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Comment by matthewmacleod | Hacker News Reader

I've often been surprised to see enthusiastic admiration for Craig Murray in this forum in particular. He's an outright raving conspiracy theorist, in this case painfully obviously sneaking out information about witnesses in a rape trial in part because of his belief that the trial was part of a massive state conspiracy.

His commentary on the Assange trial was so overwhelmingly and obviously biased that it was impossible to derive any useful objective information, so it was very strange to see him so heavily promoted.

It just seems like it would be possible you might object to the treatment of Assange—or be concerned about the trial's effect on free speech—without weirdly uncritical promotion of such an unreliable and unsympathetic narrator. At least it would be wise to treat anything he says with extreme skepticism.

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> His commentary on the Assange trial was so overwhelmingly and obviously biased that it was impossible to derive any useful objective information

I don't know anything about his other works, but AFAIK he was the only one reporting what was going on in detail during Assange's trial. I respect him for that.

I read criticism similar to yours before, but I can't shake a simple question: if there are better reporters out there, where were they during the trial?

The simple answer is that what Craig Murray was reporting about Assange was massively overblown conspiracies about every single element of the trial. The reason other reporters weren't covering to the same level of detail because "Trial continues as expected" isn't news-and there are plenty of examples of this. In the mainstream news the big revelation that someone just tangentially related to the Assange extradition hearing had come out as a liar was covered, but in the context of it not really being core to the case. In Murray's coverage you would be mislead to believe that that person was some star witness.

All these things may be true, but even then, at least he was there at the Assange trial. No other source was a as diligent or up to date with their reporting, even if it was biased.

Even if you believe all these bad things about him, I don't believe someone should be jailed for reporting in general. In specific, I don't see how the facts support a conviction - the way the argument for "jigsaw" identification of witnesses was used could apply to any and all reporting about a court case. No reasonable standard was used (in my opinion).

Do you think it's alright to put someone in jail because you don't like them?

What part of GP's post made you think they supporting jailing people you don't like?

Well, it seemed implied to me. The original post was about Craig Murray being sent to jail. There are other comments in this thread coming out in support of (or at least against the imprisonment of) Murray.

Then, the parent comment comes out, listing a whole bunch of reasons not to like Murray, or at least not to support him. So the implication, as I see it, is that the parent commenter is alright with Murray going to jail.

Maybe you're right and that I read too much into it. However, I'd like to resolve this part that's unclear - does the parent commenter support putting Murray in jail? Is it because they don't like him?

I ignored this because I considered it a disingenuous question, but maybe I should tackle it instead because this sort of misrepresentation is poisonous.

No, I obviously do not think "it's alright to put someone in jail because you don't like them". There's no reasonable way to construe that from what I said.

I think the intent of my comment was clearly to express surprise that people take him seriously as a commentator; as someone who has been unfortunately very aware of his views for a long time, it seems obvious to me that he is an unreliable narrator and any information he presents is something we should be extremely skeptical of.

I do think that it can be acceptable to imprison people for contempt of court. I am pretty familiar with the case in question, and I have no reason to think that any conspiracy was required in order to convict him. I watched him do the things he's been convicted for as they happened, and his intent seemed reasonably clear.

So yes, to answer your direct question – I do "support" putting Murray in jail, in the sense that he appears to have received a fair trial for committing a crime, and I don't see any evidence that his conviction was unexpected or unreasonable.

Spinning this as me saying "it's alright to put someone in jail because you don't like them" is obviously a bad-faith representation.

Do you think it’s acceptable to persecute people who don’t agree with you? Who you don’t like?

Equal rights under the law means equal rights. Not that you defend your friends, hang your enemies.

Do you like criminals? Say, armed robbers, murderers? If someone is on trial for stuff like that, and the evidence seems to support their guilt, wouldn't most people take a dislike to them?

You reasoning feels like having "equal rights under the law" mean that then you'd have to let them go free, because convicting them would be "just because you don't like them".

