In Rachel Ehrenfeld v. Khalid Salim a Bin Mahfouz, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that the libel dispute between Ehrenfeld and Bin Mahfouz was ripe, and then certified to the New York Court of Appeal a question about New York’s long-arm statute. This amicus brief (with other media groups) describes the problem of "libel tourism" and then endorses the limited holding urged by Ehrenfeld, which would interpret the statute to confer jurisdiction over parties like Bin Mahfouz who sue New Yorkers for defamation outside of New York and obtain judgments that can be satisfied only by taking actions in New York. [2007] Click here for comments

Filed comments urging the FCC not to regulate the Internet as a means of enforcing "net neutrality." The Institute cited several compelling reasons against regulation: Marketplace pressures and antitrust laws are sufficient to prevent and/or correct abuses by Internet providers; locking the Internet into a common carrier model will be a disincentive to investing in new infrastructure and technologies; and consumers will be deprived of new and innovative opportunities for services and content. Significantly, the FCC acknowledges that it has found no instances of abuse that would warrant regulation. [2007] Click here for comments

Joined with 14 other media organizations in a brief before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. The case involved a U.S. author who was sued successfully for libel in England so the plaintiff could avoid the First Amendment protections of U.S. courts. The brief notes that existing U.S. case law supports judicial intervention to prevent the chilling effect of a foreign judgment. The brief also warns that the English judgment will continue to have a powerful chilling effect on the author in particular and the media in general. The case is Rachel Ehrenfeld v. Khalid Salim a Bin Mahfouz. [2006] Click here for comments

Joined with 50 other media organizations in a brief before the Court of Appeal for Ontario, Canada. The brief challenges a lower court ruling that would allow any publisher in any country to be sued for libel in any forum in the world, no matter how remote that publication’s connection with the forum may be. The brief argues that the judgment under appeal fosters neither certainty nor order, and makes it impossible to reach reasoned decisions on what may or may not be published. The case, Bangoura v. Washington Post, has far-reaching implications for media Web sites. [2004] Click here for comments

Joined with other amici in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in support of Yahoo!, Inc. The brief argued that a French court order requiring Yahoo! to block access to portions of its Web site conflicts with basic premises of the First Amendment and cannot be enforced in the United States. The French order also conflicts with the public policies of California (prohibiting censorship) and the United States (immunizing Internet service providers from liability for third-party content). Efforts to import censorship to the United States are repugnant to U.S. law and could slow the development of the Internet, the brief concluded. [2002] Click here for comments...

Filed suit in U.S. District Court (as part of the Citizens Internet Empowerment Coalition) regarding provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 known as the Communications Decency Act. The suit charged that the Act's prohibition of Internet communications that may be deemed 'indecent' or 'patently offensive' for minors would effectively ban those forms of protected speech between adults. Thus, these provisions are constitutionally infirm; moreover, there are more effective ways of shielding minors that would not abridge the First Amendment rights of adults. The suit asked the Court to declare these provisions unconstitutional and to enjoin the Justice Department from enforcing them. [1996]