International Libel Threats To US Freedom Of Speech

The New York Times editorializes Sunday about its fellow major periodical Time Magazine:

A few months ago, an Indonesian court ordered Time magazine to pay the former dictator a judgment now valued at about $111 million in a libel case. The verdict, which Time is challenging, should not be allowed to stand.

Suharto’s case — which would be laughable if it were not so serious — concerns a May 1999 cover story in Time’s Asian edition, reporting that he and his family had amassed a fortune of about $15 billion, including $9 billion in an Austrian bank account. Two lower courts dismissed the suit, including the central Jakarta district court which found the article, titled “Suharto Inc.,” to be balanced, responsibly reported and in the public interest.

After Suharto pressed his complaint, arguing that the story portrayed him negatively as a greedy person, a Supreme Court panel concluded that Time had defamed the former strongman….

The court’s decision is a threat to a free press. It mocks the reform efforts of Indonesia’s democratically elected government. It undermines the country’s struggle to get beyond Suharto’s corrupt legacy. We hope the panel [in Indonesia] that hears Time’s appeal will see Suharto’s suit for what it really is — the last grasp for vindication by an autocrat with no legitimate case to argue.

The 1999 Time article is here.

The NYT’s doesn’t consider the wider implications of foreign libel judgments against Americans.

In the case of New Yorker Rachel Ehrenfeld, 23 copies of her book ordered on the Internet in England subjected her to a libel judgment there although she’s a US resident. As I discussed here, US state laws are uneven in protecting Americans from such judgments and need to be strengthened, and a federal protection is needed against frivolous foreign suits. Such suits are a growing business in England.

Ehrenfeld’s assets are in the US, though she doesn’t have much. What about Americans or American companies that have assets in other countries?

Time Magazine, with a small circulation in Indonesia, may not have much in the way of assets in Indonesia itself, but it has considerable assets in the US and elsewhere in the world. Other US multinationals also have large assets abroad. Suharto may try to go after Time’s assets in the US, or in another country with easier collection laws or more friendly to his BS.

If the NYT’s wants to help preserve US freedom of speech, and protect Americans and US companies from libel judgment abuses, the NYT’s should be heavily editorializing for the New York legislature to mend its law, for Congress to strengthen federal protections, and for, say, the UN to vote to only allow libel suits from one country’s citizens against another’s in the defendant’s country of residence. Since the NYT’s thinks so highly of the vague Geneva Conventions, above US law, that editorial course should be a natural. Or maybe not, because then the NYT’s would have to recognize what a refuge for scoundrals is the UN, and that the US is among the very few with any sense of decency or effort to live up to international law.

Or, maybe the NYT’s prefers to wait until it is the target, letting others suffer in the meantime.

Rachel Ehrenfeld doesn’t have the resources of Time or the New York Times, and cannot afford to wait for justice. Contributions to aid her defense can be sent here.

Rachel Ehrenfeld just emailed me her reaction:

Americans who write and publish in the U.S. should be sued for libel under U.S. Laws, especially since the U.S. Is the only country in the world to guarantee free speech in its Constitution. The legislator in every state as well as Congress should pass laws to guarantee freedom of the press. Failing to so, already opened the door to those wishing to curtail the U.S. press and media willingness and ability to freely investigate and report on matters important to our survival as a free nation.

Regarding the Indonesian “judgment” against Time, I find the NYT editorial naïve, at best. Indonesia has one of the most corrupt legal systems in the world. Millions of dollars in hard earned U.S. taxpayer money were spent on Indonesian “reforms.” This judgment illustrates another U.S. success in “democratization.”