Well, according to the Webster’s law dictionary online at http://www.findlaw.com, “defamation” is defined as
1: communication to third parties of false statements about a person that injure the reputation of or deter others from associating with that person
2: a defamatory communication
Example: every repetition of the defamation is a publication – W. L. Prosser and W. P. Keeton
If I know that Person X has slept with 200 women and given them all some venereal disease and I say in public that he has done so, I’m in the clear. Why? Because that’s what he did.
Now, if I said about that same Person X that he liked to sniff women’s shoes and dress up like a schoolgirl, that would be defamation.
Libel is a type of defamation, in which a written or recorded medium is used for publication. Both are subject to the same law, namely that truth is an absolute defense to all defamation actions. There are cases when falsity is assumed, there are cases when falsity, once proven, is an adequate basis for compensation, and there are cases in which the plaintiff must prove considerably more than falsehood, but there is no case in which speaking the truth is actionable for defamation.
Now, invasion of privacy is another kettle of fish entirely. Most such claims do not involve issues of truth or falsehood.
So you hold it against them that they focus their efforts only in some areas? Why should they be responsible for every right? You know, if there are rights that you don’t think are adequately addressed by the ACLU, there are surely other groups who do. In fact, you could even start one yourself.
The ACLU maintains its dichotamous position regarding gun rights because most of their money comes from social liberals, many of whom do not like guns. Fair enough. I’d rather they get the job done than collapse under the weight of impeccable principles. I’m a member of both organizations for that reason.
For the benefit of the OP, I want to point out a couple of legal restrictions on such groups that do in fact exist in the US.
Many areas restrict certain activities of the KKK, most notably cross burning. It is illegal in my state. Doesn’t matter if you do it on your own land where no one else can see it. These laws are of course being challenged.
A few areas restrict masks, esp. those intended to obscure identity or for other quasi-nefarious reasons. Some of these are old laws intended to be additional charges to throw at robbers and such but have been applied more recently to KKK types. Hence, you frequently see Klanscreeps in photos in newspapers with no masks. Again, always being challenged.
There have been a few cases where victims of hate groups have successfully sued for large amounts. The awards have sometimes exceeded the net worth of the group so they were forced to turn over their property (such as compounds in Idaho), sell off weapons, etc. This, more than anything, has been the #1 limiting factor in controlling such groups. Note that “victim” of such a hate group has been defined surprisingly generously.
Many states, esp. in the southern US, forbid govt. hiring of people belonging to certain groups. Historically these have included the Communist party, the SLA (!), and so on. (But not the KKK, for some strange reason.) This includes school teachers and quite a few other govt. related jobs. Many companies do this on their own or are required to do so since they have contracts with the state. So you can be a rabid pinko all you want but don’t expect to get that great job cleaning toilets in rest areas.
Note that there are many layers of governments including state, county and city, and laws restricting such groups can vary greatly.
Actually, it’s just the opposite. First of all, it isn’t a law, it’s a basic human right, pretty much the one considered paramount in American law – every person has the inalienable right (okay, with some limitations) to think, believe, say, and write whatever one wants.
Such a right would essentially be meaningless unless it applied to the kind of speech that offended others. That’s the real test of freedom of speech. If you have the freedom to say only what doesn’t offend people, then it’s not really much of a right, is it?
acsenray- No, I hold it against them that they are against one particular civil liberty spelled out in the US Consitution; if you go back and reread my post, nowhere did I say that they should change what cases they take. Merely that they would need to change their position on the 2nd amendment to be similar to the one they have on the first.
Furthermore, my post was in response to one claiming that the ACLU fights for all civil liberties and pointing out that that is not a correct characterization of the group. If you want to argue about what they should do or something similar, we can start a GD thread on the topic.
Actually, at least in the south, the anti-mask laws startedas Reconstruction-era limitations on Klan activity specifically. Their use against robbers came later. It should of course also be noted that enforcement of the anti-mask laws against the Klan was practically nonexistent from the end of Reconstruction until quite recently.
