The free speech rights of authors, researchers, journalists and even cartoonists commenting on militant Islam, terrorism and their sources of financing are increasingly under attack through both violent and non-violent means. An important non-violent challenge to free speech has emerged in the form of “lawfare,” the use of the law as a weapon of war.
Attorneys in Rochester NY explain that lawfare lawsuits are filed against anyone brave enough to speak publicly about Islamist terrorism with the goal of silencing and punishing them. Lawfare is predatory, filed without a serious expectation of winning, and undertaken as a means to intimidate, demoralize and bankrupt defendants. Such lawsuits have created a detrimental chilling effect on free speech, since whether or not a defendant wins in the end he still loses in time and money spent defending his rights.
The strategic end of Islamist lawfare is to further the goals of the Islamist movement, one of which is to abolish public discourse critical of Islam and punish anything deemed blasphemous of its prophet, Mohammad. Another goal is to impede the free flow of public information about the threat of Islamist terrorism, thereby limiting our ability to understand and combat it. In this way, lawfare takes the form of a complementary legal campaign to terrorism and asymmetric warfare. The technique is complimented by a false campaign to vilify Americans concerned about militant Islam as “Islamophobic.”
Brooke Goldstein presents Lawfare Against Free Speech: A First Amendment Guide to Reporting in an Age of Islamist Lawfare, the first book of its kind aimed at giving practical tips to journalists when writing about these topics.
Paul spoke with Brooke Goldstein on Monday, December 5, 2011: