Chris Floyd: 'New York Times to freedom of the press: 'Drop Dead!''
Chris Floyd, Empire Burlesque
Readers in the UK perusing the New York Times yesterday ran across an
intriguing headline about new facts coming out in the "bomb terror plot"
that recently shook the island kingdom: "Details Emerge in British Terror
Case." Hmm, what does America's "paper of record" have to say about this
vital subject? Let's click the headline and see...er, let's click again
and...Where's the story? What's this message?
This Article Is Unavailable
On advice of legal counsel, this article is unavailable to readers of
nytimes.com in Britain. This arises from the requirement in British law that
prohibits publication of prejudicial information about the defendants prior
to trial.
Yes, that's right: British users of the great universal information system
of the age are being blocked from reading a story in America's most
venerable and venerated newspaper - blocked not by government censorship,
but by the newspaper itself. Who needs the KGB or the Stasi if the media
watchdogs of a "free country" willingly snap the muzzle on themselves and
lie down whimpering, thumping their tails at the bootheels of power?
And it wasn't just this newfangled internet gizmo that was blocked: "the
shipment of yesterday's paper to London was stopped. The story was also
omitted from the International Herald Tribune, the NYT's European sister
paper," as the Guardian reports.
What accounts for this extraordinary situation? The Guardian explains:
...It is believed to be the first time that the paper has stopped British
readers accessing one of its articles because of worries about UK law.
Earlier this month, the home secretary, John Reid, and the attorney general,
Lord Goldsmith, issued a joint warning to the media to avoid coverage of the
current terror investigations which might prejudice future trials. The
statement threatened possible contempt proceedings against publications that
failed to show appropriate "restraint".
That would be the same John Reid - the former Stalinist enforcer turned
rightwing Blairite bullyboy in Labour's "four legs good, two legs better"
regime - who immediately after the alleged bomb plot was uncovered took to
the airwaves and spoke in no uncertain terms of the predetermined guilt of
the terrorist suspects. It was Reid himself who prejudiced the case, in the
most spectacular fashion. Reid's little confab with Lord Goldsmith - the
legal eagle who cravenly reversed himself on the obvious illegality of the
Iraq War after the White House and Blair leaned on him - had nothing to do
with "protecting the rights" of the bomb plot suspects. (Blair after all has
called for "rethinking" Britain's legal commitment to Europe's Human Rights
Law, because of the "restrictions" this puts on his regime's maniacal drive
to overturn the Magna Carta.)
No, what Reid (and the ever-acquiescent attorney general) want to do is
intimidate the press from probing too deeply into the terror plot, from
which the Blair government has tried to make so much political hay. (Without
success, by the way; Blair, like Bush, is in free fall at the polls. His
cynical mendacity and bloodthirsty lockstep with Bush have produced a true
political miracle in Britain: the resurrection of the hated Tory Party,
which had almost disappeared as a political force since 1997. Now the
Conservatives are soaring in the polls, leading Labour by nine points.)
And so the New York Times is aiding and abetting this attempt to throttle
the free flow of information in a supposed democracy. What is truly sinister
about this cowardice is the precedent it sets for the paper's future policy.
Hearken to the strange black-and-white rationale of this self-censorship
delivered by George Freeman, vice president and assistant general counsel of
the New York Times Company:
"...We're dealing with a country [the UK] that, while it doesn't have a
First Amendment, it does have a free press, and it's our position that we
ought to respect that country's laws."
Dig the pretzel logic: because the UK has a "free press," we should bend our
knee to its laws that, er, restrict the freedom of the press. "We ought to
respect that country's laws."
So when will the New York Times start blocking Chinese readers from reading
stories that might violate "that country's laws"? (Those Chinese readers who
have somehow circumvented the Reidish restrictions that Beijing's enforcers
have clamped on the internet, that is.) Hey, the United States has a "free
press," too; should the New York Times stop publishing stories using leaks
of classified information that might violate "that country's laws?" If
you're going to bow down to John Reid, why not to George Bush too while
you're at it? Are Britain's press-restriction laws somehow more honorable
than the shackles Bush, Al Gonzales and the whole sick crew are trying to
put on America's media?
