"Rachel's Law" Introduced In Congress

“Rachel’s Law” Introduced In Congress

Dear xx,

You may recall that early this year we alerted our members to legislation introduced in the New York Assembly called the “Libel Terrorism Protection Act,” now commonly known as “Rachel’s Law.”

Rachel Ehrenfeld, a member of the Advisory Board of our sister organization American Congress for Truth, was sued in a British court by a Saudi billionaire who claimed her book, Funding Evil, was defamatory. This Saudi has filed dozens of lawsuits in foreign courts in an attempt to intimidate authors and publishers.

“Rachel’s Law” was introduced to provide legal protections from this kind of “libel terrorism” to New York authors and publishers.

Many of our members signed our petition to the New York Assembly calling for the passage of “Rachel’s Law,” and many others contacted New York legislators directly. In a tremendous victory for free speech rights the bill passed both the Assembly and the Senate and was signed by the Governor.

Now, similar legislation to protect authors and publishers has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives (bill number H.R. 5814) and Senate (bill number S-2977). Entitled the “Free Speech Protection Act,” the bill was introduced by Representatives Peter King (R-NY) and Anthony Weiner (D-NY) and Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Arlen Specter (R-PA).

This bill would protect American journalists from libel suits brought in foreign courts that do not have the same protections for free speech that are found in the U.S. Constitution. The bill has been assigned to the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.

We’re asking you to contact your U.S. Senators and Representative today to urge them to support the bill. And if any of your two Senators or your U.S. Representative is a member of the Senate or House Judiciary Committees, it is especially important that you contact them and urge them to support efforts to report the bill out of committee as soon as possible. The members of both Judiciary Committees are listed below.

To contact your U.S. Senators or U.S. Representative, click this link:

http://www.actforamerica.org/contact-congress/

Please ACT! today on this very important legislation!

House Judiciary Committee Members

(Party and congressional district number included after each name).

Senate Judiciary Committee Members

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------