In the latest episode of late-night American talk show “Last Week Tonight” that aired on Sunday (10 November), its host John Oliver spoke about the controversial SLAPP laws and its chilling effect as it allows privileged individuals to bully others “into silence”.
He started off the episode by talking about American coal tycoon Bob Murray who had recently dropped the lawsuit that he filed against Oliver. Although, he addressed the suit as “a crazy story”, he stressed that it’s worth telling as it “points to a much bigger problem”.
It appears the business tycoon had sued Last Week Tonight over a segment they did in 2017 in which they jokingly addressed him as “a geriatric Dr Evil” – “which we did and he does” – Oliver noted.
In addition, Murray also didn’t like that “we (the show) arranged for a staff member to dress up in a squirrel costume and deliver the message, ‘Eat Shit, Bob’, which Oliver admitted they did as well.
“Murray’s lawsuit against us asked for damages because he claimed that ‘nothing has ever stressed him more than this vicious and untruthful attack,” Oliver added, noting that it’s odd for Murray to say that given that a mine company that he oversaw collapsed in Utah and resulted in the death of nine people.
On top of seeking for monetary damages, Murray also filed for a gag order in order to prevent the talk show from rebroadcasting the 2017 episode or have it up online, but the episode is very much online to date.
“Obviously, the lawsuit was a bullshit efforts to silence us,” Oliver noted.
Although the case was dismissed by the West Virginia Judge in February 2019, it didn’t stop Murray as he then decided to appeal to the West Virginia Supreme Court. However, in a rather surprising twist, one of the judges set to hear the case was Allen Loughry, which interestingly was roasted by Oliver himself in a 2015 episode of the show.
“So we were naturally concerned at this point,” Oliver said.
But thankfully for Oliver, Lounghry, along with three other state Supreme Court justices, were impeached in a scandal for inappropriate spending, forcing Murray to drop the lawsuit as the case has been unattended for years.
In fact, Oliver pointed out that Murray dropped the case about the same time when his coal company, Murray Energy, was reorganised into bankruptcy.
Although the lawsuit was dropped, Oliver noted it racked up over $200,000 in legal fees for his company.
He explained, “These lawsuits were infuriating, took up a lot of time and resources, and resulted in a tripling of our libel insurance premium.”
This then prompted the host to wonder the reason Murray would make them go through all this hassle, in which Oliver stated, “I would argue that because winning the case was never really his (Murray) goal”.

SLAPP laws

For those who are unaware, SLAPP is an acronym that stands for a “strategic lawsuit against public participation”, which basically is a lawsuit that attempts to intimidate and punish critics.
“These are frivolous suits with no legal merits, specifically designed to stifle public debate or dissent. And this happens all the time,” Oliver said.
Besides Murray, President Donald Trump – who happens to be a close friend of the coal tycoon – had “openly called for changes (in SLAPP laws) that would make it easier for them to file” suits.
In fact, President Trump had once sued journalist Tim O’Brien for a whopping $5 billion, solely for reporting that the President’s network is much lower than he claimed, Oliver mentioned.
Although the US President lost the case, he later admitted that he knew he couldn’t win, saying “I did it to make his life miserable, which I’m happy about”.
“Trump’s statement there actually get to the key characteristic of SLAPP suits. The whole point there is to put the defendant through a difficult, painful experience,” Oliver said.
He continued, “And even if cases fail in lower courts, as they often do, the plaintiff can find ways to extend them through intensive discovery requests, depositions and appeals that drains the target’s time and resources.”
SLAPP suits are not just used on journalists, but also to silence citizen activists as well, Oliver stated.

The need for more anti-SLAPP laws

Calling SLAPP laws a “scourge”, Oliver highlighted that there are 30 states in the US that have anti-SLAPP laws, which allows defendants to force the plaintiffs to justify their claims made earlier, and if they fail to do so, then the case will not only be dismissed but in some states, the defendants are also awarded attorney fees.
However, he also pointed out that the other 20 states don’t have those laws, including West Virginia and this is where Murray filed the case against Oliver, even though neither of them live there.
In addition, Murray has also filed at least nine lawsuits on journalists and their news organisations between the year 2001 and 2015 for reports that they view as critical.
“Lawsuits like his make people think twice before reporting on his business or pointing things out like the fact that Bob Murray’s general facial expression answers the question, ‘What would it look like is an egg was mentally undressing you?” Oliver joked.
He added, “And I would argue that some of Murray’s suits clearly been attempts to bully people into silence.”
Separately, the Oliver also revealed in his show that Murray once sued a couple for conducting a small protest in 2012 outside of Murray Energy Ohio headquarters. The protest only saw about 20 people gathering at the building but the business mogul still took the extreme step to not only sue the couple, but also a local newspaper who covered the protest.
“Both the couple and the newspaper beat Murray’s claims for defamation but he tied the both on appeals for years, causing the newspaper’s defence in hundreds and thousands of dollars,” Oliver disclosed.
In fact, the judge wrote in his decision that “Murray’s suit shows that ‘Ohio should adopt an anti-SLAP statute”.
This is because the newspaper had removed all articles it had written about Murray on its site, which the judge expressed “an example of the chilling effect this has”.
As such, Oliver expressed that “we badly need effective anti-SLAPP laws nationwide to deter powerful people like Bob Murray from using the cause to shut down people’s legitimate dissent.

