October 23rd, 2004 • Quill Archives
Legislation needed to put a stop to SLAPPs

In the mid-1990s, a California university brought a libel suit against the San Francisco Chronicle over a series of articles detailing the school’s conflicts with its county government. Around the same time, an Athon, Mass., selectman sued an operator of a local Internet news site for defamation in connection with the operator’s characterization of politically controversial decisions by the city’s selectmen.