SLAPPing Speech

Thanks to Molly Ivins for mentioning our work in her recent column about "strategic lawsuits against public participation" (SLAPPs), in which corporations file harassment lawsuits to silence their critics. Ivins cites the experience of Consumers Union, publisher of Consumer Reports, which "has already spent $10 million defending itself against a lawsuit filed by Isuzu Motors Ltd. because, eight years earlier, Consumer Reports rated the Isuzu Trooper 'not acceptable' for safety reasons. And the case has not yet reached trial. And that is the real menace of SLAPP suits. It's not that corporations win them, but that they cost critics so much money that the critics are silenced -- and so is everyone else who even thinks about raising some question about a corporate product or practice."