%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%  Editorial Board of CBS Incident Committee  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

                       Sunday, June 26, 1994  (No. 8) 

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 ***    Part I & II. General Information   ***
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Table of Contents                                                  # of Lines
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1. Legal Students/Scholars in U.S.A., Please Join Our Committee .......... 16
2. We Need More Participation on the Net ................................. 42
3. The Difficulties the CBS Incident Fighters Meet and Some Suggestions .. 68
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1. Legal Students/Scholars in U.S.A., Please Join Our Committee .......... 16
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Dear Netters, since the set up of fcbs-l network, much has been done and
we need to move further into the legal aspect of the CBS Incident Committee.
As many of our committee members are either not in the legal fields, or
not in the U.S.A, so we need your help to contribute more in legal field.
If you are a legal student/scholar and are in U.S.A., please join our 
committee.

CBS Incident Committee is a neutral Task Force consists of CSS from all 
sections of the community. Our 60 core members are grouped into more than
a dozen subcommittees working in different aspects, such as News-Release,
Protesting Letters, Survey, Research, etc. Barely four weeks have passed
since we started from a mere computer account. We not only got the
attention of Chinese media, but also English media. Next stop, we want
to encounter our chief rival, the CBS itself. We need your support and 
participation. Without your support, we can not move further. 

If you are angered by CBS report, please join us,
If you can redistribute our message, pleas join us,
If you are a student/scholar leader of your local area/school, please join us,
If you are a legal student/scholar, please join us,
If you are a CSS, please join us!

Mi Mi Sr.
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2. We Need More Participation on the Net ................................. 42
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Dear Mi Mi,

Thank you for the prompt reply.  I'll need sometime to read it.  The amount of 
messages posted is obviously less resentfully(or I am wrong?).Is this because 
of the MODERATION?  I feel less comfortable to see fewer participants(getting
the impression from fewer posters) for such massive fight against the media
giant, CBS.  We need everyone's help(or more accurately, participation) as far
as s/he is concerned about this matter.  I guess I would be less enthusiastic
toward this fight if my posters were regularly end up in moderator's trash.
I understand that some posters are really annoying, but we are not a "NOBLE"
group(I hope this WORD gives the right impression for what I mean).  
I also understand that the huge amount poster will cost a lot of precious 
time of the organizers, like yourself, but I guess this is what takes to 
finish this fight.  I tend to believe that people have their own sense and will
be selective.  Don't worry about the little "impurity" will spoil our movement.
I might be wrong.  I just thought that you may want to heard some different
voice for a "change" :-).

Again, I admire your work.  I will follow the steps, fighting for our right.

Sincerely,

Lin, Zhe
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3. The Difficulties the CBS Incident Fighters Meet and Some Suggestions ... 68
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Dear Mi Mi Sir and CBS Incident Committee:
CBS' report on potential spy has irritated and outraged a wide range of people
among CCS.  I'm writing to express my concern about this incident and my
respect for you, for what you have done, and for what you intend to do for CCS.

The CBS incident is probably the biggest event since CSPA.  The CBS incident
fighters will meet more difficulties than CSPA fighters did, since there was no
direct side effect of CSPA on the US side and there was assistance from
Congressmen because of their political purpose.  This time, however, no help
from politicians is to be expected, meanwhile CBS will be engaged in a deadly
fight for its reputation.  Besides, CBS Incident Committee(CBS-IC) will meet,
and probably has met the shortage of man power and financial sources.  Based on
these considerations, the discussion of what we should do, what we can do, and
what we should and can immediately do should be given priority.  I would like
to give you my opinions.

Organization:

1. Form a committee to coordinate the activities(you have done).
2. Hire a legal counselor or get some Chinese law students.  CBS-IC has to keep
all activities by its name legal.
3. Form groups under the committee to deal with separate things.

Activities:
1. Hire a lawyer or get some Chinese law students to investigate the CBS
report.  Find out what we want based on law.

2. It is impossible for CBS-IC to do every thing which CCS wants.  CBS-IC has
to concentrate most of its limited power to the weakest points of CBS.  A
boycott is probably what CBS is afraid of the most.  CBS-IC should focus on
this.  Reputation is another weak point for CBS.  So try to contact the media,
especially the competitors of CBS, and report the event.  They know how to
handle it.  What CBS-IC should do is to make them interested in this incident,
e.g. advertise a boycott of CBS, or ask for an apology from CBS in every
Chinatown or in every Chinese restaurant's window.

