U.S. Judge Uses “Prior Restraint” Against Blog
By Curt on Jan 10, 2008 in Free speech, Anti-Free Speech Laws, U.S., Censorship
According to the New York Times, a Boston area judge has issued an injunction stopping a blogger from posting. Judge Thomas Devine in the U.S. state of Vermont has ordered William Krasnansky to take down all posts referring to his wife or marriage from his blog. Krasnansky and his wife, Maria Gallido, are in the midst of a divorce proceeding. Kransnansky has used his blog to vent via a fictionalized account of his wife and marriage.
The problem with this is that there has been no hearing for defamation or any other imagined crime. It is “prior restraint” which flies in the face of First Amendment (to the U.S. Constitution) law and free speech tradition and case law in the U.S. There seems to be a real sense that those elements of law which apply to everything from radio to newspapers to signs in your yard somehow stop at the keyboard.
Mr. Krasnansky has declned to abide by Judge Devine’s injunction.
We don’t know Mr. Krasnansky. For all we know, he’s a turd. We also don’t care. We care about our free speech and the tradition of free speech in this country and the timely extension of those rights into the electronic environment. If Mr. Krasnansky has broken the law, a prosecutor or private citizen should take him to court and, in due process, require him to remove the libelous or defamatory material. But Judge Devine is not president-for-life and sure as hell ought to know better.
Luke SKinner | Jan 18, 2008 | Reply
We don’t know Mr. Krasnansky. For all we know, he’s a turd. We also don’t care. We care about our free speech and the tradition of free speech in this country and the timely extension of those rights into the electronic environment
I think you meant to say we care about free speech all across the globe
Curt | Jan 18, 2008 | Reply
Well, that’s true, certainly, Luke. But this is a US-specific legal issue and we (or I anyway) do care about those issues in this country as well.