President Barack Obama signs Congressman Steve Cohen's SPEECH Act into law on August 10, 2010

President Barack Obama will sign the SPEECH Act, sponsored by Congressman Steve Cohen, into law today at 12:10 PM CST.

The SPEECH Act puts an end to “libel tourism”, the practice of exploiting plaintiff-friendly defamation laws in foreign countries in an attempt to silence or intimidate American journalists, authors and publishers.

“Libel tourism threatens to undermine free speech in the U.S. because, with the rise of the internet and foreign courts’ liberal exercise of personal jurisdiction over Americans, foreign defamation law that lacks the constitutionally mandated speech-protective measures of U.S. law can be applied to publications that are substantially or entirely distributed in the U.S.,” said Congressman Cohen during his floor speech.

Supporters of the SPEECH Act include the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Vermont Library Association, the American Library Association, the Association of American Publishers, the American Civil Liberties Union, First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and former CIA Director James Woolsey.