3. A law suit is probably what CBS prefers.  This is a tough case and there is
little chance for us to win.  However CBS-IC has to something on it.  It is a
gesture.

4.Survey--the hottest debate on the net.  The purpose of the survey is to use
the public to support us.  Are you sure we can get the result we hope?  I
personally do not think it is the right time to conduct a survey of the
American public, since Americans may not be interested in this issue for the
time being.  A survey within CCS and Chinese-Americans is feasible.

Some other words:

It is not surprising that those famous H(uman rights)-fighters or D-fighters in
CCS keep silent, just as the case when "Yin He" incident happened.  Because of
the unsatisfied public image of IFCSS, it is better for CBS-IC to not go by the
name of IFCSS though CBS-IC should unite with as many organizations as
possible.  CBS-IC should have an image of just protecting the rights and
interests of CCS without any political tendency.  Actually, it should also be a
public image presented for any organization that intends to represent the
majority of CCS.

Best regards.

D. Zhang

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%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%  Editorial Board of CBS Incident Committee  %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

		       Saturday, June 25, 1994   (No. 8)

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 *** Part III. & IV. Activities and Suggestions ***
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Letters from netters
1. The law of libel, a brief introduction (by Herb Ho).....................84
2. Should we have a law suit? (From Herb Ho)...............................40
3. Boycott CBS and its advertisers (From William Deng).....................14
4. Mobilize local Chinese students and scholars (From Hu, Jian)............14
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1. The law of libel, a brief introduction (by Herb Ho).....................84
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Disclaimer: The following is provided only for reference of the CBS
Incident Committee. It is not a formal legal opinion.

Defamation is an intentional false communication that tends to
injure someone's reputation, and thus to diminish the esteem,
respect, goodwill or confidence in which that person is held, or to
arouse adverse, derogatory or unpleasant feelings or opinions
against that person. Conversely, a communication is defamatory if
it tends either to lower someone's reputation in the community or
to deter third persons from associating or dealing with that person.

Defamation comes in two forms: libel and slander. The former is
usually expressed by print, writing, pictures, or signs, and the
latter is usually expressed orally or by transitory gestures.

Libel is an accusation in writing or printing against the character
of a person which affects his reputation, in that it tends to hold
him up to ridicule, contempt, shame, disgrace, or obloquy, to
degrade him in the estimation of the community, to induce an evil
opinion of him in the minds of right-thinking perons, to make him
an object of rproach, to diminish his respectability or abridge his
comforts, to change his position in society for the worse, to
dishonour or discredit him in the estimation of the public, or his
friends or acquaintances, or to deprive him of friendly intercourse
in society or cause him to be shunned or avoided, or where it is
charged that one has violated his public duty as a public officer.

Libel can entail either criminal or civil liability. To establish
criminal libel, one must prove that the publication of defamation
is both malicious and lasting. In other words, the publication of
defamation is not criminal, whether or not it involves civil
liability, if it was not done with a malicious intent for a durable
period of time. Criminal libel is a misdemeanor, not a felony, and
as such the punishment usually does not include prison terms in a
penitentiary.

It appears that to constitute civil libel, defamation does not have
to be of a durable nature, nor does it necessarily have to be
malicious. But in the latter regard, a difference is made depending
on whether the plaintiff (the party that brings the action) is a
public official.

In virtue of the First Amendment that guarantees the freedom of
speech and press, the media are constitutionally privileged to make
misstatements of facts or unjustified comments about the conduct of
public officials, unless they were published with "actual malice,"
which means that the defendant published the material either
knowing it to be false or being wilfully blind to whether it is
true or false. While it was in the past (by common-law rules) up to
the defendant to disprove fault, a number of the US Supreme Court
decisions have switched the burden of proving the defendant's
"actual malice" onto the plaintiff.

If the plaintiff is somebody other than a public official, the
media cannot claim the constitutional privilege as they can with
public officials. Exactly what constitutes libel may vary from
state to state, as libel law is a state, not a federal,
jurisdiction. But in fashioning their their libel laws, the state
legislatures cannot impose liability without fault. The absence of
constitutional privilege means that misstatements of facts or
unjustified do entail liability; the constitutional requirement of
fault means that the defendant can evade the liability if s/he can
show the publication of the material, even if false, was done
without fault. In such a case, the plaintiff must first prove
either the facts are not true or that the comments are not
justified. Then it is up to the defendant to show the lack of fault
on his or her part, even if the published material is false.
Thereafter, if the plaintiff can demonstrate the defendant's fault,
then the defendant cannot disprove it to avoid the liability.