But you can be sure the next time the New York Times is under fire from the
White House and the rightwing echo chamber for publishing classified
material from a whistleblower (or from some savvy player in the Regime's own
internecine warfare), the paper will send out the call: "Stand up for us,
friends! The freedom of the press is being attacked! Help us defend our
sacred liberties! Help us speak truth to power and cast a torchlight on the
darkness of government skullduggery!"
I guess it's OK to kill the freedom of the press - as long as it's suicide,
not a whack job from outside. We can campaign for "net neutrality" and
maintaining the unrestricted, gloriously anarchic freedom of the internet
from government encroachment until we're blue in the face; we can pour our
hearts and souls into it, lobby Congress, write letters, lead protest
marches and what all - but it's not going to mean a damn thing if the media
itself is going to fall down and grovel in a paroxysm of trembly "respect"
whenever they're confronted with the onerous press restrictions of the
various principalities and powers of the world.
This is a major defeat for press freedom - a craven surrender offered up
meekly without even firing a shot.
UPDATE: AP has more on the story here -- including the fact that a UK paper,
the arch-conservative Daily Mail, has openly published a story in Britain
fully referencing the forbidden fruit of the NYT story. That's how
"respectful" they are of Britain's heavy-handed press laws in Britain. And
do you think the government is going to close down or prosecute the Daily
Mail tomorrow? No. The New York Times has trashed its own credibility for
nothing -- except perhaps, for proving to the powers that be on both sides
of the water that the NYT can be a good little puppy when it needs to be.
UPDATED UPDATE: Courtesy of our wizardly webmaster, Richard Kastelein, any
UK-based readers who want to read the proscribed NYT piece can find it here,
via a proxy server. The full text is also available after the jump.
As Rich notes, proxy servers can be used to circumvent attempts at
censorship by governments and corporations like the New York Times Company.
Some info on proxy servers can be found here.
Details Emerge in British Terror Case
By DON VAN NATTA Jr., ELAINE SCIOLINO and STEPHEN GREY
LONDON, Aug. 27 -- On Aug. 9, in a small second-floor apartment in East
London, two young Muslim men recorded a video justifying what the police say
was their suicide plot to blow up trans-Atlantic planes: revenge against the
United States and its "accomplices," Britain and the Jews.
"As you bomb, you will be bombed; as you kill, you will be killed," said
one of the men on a "martyrdom" videotape, whose contents were described by
a senior British official and a person briefed about the case. The young man
added that he hoped God would be "pleased with us and accepts our deed."
As it happened, the police had been monitoring the apartment with hidden
video and audio equipment. Not long after the tape was recorded that day,
Scotland Yard decided to shut down what they suspected was a terrorist cell.
That action set off a chain of events that raised the terror threat levels
in Britain and the United States, barred passengers from taking liquids on
airplanes and plunged air traffic into chaos around the world.
The ominous language of seven recovered martyrdom videotapes is among new
details that emerged from interviews with high-ranking British, European and
American officials last week, demonstrating that the suspects had made
considerable progress toward planning a terrorist attack. Those details
include fresh evidence from Britain's most wide-ranging terror
investigation: receipts for cash transfers from abroad, a handwritten diary
that appears to sketch out elements of a plot, and, on martyrdom tapes,
several suspects' statements of their motives.
But at the same time, five senior British officials said, the suspects
were not prepared to strike immediately. Instead, the reactions of Britain
and the United States in the wake of the arrests of 21 people on Aug. 10
were driven less by information about a specific, imminent attack than fear
that other, unknown terrorists might strike.
The suspects had been working for months out of an apartment that
investigators called the "bomb factory," where the police watched as the
suspects experimented with chemicals, according to British officials and
others briefed on the evidence, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity,
citing British rules on confidentiality regarding criminal prosecutions.
In searches during raids, the police discovered what they said were the
necessary components to make a highly volatile liquid explosive known as
HMTD, jihadist materials, receipts of Western Union money transfers, seven
martyrdom videos made by six suspects and the last will and testament of a
would-be bomber, senior British officials said. One of the suspects said on
his martyrdom video that the "war against Muslims" in Iraq and Afghanistan
had motivated him to act.
