It could not have happened to a more deserving person or to a more deserving cause. The person is Rachel Ehrenfeld and the cause is not just free speech but a defeat for the efforts of terrorist financiers and other billionaires to prevent scrutiny of their shady dealings. Watch Rachel explain the problem:

How? With the help of the New York State legislature she put English courts on the dock on ‘libel tourism’: when New York state legislators passed unanimously the “libel terrorism protection act" also known as"Rachel's Law:"

The New York law passed this week to combat so-called libel tourism is a response to the defamation saga involving Rachel Ehrenfeld, an author who lives in the state. The rule was drafted after Ms Ehrenfeld failed to obtain a court order in New York preventing Khalid Bin Mahfouz, a Saudi Arabian businessman, from pursuing her for damages over a libel judgment he won against her in London. Although libel lawyers say such a damages claim would have been highly unlikely to succeed, supporters of the new legislation – dubbed “Rachel’s law” by at least one commentator – say it gives Ms Ehrenfeld and other writers an extra degree of security.

Why was Mahfouz trying to silence her? Because she exposed his role as a terrorist financier in her must read book Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It.

I am particularly pleased with the FT reports. For, hence, their non American readers wishing to expose terrorist financing would know to move their assets to New York where the long arm of Saudi billionaires can no longer pursue them.

New York Law Journal: Law application not limited to New York residents.