It’s Time to Bring Back the Sedition Act

[HOORAH]

Interesting thought on how to take care of media misrepresentations and bias, misinformed writings.

It’s Time to Bring Back the Sedition Act Ratheresque in Proportion, Newsweek Fabricates a Story about our Military.

By N. Beaujon May 19, 2005

Last week Newsweek magazine printed a story alleging that soldiers at Guantamamo Bay routinely dropped their enemy captives' Holy Koran in the toilet during interrogations. The story, not surprisingly, set the Muslim world ablaze with rioting, violence and anti-American sentiment. Sixteen people died, one hundred were injured and “holy” Mullahs everywhere were calling for yet another jihad against the United States (a.k.a. - “The Great Satan”). What else is new?

The story, as it turned out, was an unsourced fabrication, a slander, a lie, rushed into print with Dan Rather-like zeal in an effort to humiliate, demoralize, and ultimately, endanger our military and Americans everywhere. Making U.S. soldiers’ job harder, more dangerous? Sure. U.S. establishment media “reporting for duty”. It’s time to bring back the Sedition Acts.

Early in our country’s founding, yes this was done by our founding fathers; there were a series of laws passed in anticipation of a possible war with France. The founders knew what problems big mouthed media traitors could cause during wartime and, in response, passed the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 which made it illegal for any person to "print, utter, or publish ... any false, scandalous, and malicious writing" against the government. [1]Plenty of journalists were tried for seditious libel, sadly, none of them were hanged but Congress didn’t stop there. The founding fathers, in their infinite wisdom passed the Alien and Naturalization part of the law which authorized the president to deport any alien considered dangerous, even in a peace time. (The remainder of this article can be read at http://nbeaujon.com/sedition_newsweek.htm )

 

[nittany03]

I disagree with what Newsweek has done, but read up some on the history of the Alien and Sedition acts . . . some of the most blatantly unconstitutional and banana republic-esque laws passed in this country. If you want it to be illegal to criticize the government, move to North Korea.

I'd love to know from a lawyer whether what Newsweek did could be properly classed as libel, but the above idea is using an atom bomb to kill a fly. If you disagree with someone, the American thing to do is to prove their ideas wrong and show everyone how foolish they are, not silence them like some tinpot Third World dictator.

 

[skidkid]

I disagree with what Newsweek has done, but read up some on the history of the Alien and Sedition acts . . . some of the most blatantly unconstitutional and banana republic-esque laws passed in this country. If you want it to be illegal to criticize the government, move to North Korea.

I'd love to know from a lawyer whether what Newsweek did could be properly classed as libel, but the above idea is using an atom bomb to kill a fly. If you disagree with someone, the American thing to do is to prove their ideas wrong and show everyone how foolish they are, not silence them like some tinpot Third World dictator.

Concur cant give Rep but you have my esteem

 

[HOORAH]

I'd love to know from a lawyer whether what Newsweek did could be properly classed as libel...

Off the record it seems that they are going to get away with getting 20(or more I don't know the current death toll to date) people killed and about a hundred more injured with a half-hearted apology and not much else. They only retracted the story after national pressure but that doesn't bring back the dead.

The point is that they are going to get away with it. This wasn't printed in the editorial pages, where non-factual and oppinionated writings are supposed to be put. The point isn't to make it "illegal to criticize the government" the point is to make it illegal to FALSELY "criticize the government" and put our service members into even more harm than they already are over a FICTIONAL act. And by the way Newsweek needs to remember that they are in America. If the KORAN is so important to them as to make this top story material, which it was not, then they should move to an Islamic country and worship it themselves. I guarantee a story of the bible being desicrated by Islamics wouldn't even get an eye bated at it, let alone be a top story. Let us not forget the "award winning" art work entitled "Piss Christ" by Andres Serrano. Lets see how art work entitled "Piss Ahlla" goes over, shall we? After all we are protected by that Freedom of Speech part of the Constitution.

 

[Godspeed]

Libel is by definition "A false publication, as in writing, print, signs, or pictures, that damages a person's reputation." The United States of America is not a person, therefore this is not libel. Also, libel pertains to persons that do not hold a public office. In other words, you could print whatever you like about the president, and it wouldn't be considered libel; he holds a public office.

This is a tricky line that has been discussed many times on Airwarriors. This is a particularly hard issue. Although I am all for the first amendment, I certainly don't find it enjoyable to see the media endanger our troops abroad and. It is one thing for the media to "disagree" with a war and protest it all they want. But generating lies that make it physically more difficult for us to win a war? The lines are becoming blurry.

I am not for bringing back the sedition act, but we wouldn't even had this problem today if journalists possessed even a sliver of ethics.

 

[esday1]

I'd love to know from a lawyer whether what Newsweek did could be properly classed as libel...