You may or may not have to show damages to build up a libel case,
depending on whether the alleged defamation is libellous per quod
or libellous per se. A publication that is open to two or more
interpretations can only be libellous per quod, which means that
the plaintiff must prove that the publication, though not
necessarily defamatory in itself, is injurious in effect when
considered in connection with innuendo, colloquium, and explanatory
circumstances. A publication is libellous per se if it is
defamatory on its face or can be nothing but defamatory. In such a
case, the plaintiff does not have to prove damages, as the law
presumes the anyone so defamed must have suffered damages, making
it possible for damages to be recovered without the damages being
shown. Whether a publication is libellous per quod or libellous per
se is a matter of construction for the court.-- 
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2. Should we have a law suit? (From: Herb Ho)...............................40
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First, whether we can win or not, a lawsuit is one of the few
powerful signals that we can hope to send to CBS to say
that we do not accept its slandering. In other words, the filing
of the lawsuit itself is important, since it can effectively show
that we do take the matter seriously.

Second, the lawsuit will itself make news to the media and thus
generate the publicity that we so much need and desire. With
some good public relations work, we can provide a news peg for
the journalists every step of the way, making it expedient for
the media to write their stories. On the whole, sustained media
attention will only do us more good than harm.

Third, the lawsuit will put pressure on CBS to take us seriously.
The best thing that can happen to us is that CBS retract its
infamous story and apologize publicly to the Chinese community.
As the lawsuit drags on (a lawsuit of this nature usually takes
a long time to conclude), CBS may find it in their interests to
settle the matter out of court by "voluntarily" redressing the
wrong that it has done.

Fourth, it is not out of the question that we win. Mi Mi's concern
over the proof of "intent" is understandable, but may not be
entirely warranted. Intent in the eyes of the law does not always
require the element of deliberateness, as Mi Mi seems to have
assumed. Recklessness and wilful blindness to the nature or
consequences of one's action are often equated with intent by
the court. Besides, since we as plaintiffs are not public
officials, CBS will have to bear the burden of proof, which
means once we prove that we have suffered damaged or that the
publication was libellous per se, it will up to CBS to disprove
intent, not up to us to prove it.

The more problematic issue is whether we can by proper rules
of construction establish that the CBS story was libellous
per se. If we cannot, we will have to demonstrate damages, which
can be something that everyone knows about but few can sufficiently
prove in the court of law.
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3. Boycott CBS and its advertisers (From William Deng).....................14
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I don't think we can get 200,000 to boycott CBS, 20,000 is more likely,
which will only lower CBS' rating by 0.01% rather than 0.1%, or a 0.15%
rather than a 1.5% present change out of the current 7% rating. This
insignificant change is not worth our effort.

Instead we should focus our effort on boycotting those big firms 
advertising on CBS. First we should ask them to put pressure on CBS
because they are CBS's rice bowls. If CBS fails to apologize and those
firms keep doing business with CBS. We will boycott those firms in USA
and mainland China. Those firms are very concerned about their public
images, and the potential huge market in China. Besides, a loss of
20,000 customers is very significant while a loss of 20,000 audience
is almost nothing. If we want CBS to take our action seriously, boycott
CBS's customers (those firms) not just CBS itself. If CBS doesn't feel
the economic pain, it wouldn't give it a damn.
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4. Mobilize local Chinese students and scholars (From Hu, Jian)............14
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I have a suggestion. It seems better to release an open letter to local
Chinese Students and/or Scholars Association (LYH and other professional
CSS organizzation), recruiting the signatures of CSSAs (with the presidents's
name on representation), rather than carry out a survey. The nationwide
survey has been proved to be very difficult in terms of both practice and
figuring out significant effect in argument.

Calling for the signatures of local CSSAs would be more influential and
easier to do.

If we have hundreds universities' signature or even just one hundred, the
influence would be great enough to have NYT report it, especcially when the
major universities get involved. It would also provide more persuading
evidence in the prospective law suit.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%   Editor of CBS Incident Committee: Xiangdong Shi         %
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