Lawfare: The War Against Free Speech

The Center for Security Policy Press announces the release of Lawfare: The War Against Free Speech—A First Amendment Guide to Reporting in an Age of Islamist Lawfare by Brooke Goldstein and Aaron Eitan Meyer.

Lawfare: The War Against Free Speech exposes the history, use and methodology of Islamist Lawfare to censor anyone who speaks or writes about militant Islam, terrorism and their sources of financing. The book is a first of its kind and intended to help reporters write about national security issues, by outlining the legal framework within which they are entitled to operate. Lawfare outlines the free speech rights of investigative journalists, bloggers, and authors under U.S. law.  Resources include case examples of previous Islamist lawfare lawsuits, guidance on how to avoid potential lawfare without self-censorship, direction on relevant differences between American and European law, an accessible introduction to the First Amendment, and much more.

In the book’s introduction, the authors describe lawfare as “the wrongful manipulation of the legal system to achieve strategic military or political ends… a means to intimidate, demoralize and bankrupt defendants.” The strategic end of Islamist lawfare is to “abolish public discourse critical of Islam and punish anything deemed blasphemous of its prophet Mohammad.” By circumscribing free speech, publishing and analysis in national security, lawfare limits the ability of Americans to accurately understand and respond to the threat of shariah, jihad and Islamism.

Former Ambassador to the UN John Bolton says of the book: “Freedom of speech is under assault from a direction that the United States and the West generally rejected centuries ago. ‘Blasphemy,’ as some define it, may not be pretty, but the suppression of speech is profoundly ugly, not to mention dangerous to a free and open society. This book explains why.”

Regarding why reporters need this book, author Brooke Goldstein stated:

The website for Lawfare: The War Against Free Speech is https://thewaragainstfreespeech.com/.

Brooke Goldstein is a New York City based human rights attorney and award-winning filmmaker.  Goldstein serves as director of The Lawfare Project (www.thelawfareproject.org), a nonprofit legal think-tank that monitors and facilitates a response to the abuse of the law as a weapon of war.   Brooke is also the founder and director of the Children’s Rights Institute (www.childrensrightsinstitute.org), a nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness and legally combating the illegal indoctrination and recruitment of children to become suicide bombers, child soldiers and human shields.   From 2007-2009 Brooke served as director of the Legal Project at the Middle East Forum, an organization that arranges financial support for, and pro-bono legal representation of persons wrongfully sued for exercising their right to free speech on issues of national security and public concern. She is a regular commentator on FOX News and has been featured in several media including CNN and The New York Sun. A Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, and Associate Fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, Brooke has been published in a variety of sources including the New York Daily News, The American Spectator, Commentary Magazine, and the Washington Times. Canadian born, Brooke earned her B.A. from McGill University and received her J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

Aaron Eitan Meyer is a researcher and analyst, legal correspondent for the Terror Finance Blog, and is on the advisory board for the digital advocacy group Act for Israel. He has served as research director of The Lawfare Project.  Mr. Meyer’s work has appeared in the Terror Finance Blog, Covenant, Washington Post Online, Washington Times and The American Spectator. He received his B.A. from New School University, and his J.D. from Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center.