The free speech rights of authors, researchers and journalists writing on issues of public security and national concern are increasingly under attack through both violent and non-violent means. An important non-violent challenge to free speech has emerged in the form of "Islamist lawfare," the use of the law as a weapon of war to silence and punish free speech about militant Islam, terrorism and its sources of financing.
The strategic end of Islamist lawfare is to further the goals of the Islamist movement, one of which is to abolish public discourse critical of Islam and punish anything deemed blasphemous to its prophet, Mohammad. Another goal of Islamist lawfare is to impede the free flow of public information about the threat of Islamist terrorism, thereby limiting our ability to understand it and destroy it. In this way, Islamist lawfare takes the form of a complementary legal campaign to terrorism and asymmetric warfare.
Lawfare: The War Against Free Speech- written by two of America's experts in this field- describes this phenomenon and gives practical guidance about navigating this new terrain to journalists who wish to speak truthfully about the national security threats we face.
This book is a must-read primer on the First Amendment, and should be reviewed by anyone writing about the most controversial topics of our time.
Aaron Eitan Meyer and Brooke Goldstein present Lawfare Against Free Speech: A First Amendment Guide to Reporting in an Age of Islamist Lawfare, the first book of its kind aimed at giving practical tips to journalists when writing about these topics.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Brooke Goldstein is a human rights attorney and award-winning filmmaker. She serves as director of The Lawfare Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness and facilitating a response to the abuse of the legal system and human rights law. She is also the founder and director of the Children's Rights Institute (CRI) which tracks and legally combats violations of children's basic human rights as occurring throughout the globe.
Aaron Eitan Meyer served as research director of The Lawfare Project, director of research for the Children's Rights Institute, legal correspondent for the Terror Finance Blog, and is on the advisory board for the digital advocacy group, Act for Israel. He received his B.A. from New School University, and his J.D. from Touro College Jacob D. Fuchsberg Law Center.
