With last week’s arrest of Darin Boone, former owner of www.dekalbcity.com, questions regarding libelous statements have surfaced.

The Web site, which alleges misconduct among various DeKalb County public officials, claims the arrest of Boone violates his right to free speech, which may be correct.

“It’s harder to libel a public official than a non-public official,” said Chris Hansen, senior staff counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

The 1964 Supreme Court case New York Times vs. Sullivan mandated that public officials must prove malice by the author to bring a libel case to trial.

Brian Thornton, an associate professor of communication at NIU, said the official must prove two things when filing for a libel suit.

“The first is that the producer must have reckless disregard for the truth,” he said. “They also must have known beforehand that it was false.”

Questions of libel arise at this point.

For example, the Web site makes serious allegations against DeKalb County sheriff Roger Scott. It states that he has run unopposed for sheriff because “others are afraid of being murdered by him …”

Scott was unavailable for comment at press time.

Also attacked on the site is DeKalb Mayor Greg Sparrow.

Despite the allegations, Sparrow said he will not seek legal action because of the amount of money he would have to spend and because he would get nothing in return.

“I am going to have to rely on the good people of the city to determine what is the truth and what isn’t,” Sparrow said.

Hansen added that he has never seen a successful criminal trial from free-speech-related cases.

“It’s hard for me to see if those can actually be tried as a crime,” Hansen said.

If Boone is convicted, Hansen said the portions of the Web site that are in question can be removed from the site. The rest may remain.

“The thing here is that people are entitled to say what they want, even if it is rough criticism,” Hansen said.

Thornton also brought up the point of prior restraint, which is the law stating that no agency may censor media before it is presented. While it is possible to obtain prior restraint after information has been reported on, it is very difficult, Thornton said.

In a case like this, Thornton said only the person(s) in charge of content can be arrested. He used as an example the Matthew Dredge case, where he authored a Web site that stated that many White House officials beat their wives. While someone else owned the Web site, Dredge, who was responsible for the content, was tried for libel.

“It’s a shame, in some respects, that people push the first amendment so far,” Thornton said. “It gives us a privilege, but, unfortunately, not much responsibility.”