Saturday, February 20, 2010



Muslims use barratry to chill free speech

"Barratry" is bringing repeated legal actions solely to harass. It is an offence in some jurisdictions.
"A federal judge has dismissed an attempt by the Council on American-Islamic Relations to re-file a lawsuit against Air Force special agent P. David Gaubatz and his son Chris, the father-and-son team that investigated and exposed the group's terrorist ties.

Defense lawyers are hailing the decision as a victory over CAIR's alleged plan to "chill" free speech critical of the organization through an avalanche of court cases and legal costs. "We briefed, counter-briefed, we spent thousands of dollars on the case," said Daniel Horowitz, one of the three lawyers for the defense. "Only then did they file this new lawsuit, which would have effectively forced us to start all over."

"But the new lawsuit didn't have anything substantively new," Horowitz told WND. "And yet, that's their whole goal. They know they can't win the case, but they can chill the First Amendment by making it so expensive to speak against them that no one can challenge Saudi-funded CAIR. In the end, they can just keep getting more and more money from overseas and burn out opposition with lawsuits."

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, however, "denied as moot" CAIR's request to re-file the case. CAIR now has until March 1 to re-file "an appropriate motion for leave to amend."

"The judge looked at papers and said, 'Look, you don't have a right to do this; everything was fully briefed; you had your opportunity,'" Horowitz explained. "In terms of the First Amendment, it's a powerful ruling," Horowitz continued, "because it recognizes that by chilling free speech, you undermine it, even if you lose the case in the end. CAIR was trying to exploit that to the max, and the judge said no."

Source

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Muslims understand how to use our laws against us. In fact, just about everyone does. And we wonder why the whole world views us as a nation of fools and suckers.

J. Birch said...

That's true, but we seem to be the only country that bends over backwards to give them all the tools they need to mock and abuse us. And because we've allowed ourselves to be turned into a mentally dysdysfunctional nation, we deserve it.

Anonymous said...

Bravo! Now, only if the Judge would make CAIR pay the defendants (the winner in this case)attorney's fees.

Anonymous said...

Don't hold your breath!

Anonymous said...

Holding your breathe can be dangerous to your health.