Across the country, and all over the world, rich and powerful interests use lawsuits to retaliate against their critics and deter further scrutiny. These are called SLAPPs — strategic lawsuits against public participation — meritless actions designed to financially cripple and ultimately silence targets.
Victims are frequently journalists, activists, academics, whistleblowers, and protesters, but can be anyone exercising their First Amendment right to free expression.
There have been thousands of such lawsuits since the tactic was first identified and examined in 1988, and 40 states plus the District of Columbia have passed laws to help people facing them fight back. But those laws vary in quality from state to state, and 10 states have no anti-SLAPP protections on the books. Federal legislation, meanwhile, has remained elusive, hampered by a dearth of reliable data on the scope of the problem.
We are building the first national database of SLAPPs, conducting an extensive analysis of the public record to identify decisions citing anti-SLAPP statutes to quantify this type of malicious litigation.