He fought the law

I've a post in the works, which may appear below this one, on the differences between our watchees. Nick's Standard piece, Mosley's trial by tabloid is the price of free speech is bizarre enough to merit its own (more or less) post.

When Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded the Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran in 1980, Henry Kissinger looked at the two ghoulish combatants and said: "It's a pity they can't both lose."

As I really don't trust Nick to keep his facts straight, I had a quick google. While Ruth Dudley Edwards in the Irish Independent supports Nick's quote, US sources seem to prefer "too bad they can't both lose." When he said it, seems to be lost altogether. Presumably, some time after 1975 and before 1987 (though the war didn't start until 1980 - Nick got that right - so it could just have been a quip Kissinger kept on standby). From what I know of the Iraq-Iran war, both sides did lose.

And anyway, what's he doing quoting Kissinger?

Yet it would be hugely against the public interest if he won his case. British judges have already made our libel courts a national embarrassment. As the American human rights group Freedom House puts it, Britain has taken the lead in using "strict lopsided libel laws to punish and muzzle journalists, authors and publishers". At a great cost to free speech, "influential moneyed interests" are silencing legitimate investigations into the financing of terrorism and political corruption.

Freedom House map of the world shows the UK to be 'free'. And here is Freedom House's pdf "Libel Tourism—A Growing Threat To Free Speech". Its conclusion:

The practice of intimidating and silencing journalists and authors from other countries under British libel law has earned the UK a reputation for being the Libel Capital of the World. But such plaintiff-friendly laws are not restricted to the British Isles. Common law–based systems in Asia, for example, open the door for influential moneyed interests to gain an enormous legal advantage, at great cost to free speech. In fact, this can be seen as part of a larger global trend identified by Freedom House, in which countries are increasingly using strict lopsided libel laws to punish and muzzle journalists, authors, and publishers. Terrorist financing and corruption-related topics have often been the objects of such suits, bringing larger public-policy concerns into the equation. The pernicious and far-reaching damage caused by libel tourism makes more vocal and effective advocacy on this issue an imperative.

Emphases mine. Note that the conclusion is "the world needs Freedom House (go us!) more than ever!"

I see it happening almost weekly. For instance, you may remember the story about Vitol, an oil company which paid kickbacks to Saddam's henchman during the UN's oil-for-food scandal. It quickly died, not because the accusations didn't have substance - Vitol admitted its guilt in a grand larceny case before the New York courts in November - but because newspapers have been deluged with legal warnings. The law in Britain is so expensive and so weighted against the press that the media backed off.

This says a lot about the media if true. And if there's one thing journalists do when proved right, it's crow about it endlessly. Revenge best served cold and all that. Is this the best example Nick can come up with? No, it's not, see below.

If this judgment now extends to privacy law, I can soon see it becoming-impossible for a newspaper to report that a minister who is demanding public- sector pay restraint is claiming a small fortune in expenses, or that a politician who denounces single mothers is keeping a mistress on the side.

I can't see this at all. The Guardian reports Max Moseley:

"I've been doing [S&M] for 45 years and ... if it hadn't been for bribery and illegal acts, this wouldn't have come out," said Mosley, who added that he had kept his activity from his wife.

Indeed, Moseley's case seems to rest on the illegality of the NoTW's sting. The News of the Screws outed Robin Cook without problems - and he hadn't even denounced single mothers. As for expenses, there is the Freedom of Information act. So far, expenses claims are pretty much in the public domain.

The prurient hypocrisy of the News of the World is the price we have to pay for a free country.

You know, I don't think it is. Sorry to be all Aaro-ish, but I don't think my freedom is affected at all if the News of the World loses. As I hope it does.

But you can't, as they[1] say, keep a good[2] blogger down. Nick returns to blogging.

I’ve written many times about how England’s libel laws are the last resort of the scoundrel. It’s not simply that the judiciary allowed Jonathan Aitken, Jeffrey Archer, Robert Maxwell and George Galloway to collect damages, but that they have opened the doors of their court to Saudi billionaires and Ukranian oligharchs wishing to suppress criticism.

Now, as I remember it, Aitken did not collect damages, but went to jail for perjury - the Guardian hired George Carman. If Nick is right, he must be referring to some other case with Aitken won and I've forgotten. If so, his argument against all four is that they're all bad men, clearly guilty of some things, so how can they ever win in court? Guardian: Government 'did not try' to fend off Saudi inquiry threats. I'm sorry, who didn't? The judiciary? Russian oligarchs. Actually, the Sun went very strange over Usmanov: photoshopping Russian fur hats onto Arsene Wenger and calling his team 'Arsenalski'. The courts didn't make it do that: its natural creepiness did.

By far the oddest thing about Nick's post is that it presumes (wrongly in my opinion for what that's worth here) that Harry's Place may lose if taken to court by the British Muslim Initiative. David T

Notably, he does not take issue with our reporting of the revelation, made in a Panorama documentary in 2006, that he is a senior activist in the clerical fascist terrorist organisation, Hamas. The BBC report disclosed that Mr Sawalha “master minded much of Hamas’ political and military strategy” and in London “is alleged to have directed funds, both for Hamas’ armed wing, and for spreading its missionary dawah”.

Note that the actual digging was done by those unmanly folks in the state-funded broadcast media. I doubt the Beeb used the words "clerical fascist terrorist organisation", but for it to be a worthwhile revelation, they clearly thought his connections did not reflect well on him. Unlike Harry's Place, Panorama have lawyers to check what they say before it goes out. Nick:

You may think it can’t claim for defamation because an organisation which repeats the conspiracy theories of Adolf Hitler has no reputation to lose. If you do, you don’t know the English judiciary.

Ah, they're all fascists.

Bonus question, because I can. Who called Alastair Campbell a 'fascist' in his diaries and why?

[1] No, I'm not going to tell you who they are. Can't we publish anything without all this "facts, facts, facts" business? You sound like Gradgrind.

[2] See 1.