Rachel Ehrenfeld has been struggling quietly in what should be the loudest, most publicized legal battle of the century: A gay Saudi terror financier (you got that?) has sued American citizen Rachel Ehrenfeld in a British libel court for outlining in her 2003 book Funding Evil how the charities he supports fund terrorism. The terrifying fact here is that there is no law in place in America that protects U.S. citizens from foreign judgments that conflict with constitutionally guaranteed freedoms such as the First Amendment. That’s why, thankfully — and despite the bizarre lack of attention the case has gotten so far in the press — NY State Senator Dean Skelos and Assemblyman Rory Lancman have taken up the cause and introduced a bill that will “protect writers from lawsuits filed outside the U.S. by foreign nationals seeking to muzzle the First Amendment rights of American citizens, particular[ly] those reporting on terrorism and its financiers,” as Ehrenfeld’s press release read.

When I asked Ehrenfeld if the big A-list blogs such as Real Clear Politics, Little Green Footballs and PowerLine had mentioned her monumental case, she answered, “As mind boggling as it is, and unbelievable they did Nothing! NADA!”

Here is the shocking background, made all the more shocking by the silence with which this story has been greeted by the press and the public, who seem all too eager to give up the first amendment to their Islamic masters. Unlike the snoozing media and blogosphere, the two above-named state lawmakers recognize the stakes for the entire country and international security.

Their effort, continues the press release, “comes on the heels of a New York Court of Appeals ruling that has stunned many in the legal, media, and publishing community. The court held it could not protect New York author Rachel Ehrenfeld from a British lawsuit she lost by default filed by Saudi billionaire Khalid Salim bin Mahfouz where she was ordered to pay over $225,000 for detailing in her book how Bin Mahfouz, and some of his family, are allegedly tied to funding terrorist organizations. Bin Mahfouz used the U.K. legal system to obtain more than 36 similar judgments, affecting the U.S. media.

“Ms. Ehrenfeld sought a court order to protect her Constitutional rights, but in a ruling with First Amendment implications sending legal shockwaves throughout newsrooms across America, as well as potentially undermining our ability to expose terrorism’s financial and logistical support networks of our enemies, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that it does not have jurisdiction to protect Americans — on U.S. soil — from a foreign defamation verdict.”

The bipartisan “Libel Terrorism Reform Act” introduced by NY state lawmakers Lancman and Skelos will “create the jurisdictional reach the Court of Appeals found lacking,” according to a recent NY Post article. “Their bill would empower New York courts to assert jurisdiction over anyone who obtains a foreign libel judgment against a New York publisher or writer - and limit enforcement to those judgments that satisfy ‘the freedom of speech and press protections guaranteed by both the United States and New York Constitutions.’

“In effect, this renders all foreign libel judgments unenforceable in New York, as no court outside the United States abides by our First Amendment protections. But this bill, if it becomes law, will do more than protect our precious First Amendment freedoms in New York. It also will serve as a template for action by Congress - and attract foreign counterterrorism scholars and journalists to our shores.”

The NY Law Journal carried an encouraging update last week — the bill passed unanimously in the state Senate:

The Libel Terrorism Protection Act would amend the long-arm statute…to give state courts jurisdiction over a foreign libel plaintiff who secures a judgment against an author or publisher with sufficient physical or financial ties to New York.

The measure would allow courts here to declare the foreign judgments unenforceable if the courts determine that libel laws in foreign countries do not protect the freedom of speech and the press to the extent that statutes in New York and the United States do…

The bill…has made unusually swift progress toward passage in Albany since its introduction [in January]. New legislation typically takes several months, if not years, to reach the floor of the Assembly or Senate.

Floyd Abrams, the First Amendment expert from Cahill Gordon & Reindel, is backing the legislation. He said it has moved unusually quickly in Albany because it has united powerful forces that are not always aligned on public policy questions.

“It has brought together two propositions that have widespread support: There is considerable support, if not total support, for the notion that First Amendment rights should be protected,” Mr. Abrams said yesterday in an interview. “There is total support for the notion that when an American writes a book about terrorism, she shouldn’t be dragged around the world to defend herself and then find herself with a foreign judgment that is enforceable here.”

Mr. Abrams said he knows of no foreign libel laws that could be found by a New York judge to provide freedom of speech and press protections equal to or greater than those in New York and the United States.

“For all intents and purposes, this legislation would bar any defamation judgment obtained outside the United States from being enforced in New York,” said Assemblyman Rory I. Lancman, D-Queens, chief sponsor of the bill in his chamber.

The bill has cleared the Assembly’s Judiciary Committee and is now before the chamber’s Codes Committee. Mr. Lancman said he expected the bill to pass the full Assembly by next month. Governor Eliot Spitzer’s office will not discuss pending legislation until it reaches the governor’s desk.

The number of media outlets paying attention to the case can be counted on one hand: In addition to the NY Post item above, San Francisco Chronicle had an article titleed Libel Tourism: Where Terrorism and Censorship Meet, and NY Jewish Week mentioned it. Publishers Weekly carried an important piece, part of which read:

Bin Mahfouz sued Ehrenfeld even though the book was never published in Great Britain and neither he nor Ehrenfeld resides there. Ehrenfeld refused to participate in the suit, but was nonetheless hit with a default judgment of $225,000 in damages and legal fees to bin Mahfouz, as well as a “declaration of falsity” against Funding Evil and a promise to destroy existing copies of the book, a demand for a public apology and an injunction against U.K. publication.
…
Bin Mahfouz is infamous for silencing authors and journalists — he has sued or threatened suit in the U.K. 33 times against writers who linked him to terrorism — and his legal actions against Cambridge University Press’s Alms for Jihad by J. Millard Burr and Robert O. Collins resulted in the press pulping its copies and putting the book out of print (the writers are reportedly near a deal to publish the book in the U.S.).

And here is part of a late December article in Human Events:

Mahfouz’s case against Ehrenfeld has already done enormous harm in the US. Ehrenfeld told me she’s unable to get book publishers to contract for another book. She said all of the major US publishing houses have turned down a book on the Muslim Brotherhood — thought to have substantial terrorist ties — and the Saudis’ involvement in funding it.

If what Ehrenfeld writes about the Brotherhood offends Mahfouz or someone else whose ties to terrorism ought to be exposed, sales could be banned not only in Britain but in the entire European Union and the publisher — and the author — made liable for damages. Mahfouz — using British courts that have no jurisdiction over American authors — has apparently precluded Ehrenfeld from writing another book.

The writing is on the wall, and Rachel Ehrenfeld alone is fighting back to erase it. She recently wrote me, “It’s mind boggling how the media is ignoring the story and the bill…Please, ask your friends in the media/blogs to support the bill and praise the legislators…I and the law need all the exposure and the support we can get. Mind you, as soon as the law passes, I can take the Saudi back to court — prove he is a terror financier, which would also help all the 9/11 victims who are suing him!”

Those names for praise, once again, are State Senator Dean Skelos and Assemblyman Rory Lancman. The NY Law Journal reported that the bill is getting support from the New York City Bar Association’s Committee on Communications and Media Law, Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, the New York State Trial Lawyers Association and the Association of American Publishers, Inc.

If you don’t know the name Rachel Ehrenfeld yet, learn it, bless it and commit it to memory. This woman has taken action where other individuals — and even huge, moneyed corporations — take the less expensive, less time-consuming, less troublesome way out. She is fighting to save the First Amendment which is being threatened like never before yet which most people don’t even know is under direct assault through the courts.

There is now an eight-minute film documentary chronicling Ehrenfeld’s odyssey, titled “The Libel Tourist”."