The Supreme Court is being asked to review a case against Facebook charging the social media website allowed the posting of death threats against Jews.
The request for review was filed by attorney Larry Klayman, founder of Freedom Watch and a longtime watchdog on corporate and Washington misbehavior.
Klayman charges the company and founder Mark Zuckerberg failed to prevent what he found to be objectionable statements, including "death threats against all Jews," on the Third Intifada Page, which has more than 300,000 followers.
WND reported when the case was filed in 2011, seeking up to $1 billion in damages.
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Klayman, who explains he is of Jewish descent, said the page"threatened Jews in particular with death," which made him a "target of this call to kill Jews."
"Over the course of the last week, defendants were asked to take this Third Intifada and related sites down, but refused," he told WND in a statement when the case was filed. "Only in the last few days did they do so, after increased pressure was exerted by the Israeli government. However, the damage had already been done and it is believed that this and other pages will soon reappear on Facebook."
The complaint alleges assault and negligence, including willful and wanton conduct, gross negligence and recklessness, "as it has put Mr. Klayman's life at risk."
"While Facebook has accomplished a lot of good, it can, as in this instance, be used for nefarious and evil purposes. Defendants Zuckerberg's and Facebook's callous and greedy actions in not taking down the page, but willfully allowing it to stay up for many days, has caused huge damage, for which they must be held accountable, so as to prevent this from ever happening again. They must be not only enjoined but also hit in their purse, which is where they understand matters best," said the statement from Klayman.
Klayman told the high court in his new filing: "Under well-established First Amendment precedent, just as a person does not have the right to yell 'fire' in a crowded theater, a person does not have an unbridled right to post whatever he or she wants on the Internet, especially dangerous or deadly material that results in death or harm to others."
He argues the Communications Decency Act legislation "that addresses Internet service providers' liability for third-party content, has been written in conjunction with the First Amendment."
Klayman says that "under extreme circumstances, where terrorists are instructing their creed to kill people and where Internet service providers are furthering these instructions by refusing to take down the deadly content, the First Amendment, in conjunction with the CDA, does not permit Internet service providers to be accessories to crimes by allowing them to further criminal and terrorist conduct."
Judges at the lower courts disagreed with Klayman, but he argues the defendants were "unjustifiably relying on an inconceivable notion that the CDA provides them with absolute immunity from liability when respondents failed to remove a page posted on its website even though they were fully aware of the page and the contents of the page, posted by radical Islamic terrorists, which advocated death to Jews."
His petition to the U.S. Supreme Court asks the judges to "step in now to prevent further deaths from occurring."
"Congress did not intend for Internet service providers to escape liability for furthering the deaths of innocent people."
Klayman notes there was an "intifada" against Jews in 1987-1993, which resulted in a civilian death toll of 164 Jews.
"The second occurred between 2000 and 2005 and resulted in the civilian death toll of 1,115 Jews," the complaint says.
Klayman, who describes himself in the complaint as a public-interest human-, civil- and individual-rights activist, has been active in matters "concerning the security of Israel and all people."
"Given the violent history of intifadas ... the Intifada Facebook Page and other related and similar sites have caused plaintiff reasonable apprehension of severe bodily harm and/or death," the complaint says.