"Police officers put the badge on every morning, not knowing for sure if they'll come home at night to take it off."
~Tom Cotton

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Gag me

Last year the town lost a SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) countersuit against the NSB opponents. As part of its generosity, Falmouth was going to drop the SLAPP against those who dropped their opposition to NSB.

We've just learned that as part of this generosity, Falmouth wanted a gag order - those folks who agreed to drop their opposition would not be able to talk about the case. There have been rumors that Falmouth has imposed gag orders on other cases in the past, but this is the first that we've been able to link to a specific case.

Gag orders can be useful if there are details about a case that the town doesn't want the public to know, for example, if the case involves personnel records. However, for the very same reason, gag orders amount to censorship. After all, if there's nothing personal involved, shouldn't the public know?

More importantly, gag orders can be used by lawyers to cover their tracks, especially at the municipal level; if no one can talk about the case, it fades quietly into the sunset. This is very useful if the lawyers in question are always losing cases.

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