Investigators say they believe that one of the leaders of the group, an
unemployed man in his 20's who was living in a modest apartment on
government benefits, kept the key to the alleged "bomb factory" and helped
others record martyrdom videos, the officials said.
Hours after the police arrested the 21 suspects, police and government
officials in both countries said they had intended to carry out the
deadliest terrorist attack since Sept. 11.
Later that day, Paul Stephenson, deputy chief of the Metropolitan Police
in London, said the goal of the people suspected of plotting the attack was
"mass murder on an unimaginable scale." On the day of the arrests, some
officials estimated that as many as 10 planes were to be blown up, possibly
over American cities. Michael Chertoff, the secretary of the Department of
Homeland Security, described the suspected plot as "getting really quite
close to the execution stage."
But British officials said the suspects still had a lot of work to do. Two
of the suspects did not have passports, but had applied for expedited
approval. One official said the people suspected of leading the plot were
still recruiting and radicalizing would-be bombers.
While investigators found evidence on a computer memory stick indicating
that one of the men had looked up airline schedules for flights from London
to cities in the United States, the suspects had neither made reservations
nor purchased plane tickets, a British official said. Some of their
suspected bomb-making equipment was found five days after the arrests in a
suitcase buried under leaves in the woods near High Wycombe, a town 30 miles
northwest of London.
Another British official stressed that martyrdom videos were often made
well in advance of an attack. In fact, two and a half weeks since the
inquiry became public, British investigators have still not determined
whether there was a target date for the attacks or how many planes were to
be involved. They say the estimate of 10 planes was speculative and
exaggerated.
In his first public statement after the arrests, Peter Clarke, chief of
counterterrorism for the Metropolitan Police, acknowledged that the police
were still investigating the basics: "the number, destination and timing of
the flights that might be attacked."
A total of 25 people have been arrested in connection with the suspected
plot. Twelve of them have been charged. Eight people were charged with
conspiracy to commit murder and preparing acts of terrorism. Three people
were charged with failing to disclose information that could help prevent a
terrorist act, and a 17-year-old male suspect was charged with possession of
articles that could be used to prepare a terrorist act. Eight people still
in custody have not been charged. Five have been released. All the suspects
arrested are British citizens ranging in age from 17 to 35.
Despite the charges, officials said they were still unsure of one critical
question: whether any of the suspects was technically capable of assembling
and detonating liquid explosives while airborne.
A chemist involved in that part of the inquiry, who spoke on the condition
of anonymity because he was sworn to confidentiality, said HMTD, which can
be prepared by combining hydrogen peroxide with other chemicals, "in theory
is dangerous," but whether the suspects "had the brights to pull it off
remains to be seen."
While officials and experts familiar with the case say the investigation
points to a serious and determined group of plotters, they add that
questions about the immediacy and difficulty of the suspected bombing plot
cast doubt on the accuracy of some of the public statements made at the
time.
"In retrospect,'' said Michael A. Sheehan, the former deputy commissioner
of counterterrorism in the New York Police Department, "there may have been
too much hyperventilating going on."
Some of the suspects came to the attention of Scotland Yard more than a
year ago, shortly after four suicide bombers attacked three subway trains
and a double-decker bus in London on July 7, 2005, a coordinated attack that
killed 56 people and wounded more than 700. The investigation was dubbed
"Operation Overt.''
The Police Are Tipped Off
The police were apparently tipped off by informers. One former British
counterterrorism official, who was working for the government at the time,
said several people living in Walthamstow, a working-class neighborhood in
East London, alerted the police in July 2005 about the intentions of a small
group of angry young Muslim men.
Walthamstow is best known for its faded greyhound track and the borough of
Waltham Forest, where more than 17,000 Pakistani immigrants live in the
largest Pakistani enclave in London.
Armed with the tips, MI5, Britain's domestic security services, began an
around-the-clock surveillance operation of a dozen young men living in
Walthamstow -- bugging their apartments, tapping their phones, monitoring
their bank transactions, eavesdropping on their Internet traffic and e-mail
messages, even watching where they traveled, shopped and took their laundry,
according to senior British officials.
The initial focus of the investigation was not about possible terrorism
aboard planes, but an effort to see whether there were any links between the
dozen men and the July 7 subway bombers, or terrorist cells in Pakistan, the
officials said.
The authorities quickly learned the identity of the man believed to have
been the leader of the cell, the unemployed man in his mid-20's, who
traveled at least twice within the past year to Pakistan, where his
activities are still being investigated.
Last June, a 22-year-old Walthamstow resident, who is among the suspects
arrested Aug. 10, paid $260,000 cash for a second-floor apartment in a house
on Forest Road, according to official property records. The authorities
noticed that six men were regularly visiting the second-floor apartment that
came to be known as the "bomb factory," according to a British official and
the person briefed about the case.
Two of the men, who were likely the bomb-makers, were conducting a series
of experiments with chemicals, said the person briefed on the case.
MI5 agents secretly installed video and audio recording equipment inside
the apartment, two senior British officials said. In a secret search
conducted before the Aug. 10 raids, agents had discovered that the inside of
batteries had been scooped out, and that it appeared several suspects were
doing chemical experiments with a sports drink named Lucozade and syringes,
the person with knowledge of the case said. Investigators have said they
believe that the suspects intended to bring explosive chemicals aboard
planes inside sports drink bottles.
In that apartment, according to a British official, one of the leaders and
a man in his late 20's met at least twice to discuss the suspected plot, as
MI5 agents secretly watched and listened. On Aug. 9, just hours before the
police raids occurred in 50 locations from East London to Birmingham, the
two men met again to discuss the suspected plot and record a martyrdom
video.
As one of the men read from a script before a videocamera, he recited a
quotation from the Koran and ticked off his reasons for the "action that I
am going to undertake," according to the person briefed on the case. The man
said he was seeking revenge for the foreign policy of the United States, and
"their accomplices, the U.K. and the Jews." The man said he wanted to show
that the enemies of Islam would never win this "war."
Beseeching other Muslims to join jihad, he justified the killing of
innocent civilians in America and other Western countries because they
supported the war against Muslims through their tax dollars. They were too
busy enjoying their Western lifestyles to protest the policies, he added.
Though British officials usually release little information about continuing
investigations, Scotland Yard took the unusual step of disclosing some
detailed information about the investigation last Monday, when the suspects
were charged.
A Trove of Evidence
"There have been 69 searches," Mr. Clarke, the chief antiterrorist police
official from Scotland Yard, said Monday. "These have been in houses, flats
and business premises, vehicles and open spaces."
Investigators also seized more than 400 computers, 200 mobile phones and
8,000 items like memory sticks, CD's and DVD's. "The scale is immense," Mr.
Clarke said. "Inquiries will span the globe."
He said those searches revealed a trove of evidence, and officials and
others last week provided additional details.
Four of the law firms that are defending suspects declined to comment.
When police officers knocked down the door to the second-floor apartment
on Forest Road, they found a plastic bin filled with liquid, batteries,
nearly a dozen empty drink bottles, rubber gloves, digital scales and a
disposable camera that was leaking liquid, the person with knowledge of the
case said. The camera might have been a prototype for a device to smuggle
chemicals on the plane.
In the pocket of one of the suspects, the police found the computer memory
stick that showed he had looked up airline schedules for flights from London
to the United States, a British official said. The man is said to have had a
diary that included a list that the police interpreted as a step-by-step
plan for an attack. The items included batteries and Lucozade bottles. It
also included a reminder to select a date.
In the homes of a number of the suspects, the police found jihadist
literature and DVD's about "genocide" in Iraq and Palestine, according to
British officials. In one house searched by the police in Walthamstow, the
authorities found a copy of a book called "Defense of the Muslim Lands."
A "last will and testament" for one of the accused was said to have been
found at his brother's home. Dated Sept. 24, 2005, the will concludes, "What
should I worry when I die a Muslim, in the manner in which I am to die, I go
to my death for the sake of my maker." God, he added, can if he wants "bless
limbs torn away!!!"
Looking for Global Ties
In addition, the British authorities are scouring the evidence for clues
to whether there is a global dimension to the suspected plot, particularly
the extent to which it was planned, financed or supported in Pakistan, and
whether there is a connection to remnants of Al Qaeda. They are still trying
to determine who provided the cash for the apartment and the computer
equipment and telephones, officials said.
