WOW Senate does good (without a fight)

[acroyear]

The Senate actually passed one of those "80% obvious" bills without a fight! Come on, everybody, lets actually cheer them for doing the right thing! [yes, i'm being serious]

AFP: US Senate passes 'libel tourism' bill:

The US Senate on Monday passed a bill to shield US journalists, authors, and publishers from "libel tourists" who file suit in countries where they expect to get the most favorable ruling.

The popular legislation headed to the House of Representatives, which was expected to approve it and send the measure to US President Barack Obama to sign into law despite misgivings from key US allies.

Backers of the bill have cited England, Brazil, Australia, Indonesia and Singapore as places where weak libel safeguards attract lawsuits that unfairly harm US journalists, writers and publishers.

The Senate approved the measure in a "unanimous consent" voice vote.

The bill's supporters have said that "libel tourism" undermines free speech rights under the US Constitution's cherished first amendment, and so erode accountability of powerful figures in a healthy democracy.

Seriously, this is a good thing. A VERY good thing. Libel laws in Britain are totally backwards and almost always favor the plaintiff unfairly, and Europe has increasingly seen big multi-national corporations file suits on European nationals in UK courts in order to guarantee a win that they wouldn't get in other countries.

Now, I'm not totally getting my hopes up that this also means they'd also pass (or extend) this to include the increasing number of foreign nation anti-blasphemy laws which are also a gross affront on free speech, but at least there's progress and recognition that some foreign laws as they apply to US Citizens (and tourists) are just plain wrong.