what about “the crime’ being committed before this new “yanks are allowed to say what they like” laws that have recently been introduced.

Im sure that new law will not be retroactive..

BTW: do you know how stupid that new law sounds to anyone who is not American. What are you saying ? if you are in America you can say what you like about anyone else, or anything else because of your “free speech” thing ?

WOW, talk about ego’s !!

Firstly the new law applies to lawsuits and not content so it covers this threat of a lawsuit regardless of the age of the post or comment in question.

Secondly you apparently do not understand U.S. law regarding free speech. You can say anything at any time about anything with few restrictions. If the things you are saying could be damaging, and the offended party must be able to prove damages, then you may cross the line into libel or slander depending on the medium however if the statements made are true then you have a defense. If what you say is opinion and not represented as fact you also have a defense against lawsuits. There are other situations but they don’t apply here. In fact the two situations mentioned don’t apply here because Mike did not say the things that have offended Mr. Morris. The things in question were said by posters on this website and Mike is protected from liability for comments made on the site by U.S. law which is one thing that makes this lawsuit laughable. The new law to which Mike refers only aims to keep U.S. citizens from having their rights violated by foreign laws.

The US is internationally on the nose anyway, I suppose this could not make things much worse..

Also the US being able to say what they like to other countries or people, is a US LAW.

If your web page is available in the UK, you are acting under UK law, so you might only get blocked to the UK.

But it would be fun, and interesting to see it tested in court. Under UK law !!

You are dead wrong on your statement that if your webpage is available in the UK then you are subject to UK law. Jurisdiction depends on where the server is physically located which, in this case, is in the U.S. so British law does not apply to Mike’s site. The only enforceable judgement, provided Mike doesn’t travel to the UK, is the site being blocked in the UK which I am not sure happens anyway. The UK has absolutely no right to try and apply its laws to citizens of the United States who are operating legally and physically inside of the U.S. and you speak of the arrogance of Americans? For the UK to think they can apply their laws to citizens outside of their country is much more arrogant than US citizens practicing their right to free speech.

You refused to take down this post, and you wonder why he took it further !!. What is there to wonder about, what other choices did he have.

He could have gone after the actual culpable parties which are the people that made the posts. Mike is not legally responsible for the posts made by others on Techdirt. You may be used to living without freedom or protection of speech but here in the US we take that sort of thing seriously. Attempts could have been made prior to the threat of a lawsuit which Mike clearly states was the first action. Mr. Morris’s attorneys decided that attempting to file suit without any way to enforcement a judgement would be a good first step. There were other options.

As for racist comments, you should be able to remove offending material, and take a little responsibility for your posts. And you would be surprised at what some people will believe, or mabey not, as you say some ‘off the wall’ stuff yourself, that is often ‘believed’ by your followers.

Those who do not wish to think and enquire for themselves.

And allthough you say you will not remover posts when asked, you will certainly remove posts that you dont like yourself. Double standards ?

Have you read any of the comments on the years old post to which this threat is related. The “racist” comments are comments accusing Mr. Morris of giving preference to Jewish employees. The only racism in the thread is accusations thereof. And furthermore why should Mike take them down? Isn’t it better to address filth like racism, or accusations of racism, in public where refutation can occur or is it preferable to sweep it under the rug? Mike is taking responsibility for his posts he is just not, nor is he required to, take responsibility for other’s comments on his posts. And Mike doesn’t remove posts he doesn’t like he removes spam which is another matter entirely. There are tons of posts which disagree with Mike all over this site and some of them are quite well thought out and well reasoned but they still stand. It’s just a guess but I predict your idiotic post will stay just like all the rest all over the site.

But using the Constitution as your took to be an international bully and mouth, is not a good look for the US. Considering their (your) track record over the past 10 or so years.

Constitutional freedoms are why the US has a less than stellar international reputation. In fact some of the reasons can be argued to be a violation of the very same. We have had some bad leaders and that’s not debatable but whatever the idiots in Washington do or look like no foreign government is allowed to trample on the rights of US citizens and we just passed another law to make sure of it. Sorry if that offends you. Ok I am not sorry but it sounded good at the time.

So its ok to use the constatution for your own gains, but when it comes to Muslum community centre near the 911 site, you quickly want to forget that prized constatution to get your own way..

I don’t see anyone in the US government threatening to pass laws to prevent the mosque from being built. What you see if public outcry which is well within the rights of the people. You can say what you want but I have the right call you on your bullshit. Just like the folks wanting to build a mosque have a right to build it anywhere they own land, depending on zoning which I think is stupid anyway, I have the right to tell them they are being inconsiderate assholes for building it where they are. Neither of us has violated the rights of the other. They offend me by building where they want to build but I would take up arms if the federal government told them they couldn’t but until that happens I’ll keep calling them assholes and hoping they build somewhere else. You apparently have no grasp of how freedom actually works.

US law is not internation law, and the US are not the police governing system for the planet.

You are right. And British law is not international law and the British are not the governing system for the planet which is why the US passed laws protecting its citizens from being subject to oppressive laws from other countries. The British don’t get to come and enforce their laws on Americans. If you think they can and can get away with just look at the history of the United States. They did it once and we are still making sure no-one else can do it again. Of course our own leaders are whittling away our rights but that’s another story.

So why expect the rest of the world to abide by your laws, if you will not abide by their laws.

We don’t expect the rest of the world to abide by our laws. We expect them to respect our laws on our soil which is all this hoopla is about. Some British twat has threatened an American with British law to which he is not subject and now we are laughing at the British twat.

(they might extradite you for a freebee trip the london!!,, but not to see the Queen..).. 🙂

You are wrong about jurisdiction here. Mike is US citizen and the server is in the US which makes him subject only to US law. The US government wouldn’t allow British laws to be enforced in the US for something that is perfectly legal in the US and happened in US jurisdiction and to even think for a second they would allow an extradition based on a case like this is lunacy.

I know I am not supposed to feed the trolls but I couldn’t help it this time…