“…The order, entered by Judge Diana Lewis of Circuit Court in West Palm Beach, forbids Mr. Max to write about Ms. Johnson. It has alarmed experts in First Amendment law, who say that such orders prohibiting future publication, prior restraints, are essentially unknown in American law. Moreover, they say, claims like Ms. Johnson’s, for invasion of privacy, have almost never been considered enough to justify prior restraints.
Ms. Johnson’s lawsuit also highlights some shifting legal distinctions in the Internet era, between private matters and public ones and between speech and property…” NY Times Here’s a mirror of the essay in question which the judge enjoined the author from posting on his website, courtesy of a reader at Declan McCullagh’s Politech mailing list, who comments:
In order to facilitate further public discussion of this controversy, I have reproduced the disputed essay below. Given the blatant unconstitutionality of the court’s actions, which include forbidding Mr. Max from even linking to Ms. Johnson’s web site, I predict this order will be reversed shortly. Now that Mr. Max has legal representation, the entire case will likely be thrown out in short order, unless Ms. Johnson decides to add a claim of libel… I have no personal knowledge of and make no claims as to the truthfulness of any part of Mr. Max’s essay, but it is my understanding that Ms.Johnson has not thus far sued him for libel, only for invasion of privacy. Ms. Johnson is indisputably a public figure who holds herself out as a moral example, so the requirements for proving either libel or invasion of privacy would be quite high.
Caveat: there’s nothing of any merit in the essay beyond the First Amendment issues the case raises. It is not any more a flattering picture of Mr. Max than it is of Ms. Johnson. If you can bear not to, don’t bother reading it, or at least keep an emesis basin nearby. I am glad, however, that the essay was mirrored. Weighing the civil liberties issues is more challenging but more compelling when the self-expression is so utterly without merit.