I'm not a lawyer (at least for a couple more years), but I can take a stab at this.
Short answer: no.
Long answer:
Usually, for something to be libel you have to show a number of elements, ALL of which have to be met:
1) a false and defamatory statement concerning the plaintiff
2) unprivileged publication to a third party
3) fault amounting at least to negligence
4) harm caused by the publication or "actionability irrespective of special harm"
There are a lot of problems with this meeting all of these. First of all, who would sue? A lawsuit for libel usually is restricted to the person who has been libelled ("concerning the plaintiff"). Here, no specific person was named in the article. Then they would have to show it was false- which in this case would mean providing some kind of evidence that desecrating the Koran never took place at Gitmo, not just that the report wasn't adequately sourced. Media reports are also considered heavily privileged, which means that you would need to show either that they knew that what they were printing was false, or that they showed reckless disregard for the truth of the statement. Given the fact that Newsweek had a source that it considered reliable, and that the y indicated in the article that they were using second hand information, this would be pretty hard to meet. Finally, showing that the Newsweek article "caused" the riots (to the extent that the riots wouldn't have happened without the article) would be very difficult- first of all, it's debatable whether the article caused the riots to begin with because there were other factors involved. However, even if you assumed that the article did lead to the riots, you can't be held liable for something that someone else does of their own volition. Finally, the person who has been libelled needs to show that they have been harmed by the libel- not some third party. I can discuss this in a lot more length (believe me, I've had to write about defamation ad naseam this semester), but the short answer is that you'd have a very difficult if not impossible time winning a libel suit over this.

But, getting back to the topic of this thread... the Alien and Sedition Acts were a sloppy brown skid mark on American dignity that were flushed down the crapper of history for a damn good reason.

 

[Cate]

And by the way Newsweek needs to remember that they are in America. If the KORAN is so important to them as to make this top story material, which it was not, then they should move to an Islamic country and worship it themselves.

There are actually Muslims in America. There are lots of religions. And Newsweek didn't make it a top story; they made it a ten-sentence Periscope item, on a left-hand page, if memory serves.

 

[PudriK]

First, it wasn't opinion, it was based on an insider source which they say was trusted but for some reason now doubt. Two, the Pentagon is still investigating the incident. It may actually have happened. People get carried away sometimes... I wouldn't be surprised if an interrigator did this. I also wouldn't be surprised if the person who did it was already reprimanded. Three, the rioting that resulted was not just because of the story. Like the riots in China over Japanese textbooks, it is a sign of deep-seated resentments likely combined with some antagonising by some organization or another.

The lesson to be learned here is that in doing our part to bring Afhganistan into the realm of civilized, democratic nations, we have to recognize that Afghanis are (A) not completely trusting of our motivations, and (B) still too willing to believe every story that portrays us as crusaders.

As for Newsweek, even if they were telling the truth, the back-pedal has shot up their credibility. If they were pulling a CBS "it's too good not to be true," well, they deserve what they're getting.

 

[Clux4]

ETHICS
That is the main problem. Unfortunately our journalist, new houses, media houses care soo much about readership and viewership and this is what fuels their daily pursuit. Ethics in practise is no more an issue because nothing falls into that envelope of ethical dilema. If it is news they will put it out not for once considering the implications of their actions. Well their argument has always been that they owe us the citizens our right to be properly informed.

 

[HOORAH]

Well their argument has always been that they owe us the citizens our right to be properly informed.

Too bad the key word in that sentence is "PROPERLY informed."

I remember watching some movie while on a plane so I didn't actually want to watch it so the attention span was a little low. It was based on true story about some newspaper reporter that got fired for fabricating ALL of his stories he ever wrote. He would break these incredible stories and he "had" references and sources but it turns out that after investigation he was making it all up including some of the sources. I don't remember too much about it aside from that. Anyone else see that movie?

 

[Cate]

You're probably thinking about Stephen Glass (the movie would have been "Shattered Glass"). Associate editor for the New Republic back in 1998-ish. Completely fabricated over two dozen stories - sources, events, quotes, entire subcultures, completely out of whole cloth. You'd almost be impressed by his thoroughness, and then feel guilty for being impressed because it was just so wrong. As a body of fiction, it was incredible; as actual newswriting, it was disgusting. Not the brightest day for the New Republic, certainly.

After the scandal made him pretty much unemployable as a writer, he kind of hid out for a while. He got his law degree, passed the bar, and it pretty much waiting for the ABA to decide whether or not he's actually ethical enough to be a lawyer (I mean, sit and ponder). He's spoken at several journalism ethics forums (continue to sit and ponder), and he claims to be completely contrite, although the fact that he published a novel about the whole thing makes that kind of questionable.

Oh, and the real guy? Not nearly as hot at Hayden Christensen, but arguably a better actor.

 

[Fly Navy]

If he's allowed to practice law, then whatever faith in the legal system is left, is GONE.

 

[ben4prez]

Its quite sad, but not surprising that the main story has been on how Newsweek screwed up, and not on the reaction from Islamic extremists. It seems to me that the thing we should be concerned about is what formented this reaction among Afghanis and others who resorted to violent protests. I have included two articles that delve deeper into this subject:

One by Claudia Rosett of the WSJ, the same reporter who broke the Oil For Food scandal wide open last year with her investigative reporting and the other by Thomas Friedman of the NYTimes. Two disparate, well regarded reporters.

Instead of proposing to impose censorship of the media, perhaps we should be working harder to develop a sense of obligation in journalists to break from their watergate and vietnam mentality in needing to break the next major scandal. It might be easier to tell them what we want reported, but in the long run, the erosion of a free press invariably leads to rampant corruption and power consolidation.



Claudia Rosett, WSJ Columnist
Thomas Friedman, NYTimes columnist