TENNESSEE BLOGGER THREATENED WITH LIBEL SUIT. The text of the demand letter is here. Some thoughts on why threats like this are usually a bad idea can be found in this article on libel in the blogosphere.

Brittney Gilbert, meanwhile, has a characteristically pungent response.

This statement in the demand letter suggests a lack of familiarity with federal law on the subject: “As the ‘publisher’ of your blog, you control, and are responsible for, the content appearing in it. References by persons posting to your blog to JL Kirk Associates as ‘crooks’ and its services as a ‘scam’ are equally false and defamatory as your own.” If, as it seems to be, this is a reference to posts by blog commenters, it appears inconsistent with the Communications Decency Act’s immunity provisions. Perhaps, however, I misunderstand the argument.

UPDATE: SayUncle thinks this was a bad move: “They’ve probably done more damage with this than her original post did.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Bill Hobbs: “As for JL Kirk Associates, if I was in the job market – and, as it turns out, I am – I wouldn’t use them. Not because of what Katherine Coble wrote, nor because of what I found about them via Google, but because they and their law firm decided that threatening to sue a blogger to squelch criticism was a better business tactic than addressing problems that may exist with how they do business.”

It’s already made the News-Sentinel.

MORE: Uh oh.