Couldn't this argument basically be used against any court case short of there being footage of the defendant holding a gun next to a body? You can nearly always construe some kind of narrative like this in a "political" case, I'm not sure it's specific enough.

No. Because - until recently - government critics rarely ended up in court.

That's pretty clearly not true - there have always been politically motivated prosecutions, witchhunts, and shady dealings of various flavors in every government I've been able to find decent records for.

Recently here in the US, it's been everything from 'The Red Scare' and McCarthyism to Hoover era FBI attacking and undermining every 'revolutionary' group that wasn't upholding the status quo in the 60's-70's - and many more. That includes everything from attempted blackmail on Martin Luther King to COINTELPRO (documented, not a conspiracy theory). And that's what has leaked - there is almost certainly more that never had a solid paper trail.

But you're kind of doing it now. You could be right, but currently the reference point of our comments is the political aspect to the case rather than whether he committed a crime or not.

“For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”

> obviously biased that it was impossible to derive any useful objective information

You mean to tell me He was obvious on His position? He didn’t pretend to be objective, an impossible effort for any human? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you!

My friend, that’s a feature, not a bug. Journalistic objectivity is a meme.

Who better than a conspiracy theorist to report on actual conspiracies?

> Who better than a conspiracy theorist to report on actual conspiracies?

Conspiracy theorists don't typically report on real conspiracies, they report on imagined ones.

So having a conspiracy theorist report on a real conspiracy can actually have the effect of making the real conspiracy less believable (e.g. a stopped clock may be right twice a day, but you'll disbelieve it even then).

He claimed that he received the DNC and Podesta e-mails from a disgruntled DNC source in a park and forwarded them to WikiLeaks on Assange's behalf. He lacks any credibility. Even Assange had to tell people that "Craig Murray is not authorized to talk on behalf of WikiLeaks," afterwards.

Anyone reading this is free to make of Murray what they want but I genuinely think he is a textbook useful idiot. He obviously has a grudge against the west, sometimes he's a useful counterpoint but other times he's literally just spreading FUD in favour of whoever is not the west (i.e. they weren't GRU agents, they were a gay couple, honest!)

Literally anyone would be better to report on it.

Conspiracy theorists are absolutely awful at reporting facts. When talking about things that are actually true, they often still manage to mix in so many untrue and misleading things that the actual truth gets clouded.

The UK's tabloid media are even worse at reporting facts. They're also notorious for hacking phones and spying on people.

Murray may or may not have done something stupid, he may or may not have said things that were inaccurate.

But he's still basically a blogger with a relatively insignificant profile. Not a national figure with a huge reach.

When an ancient law gets dusted off and thrown at someone like him, while much more obvious media transgressions are ignored, it becomes very hard to conclude that this has anything to do with a disinterested thirst for fairness and justice.

They are absolutely godawful, yes. But worse than conspiracy theorists? No.

And he got the law thrown at him and they did not for the simple reason that he broke the law, and they did not.

> outright raving conspiracy theorist

I guess in this instance “They” were really out to get Him, eh?

>> sneaking out information about witnesses in a rape trial

Citation needed. Did he "sneak" out any more information than was in newspapers?

And given how Nicola Sturgeon lied to parliament etc, there is decent evidence it was an SNP (not the state even though the SNP thinks they are the state) conspiracy.

This case literally is the citation. He was found to have done this, which is why he will go to jail.

Yes, no miscarriages of justice have ever happened anywhere, and the judiciary is infallible.

> Citation needed. Did he "sneak" out any more information than was in newspapers?

Yes. Feel free to read the court's judgment for more information.

> And given how Nicola Sturgeon lied to parliament etc, there is decent evidence it was an SNP (not the state even though the SNP thinks they are the state) conspiracy.

I think it's safe to say that this statement demonstrates you are not interested in any good-faith discussion on this matter.

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