The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has more than half a million members,countless additional activists and supporters, and fifty-three affiliates nationwide. We areone of the nation’s oldest and largest organizations advocating in support of individualrights in the courts and before the executive and legislative branches of government. Inparticular, throughout our history, we have been the nation’s pre-eminent advocate insupport of individual free speech rights. We write today to express our strong support forlegislation to resolve the problem known as ‘libel tourism’. Some say no such problemexists.1 Those who believe it is a problem don’t necessarily agree on the best approach todealing with the issue. The ACLU is less concerned with these differences of opinionthan with upholding the constitutional standards found in the U.S. Constitution againstchallenges arising out of foreign laws that fall short of accepted international standards.We encourage this committee to craft legislation to protect the free speech rights of thoseauthors and writers entitled to such protection from the chilling effect of foreign laws thatfail to conform to basic international human rights agreements.