Constitutional Law

Court Tosses Defamation Action Lodged Against Air America Host

A federal appeals court rejected a defamation claim lodged against the Air America Radio host Randi Rhodes for condemnations she leveled at interrogators involved in the notorious abuses of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib. The private defense contractor CACI Premier Technology, Inc. and CACI International, Inc. (CACI) brought a libel lawsuit against Rhodes and Air America Radio in 2004 after Rhodes sharply criticized the CACI interrogators for their involvement in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

Rhodes lashed the CACI interrogators as “killers” who raped children and engaged in torture of detainees, reported the American Lawyer. Rhodes also tagged CACI interrogators as shills for an Apartheid-supporting company. “They don’t report to anybody,” Rhodes said on her program. “They’re not loyal to you, they’re not loyal to me. They’re not loyal to America. They’re loyal to the corporation. And they have fought on the side of Apartheid, just like Cheney used to vote against abolishing Apartheid.”

In fall 2006 a federal judge dismissed CACI’s libel lawsuit, saying that Rhodes’ comments were protected by the First Amendment. This week, the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, finding that CACI did not carry its burden of proving that Rhodes’ comments were made with “reckless disregard for the truth.” The Fourth Circuit in CACI v. Randi Rhodes also concluded that, “Rhodes relied on several reliable sources in accusing CACI of torture at the Abu Ghraib prison. In sum, the record establishes that Rhodes did not make any statement that CACI committed torture with reckless disregard as to whether the statement was false or not.”

Full post as published by ACS Blog on August 07, 2008 (boomark / email).