The Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage (SPEECH) Act is a 2010 federal statutory law in the United States that makes foreign libel judgments unenforceable in U.S. courts, unless either the foreign legislation applied offers at least as much protection as the U.S. First Amendment (concerning freedom of speech), or the defendant would have been found liable even if the case had been heard under U.S. law.

[1] It creates a new cause of action and claim for damages against a foreign libel plaintiff, if they acted to deprive an American (or certain lawful aliens) of their right to free speech.

Although it establishes a new cause of action in § 4104, and allows for the collection of "reasonable" attorneys' fees in § 4105,[note 1] it does not allow for damages to plaintiffs, in contrast with stronger provisions in proposed bills which did not pass such as the Free Speech Protection Act of 2009 (H.R.1304, 111th Congress).

[3] It was inspired by the legal battle that ensued between Dr. Rachel Ehrenfeld and Saudi businessman Khalid bin Mahfouz over her 2003 book Funding Evil.

The legislation as signed contains findings that overseas libel claims have a chilling effect on free speech, matters of "serious public interest", and investigative journalism, and that internationally, little has been done about this.

[4] Two earlier bills had aimed to address the topic of libel tourism, both with the proposed title of the "Free Speech Protection Act"; they were introduced in 2008 and 2009, in the 110th and 111th United States Congress respectively, but neither was passed.

[11] Trout Point Lodge v. Doug K. Handshoe was the first appellate level ruling issued under the act, affirming a lower court decision holding that a Nova Scotia judgment was unrecognizable and unenforceable in the United States.

An article in the Journal of International & Comparative Law of the Chicago-Kent College of Law[15] has supported those conclusions to find that the SPEECH Act, as applied by both the district court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Trout Point Lodge v. Handshoe, is overly broad and in sorry need of reform: "the instant case ... exposes a potential over inclusivity of the SPEECH Act because of its universal applicability in defamation cases and lack of distinction between illegitimate and legitimate fora.