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IPFS News Link • Lawsuits

The Alex Jones Verdict Shows the Danger of Defamation Laws

• http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org, by ryan mcmaken

In the years following the massacre, Jones repeatedly stated that he thinks the shootings were staged and that the purported parents were so-called "crisis actors." (He has since said he thinks the shootings were real.) Some of Jones's listeners chose to agree with Jones's claims that the shootings did not occur, and this allegedly informed the decisions by some listeners to engage in the harassment of some of the parents of murdered children. 

Essentially, Jones was found guilty of saying things that supposedly inspired other people to say cruel and disrespectful things to the parents of the Sandy Hook victims. The harassment allegedly also includes the desecration of the graves of victims.

Jones is being ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars because some other people—who were not acting under any orders from Jones—allegedly committed some crimes on their own. It's difficult to see, then, how Jones actually inflicted any actual damages on his supposed "victims" in this case. If people have harassed the parents, of course, that's a crime for which the actual harassers are responsible. The real guilty parties here are the people who have committed acts of harassment. But it appears that Jones has been convicted here of simply saying things that the jury and the plaintiffs found objectionable. 

In a free society, a private citizen saying things that other people are free to ignore is not punishable by law. In a society which does not respect free speech, however, merely saying words is apparently grounds of levying fines of hundreds of millions of dollars. (Actual threats of violence directed at specific persons are dangerous, but are not what we are talking about here, and that's not what Jones has been accused of.)
 

1 Comments in Response to

Comment by PureTrust
Entered on:

Fire the attorneys, and when asked by the court for a payment schedule that is handle-able, state a dollar a day. Do this in person, not represented by anybody, even himself. When asked for an itemized list of property so the court can see, state, 4th Amendment; private property; private information. "We have my word that you can go on. I can't afford any more than a dollar a day. But if I happen to get a little extra from somewhere now and again, I will consider additional, one-time amounts." If the judge insists, sue her for breaking her Oath of Office; not upholding the 4th Amendment. Sue her to the tune of a couple $billion.



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