You can have my keyboard when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. Practicing journalism without a license is not a crime.
I read the Wikipedia article on the 2011 case and was gobsmacked, repeatedly. Leaving aside the question of how an extortionist can claim First Amendment freedoms, we are presented with this gem:
Obsidion has filed a motion to seize and sell Coxâs right to appeal to help satisfy its $2.5 million judgment, on the grounds that Coxâs appeal right is intangible personal property subject to seizure.
What the actual fuck?
That beggars belief.
nothing on wiki, either. help a Yank out, mate?
So basically bloggers will continue to call themselves journalist or not journalist depending on which set of rules they want to fall under.
from the Reuters article:
âthe 9th Circuit still concluded that there was no dispute that Coxâs post was false.â
ââŚObsidian would now have to show that Cox had actual knowledge that her post was false when she published it.â
âAccording to the courtâs opinion, Cox has a history of making allegations of fraud and other illegal activities âand seeking payoffs in exchange for retraction.â â
But Cox is the hero here? Iâm honestly confused.
You can read the briefs about that at:
(Eugene Volokh took the case pro bono on appeal, and argued it through to this outcome. Cox wasnât the ideal defendant in this case, but the outcome is significant. Volokh deserves a lot of thanks for his role in this case).
thanks, euan. lovely chatting with you again.
Free Speech rights are the hero. Cox doesnât have to be. Cox could be a Westboro protester/Holocaust denier/Neo-Nazi/[insert âbad personâ here], and the upholding of her free speech rights would still be a good thing because theyâre upholding the free speech rights of others who donât hold her beliefs.
That right there is the more hidden evil here. When corporations can buy your rights, you have no rights because they will always have more money than you. Since political donations are âfree speech,â they already have more free speech than you since they have more many than you. One more corporate sovereignty issue and the erosion of individual rights in the face of corporate interests.
Thereâs more detailed coverage of this incident available at Popehat. Itâs long, but entertaining.
Its not on Urban Dictionary? That beggars belief!
It is a response to something so outrageous you can canât get your hat on. As DevinC put it so succinctly, âWhat the actual fuck?â
Appeals court rules bloggers have same speech protections as journalists
I donât think thatâs quite what theyâve done. Journalists have never explicitly had greater speech protections than anyone else. Instead, free speech protections for defamation have always depended on the target of the statement. Persons of public interest can only win if they statements against them are false statements of fact uttered in reckless disregard to their falsity. Private individuals have needed to show that the false statements of fact were uttered negligently. There was nothing in existing precedent to suggest that this legal standard only applied to journalists, and the trial court appears to have invented this standard based on the fact that the Supreme Court precedent involved media outlets, and not private citizens. Which is to say that it was the trial court that ruled that bloggers do not have the same speech protections as journalists, and the appellate court simply reversed them and clarified that the Supreme Court precedent applies to all speakers.
Basically, the trial court improperly applied a different standard and the appellate court corrected this.
I think this is the basic gist of the Popehat summary.
Thank you, I hadnât got to reading Volokhâs take on the whole thing, and I see that his reaction was pretty much the same as mine (though somewhat less profane and cliched.)
yeah, the hang-up for me was âbeggarsâ is a verb here, not a plural noun, which we donât have in USA-ian speak 
the more you knowâŚ
I think its a verb in this case too, or an adjective, Iâm not sure which 
I think it should be read as, âThis shit is so fucked up it makes a beggar of belief.â
Two nations separated by a common language as George Bernard Shaw would have it.
Those more interested in this story, or those that want a few good laughs, should read this Popehat post:
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