The limits of free speech

“How can you get on the Internet and trash someone with no justification whatsoever and think you can get away with it?” Gene Cooley asked.

“It’s the Internet,” is no longer a good answer.

Cooley’s fiancee was killed in 2008 when her ex-husband shot her before he killed himself.

. An anonymous poster on a local bulletin board, hiding behind six user names, labeled Cooley, among other things, a pervert and a drug user, according to WXIA TV in Atlanta.

Last week a jury awarded Cooley $404,000 in a libel suit.

Now it gets a little more complicated. The lawyer who represented Cooley says he’s working on legislation to make similar situations a crime, not just a civil matter.