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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Cogito who wrote (52507)	10/29/2006 11:00:18 AM
From: mph	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

Slander and libel are "illegal" in the sense that one's First Amendment rights can be trumped by a person's privacy or personal interest in his or her reputation. The potential liability is civil damages. Truth is an absolute defense. There is an array of other defenses designed to accommodate the tension between free speech and harm to reputation. In the case of public figures, the test for malice is quite high. If the truth is spoken, it doesn't matter whether the speaker had ulterior motives. There are any number of other areas where speech can result in civil liability. Fraud is a good example. But so what? These aren't really First Amendment cases. If in the DU case it were determined that the posters enrolled under false pretenses, the remedy is expulsion from the site (assuming that allegiance to a particular political POV were required). It would be inappropriate IMO to evaluate the applicability of the First Amendment to their speech dependent on their motivation. Where we differ is that you seem to be concerned with civil liability whereas I'm looking at constitutional principles. I also stand my initial comments. The posters on that site would only stand up for the constitutional rights of other posters if they truly shared their own political views. If not, they could care less about privacy rights or constitutional standards. Again, it's situational ethics.