Federal Trade Commission Attempts To Suppress Best-Selling Author's First Amendm...( FTC Continues Campaign To Silence Ke...),Health

FTC Continues Campaign To Silence Kevin Trudeau's Criticisms of Government

Agencies

CHICAGO, Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) continues its campaign to silence best-selling author and activist Kevin Trudeau's criticism of the government, filing an action against opinions expressed in an infomercial promoting Trudeau's latest book, The Weight Loss Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About. In its latest assault against Trudeau, the FTC has abandoned its long-standing policy of not proceeding against advertisements for books, which are protected by the First Amendment.

The action was filed in Chicago on September 13, 2007, in federal court to hold Trudeau in contempt of a prior court order for advertising his new book, which has been on bestseller lists for 16 weeks. The FTC contends that Trudeau's advertisements misrepresent the content of the book, alleging its weight-loss tips are described as "easy." The FTC disagrees that the protocol is "easy." Trudeau maintains the weight-loss tips offered in the book are merely opinions and therefore are protected by the First Amendment.

For the past 35 years, the FTC has adhered to a policy, commonly known as the "mirror-image" rule, that it will not proceed against advertisements for books as long as the advertisements merely repeat the opinions and ideas expressed in the book. As such, the government's conflicting viewpoint on opinions expressed in the book is irrelevant.

The FTC re-affirmed the mirror-image rule in 2005 when it held that controversial statements made in an infomercial for Trudeau's previous bestseller, Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You to Know About, were an "expression of opinion protected by the First Amendment" and that "to ban advertising for fully protected speech would be quite extraordinary and not something you'd want your government to be doing."

"Despite the FTC's past statements that opinions expres
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