A Threat to Free Speech

Roger Kimball has an excellent piece today on the growing threat from “libel tourism.” Kimball leads with the story of a libel case brought in Britain against the book Alms for Jihad: Charity and Terrorism in the Islamic World, by Robert O. Collins. The plaintiff, Khalid bin Mahfouz, a Saudi banker, has already won similar judgments against three other books, but this time, the American author has successfully challenged the ruling in American courts as “contrary to the First Amendment and hence unenforceable on an American citizen.” Kimball also raises the issue of the ongoing Canadian suit against Macleans, which had the audacity to publish an excerpt from Mark Steyn’s bestselling America Alone: