British Press Banned from Reporting Parliament. Seriously.
spectator.co.uk
spectator.co.uk
And here is the report in question on wikileaks: http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Minton_report:_Trafigura_Toxic_dum...
What's interesting is some Guardian staffers are tweeting links to the wikileaks on their personal accounts. Are they covered by the gag order on The Guardian itself?
http://twitter.com/search?q=%23trafigura
On the one hand, it's good that news that needs to get out gets out. On the other, I can't help thinking how easy it is to rustle up a lynch mob these days.
It's a step in the right direction. Not the whole solution, just yet.
That said, for once, I appreciate the righteous indignation about the sacred mission of the press (usually invoked in the service of their own power and privilege, not in the interest of the public per se) and the writing is a masterpiece of British wit. ("Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret." is beautiful.)
[1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/12/guardian-gagged-...
[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/sep/16/trafigura-oil-iv...
Sorry I don't mean to "fight" over it but the Spectator is press as well.
The Guardian, reporting on the Trafigura case, are a secondary source (when referencing the report), and a primary source when writing about the gagging order that has been applied to them. The Spectator blog article is a secondary source writing about the gagging order. These distinctions are standard in both historiography and journalism.
In actual practice US and UK courts routinely enforce each other's judgments ("comity"), which is why libel tourism works.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121599561708449643.html?mod=...
would be interesting to see if they could uphold a gag order in the US. I would hope not
I'm sorry if you feel that corporate murder is a boring topic.
You're right though, reading about corporate murder doesn't interest me :/ Just like reading about serial killers doesn't interest me all that much.
You seem to be implying somehow that I think corporate murder is ok or not a serious issue :/ An odd leap you're making there.
Come on, now.
To be fair, this does involve the use of twitter, and other social news sites, and technology in general, to challenge existing legal/PR practices i.e. trying to gag news sites. Furthermore, it may be possible that the twitter-storm made Carter Ruck decide that by sticking to their guns the storm would increase, thereby working against their aim of minimising Trafigura's publicity.
It's a good example of how the internet changes society, providing the internet did play a role in Carter Ruck's decision to cave in, which I would guess is likely.
The longer Carter Ruck decided to persue this course of action, the more Twitter would link to the report. Therefore, it was wise for Carter Ruck to remove Twitter's fuel. It was wise to stop attempting to gag the Guardian. (Attempting to sue all those on Twitter would be unfeasible, and suing Twitter itself would add even more fuel to the fire)
I have no proof this is what Carter Ruck thought. But it's certainly a logical and sensible course of action for Carter Ruck, which makes it likely.
That was 1987, and the main difference was the lack of easy access to foreign controlled media from within the UK made it possible to prevent people reading anything about the allegations in the book. This latest attempt shows that's no longer possible.
plus what's with the holier-than-thou act? yeesh.
However, the (mis)use to law to attempt a gagging of the press is a censorship issue, and matters of censorship ad information freedom do seem relevant to HN, so I'm glad you posted it even though I've seen this story elsewhere.