Several of the suspects had traveled to Pakistan within weeks of the
arrests, according to an American counterterrorism official.
At a minimum, investigators say at least one of the suspects' inspiration
was drawn from Al Qaeda. One of the suspects' "kill-as-they-kill" martyrdom
video was taken from a November 2002 fatwa by Osama bin Laden.
British officials said many of the questions about the suspected plot
remained unanswered because they were forced to make the arrests before
Scotland Yard was ready.
The trigger was the arrest in Pakistan of Rashid Rauf, a 25-year-old
British citizen with dual Pakistani citizenship, whom Pakistani
investigators have described as a "key figure" in the plot.
In 2000, Mr. Rauf's father founded Crescent Relief London, a charity that
sent money to victims of last October's earthquake in Pakistan. Several
suspects met through their involvement in the charity, a friend of one of
them said. Last week, Britain froze the charity's bank accounts and opened
an investigation into possible "terrorist abuse of charitable funds."
Leaders of the charity have denied the allegations.
Several senior British officials said the Pakistanis arrested Rashid Rauf
without informing them first. The arrest surprised and frustrated
investigators here who had wanted to monitor the suspects longer, primarily
to gather more evidence and to determine whether they had identified all the
people involved in the suspected plot.
But within hours of Mr. Rauf's arrest on Aug. 9 in Pakistan, British
officials heard from intelligence sources that someone connected to him had
tried to contact some of the suspects in East London. The message was
interpreted by investigators as a possible signal to move forward with the
plot, officials said.
"The plotters received a very short message to 'Go now,' " said Franco
Frattini, the European Union's security commissioner, who was briefed by the
British home secretary, John Reid, in London. "I was convinced by British
authorities that this message exists."
A senior British official said the message from Pakistan was not that
explicit. But, nonetheless, investigators here had to change their strategy
quickly.
"The aim was to keep this operation going for much longer," said a senior
British security official who requested anonymity because of confidentiality
rules. "It ended much sooner than we had hoped."
From then on, the British government was driven by worst-case scenarios
based on a minimum-risk strategy.
British investigators worried that word of Mr. Rauf's arrest could push
the London suspects to destroy evidence and to disperse, raising the
possibility they would not be able to arrest them all. But investigators
also could not rule out that there could be an unknown second cell that
would try to carry out a similar plan, officials said.
Mr. Clarke, as the country's top antiterrorism police official in London
with authority over police decisions, ordered the arrests.
But it was left to Mr. Reid, who has been home secretary since May and is
a former defense secretary, to decide at emergency meetings of police,
national security and transport leaders, what else needed to be done. Mr.
Reid and Mr. Clarke declined repeated requests for interviews.
Prime Minister Tony Blair was on vacation in Barbados, where he was said
to have monitored events in London; Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott did
not attend the meeting.
"While the arrests were unfolding, the Home Office raised Britain's terror
alert level to "critical," as the police continued their raids of suspects'
homes and cars. All liquids were banned from carry-on bags, and some public
officials in Britain and the United States said an attack appeared to be
imminent. In addition to Mr. Stephenson's remark that the attack would have
been "mass murder on an unimaginable scale," Mr. Reid said that attacks were
"highly likely" and predicted that the loss of life would have been on an
"unprecedented scale."
Two weeks later, senior officials here characterized the remarks as
unfortunate. As more information was analyzed and the British government
decided that the attack was not imminent, Mr. Reid sought to calm the
country by backing off from his dire predictions, while defending the
decision to raise the alert level to its highest level as a precaution.
In lowering the threat level from critical to severe on Aug. 14, Mr. Reid
acknowledged: "Threat level assessments are intelligence-led. It is not a
process where scientific precision is possible. They involve judgments."
Reporting for this article was contributed by William J. Broad from New
York, Carlotta Gall from Pakistan, David Johnston and Mark Mazzetti from
Washington.
Source: Empire Burlesque
http://www.chris-floyd.com/index.php?option=com_content&
task=view&id=825&Itemid=135
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Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
