The U.S. litigation system is meant to resolve serious disputes. Unfortunately, the high cost of litigation can be weaponized as a means of harassment and censorship. That’s become all too common, and the last few decades have seen the rise of what’s known as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation, or SLAPP.
At EFF, as more speech of all types has moved online, we’ve seen SLAPPs proliferate over digital speech. SLAPPs get filed against protesters who oppose oil pipelines, and regular people doing everyday things like sending emails to local officials, or even posting an online review.
Five years ago, together with Greenpeace and other environmental nonprofits, EFF helped create the Protect the Protest coalition, or PTP. It’s a group of nonprofits that supports its members and others in their fights against SLAPP lawsuits.
One of the lawsuits that spurred the formation of PTP was Resolute Forestry Products v. Greenpeace. In this case, a logging company claimed that Greenpeace’s advocacy for Canadian forests amounted to a “global fraud” that should be punished under civil RICO laws—U.S. federal laws that were originally This article has been indexed from Deeplinks
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