MONMOUTH COUNTY, N.J. – Blogger, journalist and private investigator Shellee Hale will testify today in a slander lawsuit filed against her last June by New Jersey-based sofware firm Too Much Media. TMM, developer of the NATS software that runs many adult website backends, claims the young mom made inappropriate and erroneous coments on adult Internet chat boards when she suggested a security breach may have exposed TMM customers’ private information to hackers.

Hale (pictured), who is being sued in in Superior Court in Monmouth County, made the alleged remarks on Go Fuck Yourself and Oprano, claiming TMM knew about repeated security breaches of the NATS software. The insinuations were denied vehemently by TMM at the time and in the lawsuit.

“She has seized upon and utilized the security breach as the underlying theme of her attacks, but they are made without any basis in fact and without any concern for truth,” TMM attorney Joel Kreizman noted in the lawsuit. “[She] has embarked on a campaign to defame and otherwise malign [TMM] in those chat rooms.”

According to NJ.com, Hale’s attorney “is trying to get the case dismissed by asking Superior Court Judge Louis Locasio to declare Hale to be protected by so-called [press] shield laws. Built on court decisions and a variety of state laws, the shield generally protects working journalists from revealing their sources except in the case of a crime.”

The plaintiffs contend, however, that Hale is not a professional journalist but a blogger, and therefore she is not entitled to any protection from charges of slander. They are asking the court to make Hale reveal her sources and pay punitive damages for harming the company’s reputation.