Lehigh Acres Fire Commissioners Tries To Attack the Lehigh Acres Gazette

The board voted Friday to spend taxpayer money on “Full Scale” investigation on the articles in the Lehigh Acres Gazette because according to Commissioners David Adams “its criminal behavior” and “it attacks the integrity of the board”, said Commissioner Linda Carter.

If the fire board had integrity, “the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles”. The Lehigh Acres Gazette wouldn’t have anything to write about to its 8 million worldwide readers monthly, said Robert Anderson, Publisher Lehigh Acres Gazette.

The Lehigh Acres Gazette has First Amendment rights, so does its staff of writers and photographers, it is protected by the State of Florida and also the Federal Government. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Public Officials and Figures: Our government places a high priority on the public being allowed to speak their mind about elected officials as well as other public figures. People in the public eye get less protection from defamatory statements and face a higher burden when attempting to win a defamation lawsuit.

When an official is criticized in a false and injurious way for something that relates to their behavior in office, the official must prove all of the above elements associated with normal defamation, and must also show that the statement was made with “actual malice.”

“Actual malice” was defined in a Supreme Court case decided in 1964, Hustler v. Falwell. In that case, the court held that certain statements that would otherwise be defamatory were protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. The court reasoned that the United States society had a “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.”

This meant, according to the Court, that public officials could only win a defamation suit when the statement that was made was not an honest mistake and was in fact published with the actual intent to harm the public figure. According to the Court, actual malice only occurs when the person making the statement knew the statement was not true at the time he made it, or had reckless disregard for whether it was true or not.

“The voters and taxpayers deserve know the truth about the Fire Commissioners and the lack transparency, the absence of integrity, the abuse of power, and the nonexistence in the ability to work with the media and the taxpayers in Lehigh Acres”, said Anderson.