Singapore’s PM Lee named as press freedom predator for using SLAPP

Separately, in 2016, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) published names of 35 presidents, politicians, religious leaders, militias and criminal organisations that have censored, imprisoned, tortured or murdered journalists.
Addressing them as press freedom predators, RSF stated that some of these individuals have been preying on the media for years, some for decades.
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was also listed as one of the predator by RSF, citing that his strategies in stifling media is to use SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation). Which consists of bringing defamation suits or other legal actions against isolated journalists and bloggers who cannot easily defend themselves against political powerful or wealthy plaintiffs, with the aim of deterring them and their colleagues from contributing to the public debate.
Going no higher than 135th, Singapore currently ranks 154th in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index.

Subscribe
Notify of
0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
You May Also Like

吴仁轩被指 已悄然退出加密银行Seba董事会

本月2日,油运供应商Inter-Pacific Petroleum Pte Ltd (IPP)的司法经理,正式向法庭提出申请,起诉前总理吴作栋之子吴仁轩,追讨1.56亿美元(约2.126亿新元)。 有关诉讼旨在向吴仁轩追讨上述款项,他被指在2019年6月至7月间,支取款项进行贸易融资,但被银行指是“不存在或虚假的交易”。 有鉴于上述诉讼,吴仁轩在一些公司的身份亦受影响,包括在康盛人生集团(Cordlife)卸下主席职务,改任独立董事。 此外,根据财经媒体《Finews Asia》的报导,吴仁轩因“个人因素”,悄然辞去在总部在瑞士的加密银行Seba的董事职务,不过发言人仅透露此消息,并未进一步说明详情。 SEBA Bank 是一家受监管的金融机构,在2019年8月获得了瑞士金融市场监管局(FINMA)的银行和证券交易商牌照。…

国家档案馆翻新计划 审计署:存管理疏失!

审计署(AGO)今早发表2019/2020财政年度审计长报告。 其中,审计署检阅国家档案馆翻新计划的75项、总值169万元的合同变动(contract variation),发现该计划在数方面都有不足之处!对于合同变动的管理缺乏监督。 其中,有多达36项合同变动获原则上同意(in-principle approvals (IPAs)),却没有给出预估成本。 审计署报告形容,这意味着图书馆局旗下的这项翻新计划,尽管不知道所涉及费用多少,但当局却予以批准,甚至有份变更涉及的数目高达37万元! “涉及成本不明确情况下审批、作出财务承诺,有很高风险会导致项目超支。” 通讯及新闻部长易华仁,是在去年4月为翻新后的档案馆主持开幕仪式,翻新项目获批准的成本高达2千053万元。 项目超支172万元 审计署认为,上述项目缺乏队开支的监督,确保财务承诺符合已批准的项目成本,最终项目超支达172万元,达8.4巴仙。

个人代步工具充电时着火 公寓180居民自动疏散

大年初二,个人代步工具故障再次让民居引来火祝。 在农历新年的第二天清晨,后港一栋公寓单位发生火患,该公寓的180居民自动紧急疏散。 新加坡民防部队(SCDF)于周日(1月26日)在其脸书专页帖文指出,当局于当天清晨5时50分接获来自Buangkok Green 第5座公寓一单位发生火患的投报,立刻前往营救。 当局出动了一把水射枪,及时将单位内卧室里的大火扑灭,但是卧室内的物品已经被烧毁。 两人有轻度烧伤和呼吸困难问题,但是他们在当场接受医护人员当场治疗后,都拒绝入院。 “初步调查显示,火患是由个人代步工具失火所引起的,该代步工具的电池在充电时起火。” 根据当局所分享的图片中,可见一间被烧毁的卧室,甚至外墙都熏黑一片。 民防部队也提供了个人代步工具的充电提示,希望能够提高使用者的警惕性。

SCDF: Personal mobility device-related fires increased last year, fires mostly occurred in homes

Fires involving personal mobility device (PMD) increased to 102 incidents last year…