First Amendment, blah blah

I don't know much of anything about Lee Kaplan-- okay, so I thought he was the guy who ran the Kaplan Test Prep agency, and for how little I've looked into it, he probably still could be-- but he has turned out to be a really stand-up guy after suing a UC Berkeley student for $7500 in California small claims court for defamation and "business interference." He claims damages of over $40,000, but because he would probably lose in a real trial, he went for the small claims maximum, and won.

The basic issues here are strangely familiar. Several years ago, Dooce (see "I want her job" on right) was fired for writing about her job on the Internet, which is partially why I do not write about my job on the Internet, and probably won't until after my contract is over. But it seems odd to me, especially after the entire Free Speech Movement, that writing about other people is still such a big deal. Aren't people entitled to their own opinions? I fail to see how a "new" medium-- the Internet-- is any different than an editorial column.

Granted, I have done absolutely no research on the facts of the case beyond reading Yaman Salahi's kaplanwatch.com, but at present I tend to sympathize with my classmate blogger shelling out a year's worth of tuition to a highly-paid investigative journalist, rather than the highly-paid investigative journalist.