Congress last week adopted a bill important to all US media companies that produce content that can be received overseas.  This would include anyone with content on their website (including user generated content) that could potentially give rise to a legal judgment overseas.  As explained in detail in Davis Wright Tremaine’s memo on the act – the Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage Act (“SPEECH Act”) – companies and individuals were bringing lawsuits, many in London, against publications from the United States, finding liability for speech that would be protected by First Amendment principles here.  Other US companies were facing liability for user generated content posted on their website that would be protected under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act from libel actions in the United States.  This practice was caused "libel tourism", as people would go in search of the country where their case would be strongest – knowing that US law would not sustain their claims.  These cases often resulted in liability even if the US publisher had only minimal distribution in the foreign country where the case was brought.  Before this legislation, when parties were successful in foreign litigation, they could enforce their foreign judgments in US Courts against US citizens or companies, and the US parties would have no defense, as US courts would normally not re-try a final decision from a foreign court.  This legislation gives US Courts, before a foreign judgment involving speech matters can be enforced in the US, the authority to review the judgment to make sure it would have been permissible under US law.  Read the DWT memo, here, for more information about this important legislation.