may get arrested for assault, but certainly not for infringing on anyone's Freedom of Speech.
No more than bringing the government when you call the police about a noisy party violates their freedom of assembly.
There would be a huge chilling effect on free speech if any person or corporation could win a lawsuit against anyone who said anything bad about them.
Not really. The lawsuit isn't because you said something "bad," it's because you said something "damaging." Legally speaking, one is responsible for any damage one causes.
In order to win the suit, Hogan was required to prove the traditional four elements of any tort: duty, breach of duty, injury, and causation. In rough terms,
* Duty -- in general, anyone has a duty to avoid injuring other people.
* Breach of duty -- Gawker (allegedly) did something, so Hogan had to prove that Gawker took some action, which is easy to to in this case.
* Injury -- Hogan had to show that he was injured in some way. This is probably the most difficult element in a privacy case, but he was able to establish it to the satisfaction of all involved.
* Causation -- Hogan had to "connect the dots," showing that the injury was directly caused by the action Gawker took. Again, this is/was pretty straightforward in this case.
What Gawker (and a number of other people on this thread) don't understand is that simply being a member of the press does not relieve you of the general duty to avoid injuring other people. It does mean that the government cannot simply say "don't publish that," but in cases where what someone publishes causes actual injury, the writer and publisher are still responsible under law for the injury suffered.
I disagree that the video should have been left private, and the initial judicial order was wrong. Choosing to post a newsworthy video should never put a news organization in the position of defending itself from a lawsuit.I'm just curious why, exactly, Hogan having sex on-tape is newsworthy?
I mean, I'm not seeing the connection between "Dude has sex." and "It needs to be shared."
Certainly Hogan's racial views are extremely disappointing (I never watched wrestling, but even I was aware of his public personality back then). It's worth clarifying when a hero has failed to live up to our expectations in that regard.
But having sex? No. That's needless.
in this case, we would not have known about the bigoted views without seeing the sex.
Which is a weird sandwich, but still.
Ehm, no...again the racist comments came from the TRANSCRIPT. If Gawker had just released the transcripts, sans footage, they'd probably be in the free and clear.
But they couldn't resist appealing the cheap jabs (that's what makes them money after all) while invading someone's privacy. And that's why we're here.
You notice there hasn't been a suit filed against National Enquirer and Radar Online. The people who released the transcripts and pulled up those comments in the first place.
Because what they reported on was news, unlike Gawker.
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Hulk Hogan having sex IS newsworthy, because it means he somehow found a way to circumvent at least one well-known side effect of all those steroids he spent all those years abusing...
This will certainly not backfire. After all, the person putting up the next minister of justice, and replace whoever among the supreme court dies, will be a sensible person whoever wins. I am sure none of the possible coming presidents would stoop so low as to sue people questioning him/her in public for a hundred million dollars.
Until the DoJ and/or the SCOTUS managed to get a precedent for it.
Questioning has different meanings. Yes, it can mean putting questions to someone. It can also mean criticising.
I agree. It would take a very, very unbalanced individual to do that.
Luckily none of those are on the table this election.
Precedent for what? Proving that public questions cause injury?
Wouldn't work, I'm afraid.
On the one hand, you don't need a precedent because there are already thousands of precedents, many of which predate the United States itself. If you publish something injurious, you are responsible for the injury that it causes under civil law.
On the other hand, you can't establish a precedent that public questions in general cause injury -- you (or President Whoosis) would need to show that the specific public question caused a specific injury in a specific case, in which case, there wouldn't need to be a new precedent (see previous paragraph).
The third is that President Whoosis still couldn't use this as the basis for a criminal complaint or enforcement action; the DoJ still couldn't arrest the publisher and the courts couldn't imprison him, because arrests and imprisonments are reserved to criminal law, and this is a purely civil matter.
In practical terms, what would happen is that President Whoosis would sue -- and he'd have to sue in his capacity as an individual, under civil law, paying for it out of his own pocket, and all he could ask for is monetary damages. Some wealthy benefactor of the opposing party would step in and pay for legal representation, and then milk it for all it's worth in terms of negative publicity for the president's party. There's a very good chance that this could backfire on the president and his party, especially if he sued and lost.
If the DoJ got involved at all, this would rapidly escalate the stakes, but only negatively. That's called "malfeasance in office," and while a sitting president can't be removed from office for that, he can be tried, convicted, and imprisoned, even while holding the office of president. (Furthermore, he can't pardon himself.) At the very minimum, the civil case would be thrown out immediately, and if the president weren't also impeached, I'd be very surprised.
I'm not at all worried about Sissyl's hypothetical. On a scale of things that keep me awake at night, this falls somewhere between "the milk in the fridge is going bad" and "an asteroid will hit the library and I won't be able to return my books on time."
