Thursday, February 10, 2011

Threat to sue for defamation

When I first posted this on my Facebook group called "Protect the Kanehsatake Health Center", I added the comment that in order to sue for libel or defamation, one should first have a good reputation to damage.  Of course, Facebook kept allowing the so-called board of directors at the Kanehsatake Health Center (aka the band council and its minions) to "block access" to my group pages.  FB has no qualms censoring me.  Shame on Zukerberg and the rest of them at FB.

The so-called board of directors wasn't serious about suing me because they didn't have legal leg to stand on. No justifiable complaint. So the following letter is a SLAPP.  According to Wikipedia, a SLAPP is a:  
" strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) is a lawsuit that is intended to censor, intimidate and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense until they abandon their criticism or opposition.[1]
The typical SLAPP plaintiff does not normally expect to win the lawsuit. The plaintiff's goals are accomplished if the defendant succumbs to fear, intimidation, mounting legal costs or simple exhaustion and abandons the criticism. A SLAPP may also intimidate others from participating in the debate. A SLAPP is often preceded by a legal threat. The difficulty, of course, is that plaintiffs do not present themselves to the Court admitting that their intent is to censor, intimidate or silence their critics. Hence, the difficulty in drafting SLAPP legislation, and in applying it, is to craft an approach which affords an early termination to invalid abusive suits, without denying a legitimate day in court to valid good faith claims.

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