ACT for America

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).

Democrat Hon. Berman (D) California, 28th   Hon. Boucher (D) Virginia, 9th   Hon. Nadler (D) New York, 8th   Hon. Scott (D) Virginia, 3rd   Hon. Watt (D) North Carolina, 12th   Hon. Lofgren (D) California, 16th   Hon. Jackson Lee (D) Texas, 18th   Hon. Waters (D) California, 35th   Hon. Delahunt (D) Massachusetts, 10th   Hon. Wexler (D) Florida, 19th   Hon. Sánchez (D) California, 39th   Hon. Cohen (D) Tennessee, 9th   Hon. Johnson (D) Georgia, 4th   Hon. Sutton (D) Ohio, 13th   Hon. Gutierrez (D) Illinois, 4th   Hon. Sherman (D) California, 27   Hon. Baldwin (D) Wisconsin, 2nd   Hon. Weiner (D) New York, 9th   Hon. Schiff (D) California, 29th   Hon. Davis (D) Alabama , 7th   Hon. Wasserman Schultz (D) Florida, 20th   Hon. Ellison (D) Minnesota, 5th

 Republican Hon. Sensenbrenner Jr. (R) Wisconsin, 5th   Hon. Coble (R) North Carolina, 6th   Hon. Gallegly (R) California, 24th   Hon. Goodlatte (R) Virginia, 6th   Hon. Chabot (R) Ohio, 1st   Hon. Lungren (R) California, 3rd   Hon. Cannon (R) Utah, 3rd   Hon. Keller (R) Florida, 8th   Hon. Issa (R) California, 49th   Hon. Pence (R) Indiana, 6th   Hon. Forbes (R) Virginia, 4th   Hon. King (R) Iowa, 5th   Hon. Feeney (R) Florida, 24th   Hon. Franks (R) Arizona, 2nd   Hon. Gohmert (R) Texas, 1st   Hon. Jordan (R) Ohio, 4th

Senate Judiciary Committee Members

Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT)

Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA)

Joseph R. Biden, Jr. (D-DE)

Herb Kohl (D-WI)

Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

Russell D. Feingold (D-WI)

Charles E. Schumer (D-NY)

Richard J. Durbin (D-IL)

Benjamin L. Cardin (D-MD)

Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI)

Arlen Specter (R-PA)

Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT)

Charles E. Grassley (R-IA)

Jon Kyl (R-AZ)

Jeff Sessions (R-AL)

Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

John Cornyn (R-TX)

Sam Brownback (R-KS)

Tom Coburn (R-OK)