MYTH: Senators Feinstein and Inhofe claim on their website that "AETA gives law enforcement the tools they need to adequately combat radical animal rights extremists who commit violent acts against innocent people because they work with animals. This is terrorism and cannot be tolerated.
In 1964, in New York Times v. Sullivan, the United States Supreme Court held that the First Amendment protects individuals who make defamatory statements related to matters of public concern, so long as such statements are not made with actual malicious or in reckless disregard of the truth. The Court reached this decision "against the background of a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open." (1) Their decision set the precedent for a heightened burden of proof in defamation cases that involve matters of public concern.(2)