I mean, yeah, theoretically possible, if the president picks enough SC justices with such opinions and the Senate confirms them despite that being wildly outside the norms of legal interpretation and practice and the President is able to survive the massive political backlash. But it would still have nothing to do with this suit. And anything is possible, given the assumption that a President can pack the court with Justices who will support him no matter what.
This. If we assume that the President has a magic "I win" button for any case whatsoever, then it doesn't matter what precedents have been previously set. The SCOTUS can simply say "we hold that the First Amendment is unconstitutional" and <poof> it's gone.
Precedent for what? Proving that public questions cause injury?Wouldn't work, I'm afraid.
On the one hand, you don't need a precedent because there are already thousands of precedents, many of which predate the United States itself. If you publish something injurious, you are responsible for the injury that it causes under civil law.
On the other hand, you can't establish a precedent that public questions in general cause injury -- you (or President Whoosis) would need to show that the specific public question caused a specific injury in a specific case, in which case, there wouldn't need to be a new precedent (see previous paragraph).
The third is that President Whoosis still couldn't use this as the basis for a criminal complaint or enforcement action; the DoJ still couldn't arrest the publisher and the courts couldn't imprison him, because arrests and imprisonments are reserved to criminal law, and this is a purely civil matter.
In practical terms, what would happen is that President Whoosis would sue -- and he'd have to sue in his capacity as an individual, under civil law, paying for it out of his own pocket, and all he could ask for is monetary damages. Some wealthy benefactor of the opposing party would step in and pay for legal representation, and then milk it for all it's worth in terms of negative publicity for the president's party. There's a very good chance that this could backfire on the president and his party, especially if he sued and lost.
If the DoJ got involved at all, this would rapidly escalate the stakes, but only negatively. That's called "malfeasance in office," and while a sitting president can't be removed from office for that, he can be tried, convicted, and imprisoned, even while holding the office of president. (Furthermore, he can't pardon himself.) At the very minimum, the civil case would be thrown out immediately, and if the president weren't also impeached, I'd be very surprised.
I'm not at all...
Can you name another case where publishing the truth has resulted in a lawsuit? That's what makes this case different. There was no libel or slander, because they didn't lie.
Can you name another case where publishing the truth has resulted in a lawsuit?
Certainly. Hanberry v. Hearst Corp., 81 Cal. Rptr. 519, 521–22 (Cal. Ct. App. 1969). Weirum et al. v. R.K.O. Gen., Inc., 539 P.2d 36 (Cal. 1975). Norwood v. Soldier of Fortune Magazine, Inc., 651 F. Supp. 1397 (W.D. Ark. 1987).
What you seem to be missing is that "truth" is a valid defense in defamation claims (that is to say, libel or slander claims -- those terms are generally not used any more), but not necessarily in other claims. If I write "All Jews will die" in spray paint on the side of the local synagogue,.... well, that's true. Jews are human, and therefore they, like every other group, will eventually all die. But that will not constitute a defense against whatever charges are brought against me, whether that be a hate crime, damage to property, or simple trespass.
The cases above are cases specifically on "negligent" writings; the language wasn't even alleged to be defamatory. It was, however, alleged to be harmful. Similarly, this isn't a defamation claim, but an invasion of privacy claim.
So the relevant elements here are things like (from Findlaw, see link above):
* The defendant publicized a matter regarding the private life of the plaintiff;
* The publicized matter would be highly offensive to a reasonable person;
* and It is not of a legitimate concern to the public.
The first two elements are pretty open-and-shut. Gawker's defense was that the Hulk Hogan sex tape was, in fact, a legitimate concern to the public -- and that defense was rejected. Game, set, match.
(In particular, read the section about "False Light" claims in the link above. Invasion of privacy generally precludes a "but what we published was true" defense, because that actually makes the invasion of privacy worse.)
This. If we assume that the President has a magic "I win" button for any case whatsoever, then it doesn't matter what precedents have been previously set. The SCOTUS can simply say "we hold that the First Amendment is unconstitutional" and <poof> it's gone.
I mean, yeah, theoretically possible, if the president picks enough SC justices with such opinions and the Senate confirms them despite that being wildly outside the norms of legal interpretation and practice and the President is able to survive the massive political backlash. But it would still have nothing to do with this suit. And anything is possible, given the assumption that a President can pack the court with Justices who will support him no matter what.It's not like they haven't done that in the past.
Actually, they haven't. No court has ever found a clause of the Constitution to be unconstitutional, and it's not clear that such a phrase is even meaningful. That's my point.
However, my secondary point is that a SCOTUS decision doesn't have to be meaningful, logical, or appropriate. If the SCOTUS decided that the Constitution itself is unconstitutional and that Chief Justice Roberts is, by divine right, Emperor of America and Sovereign over all humanity, there is no legal redress for such a decision.
Can you name another case where publishing the truth has resulted in a lawsuit? That's what makes this case different. There was no libel or slander, because they didn't lie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ag-gag
These laws seem oddly related to the discussion, or at least the tangent.