Palin lawyer threatens to serve papers at kindergarten, then balks

http://alaskareport.com/news39/x71284_flien.htm

Thomas Van Flein, Sarah Palin's lawyer, threatened Saturday to serve libel papers at a kindergarten to the owner of the highly trafficked "ImmoralMinority" blog for a divorce story on the Palins. The blog was given until 3pm Saturday to remove the story and post a retraction.

It seems like there's a grey area there between official news sources and internet posts.

There's no grey area here...even the legitimate press can be sued for libel. The only difference between the NYT and Joes Alaska Blog is that the NYT has the money to pay the lawyers to fight it.

I see so much stuff on message boards...or is there just too much posted on the Internet for everyone to be sued?

If you libel me here on DU, I can hire a lawyer, get the server records subpoenaed to find out who you are, and sue you for libel. If it's a genuine lie that disparages me publically, I'll probably win too.

We don't see this very often simply because lawyers are expensive and court cases take time. Few people are willing to endure the expense and hassle of suing someone else over a comment on a website (especially since you must prove that the libel caused harm, which is harder to prove on the Internet). Still, it happens from time to time and people are always shocked to discover than American law exludes blatant and harmful lies from free speech provisions. This is something new to American society...when I grew up in the pre-Internet days, it was common knowledge that harmful slander would get you sued. I'm not sure where the idea sprang up that the old rules didn't apply to the Web...they do.

The legal liabilities associated with speech on the web are no different than the legal liabilities associated with speech in person, or on the radio, or on television. If you tell a lie about someone, and that lie causes them real harm, they can sue you for damages.

Simple solution: Don't lie about people (or if you're making a damaging allegation, at least make sure you have better proof than an "anonymous source").

politicians don't bother to respond. It's beneath them. Not Palin the (pit bull?) crybaby. She is the most annoying whiner I have seen.

Well, that's just silly.
Some of us hadn't seen it before now...