Following this morning's woeful miscalculation by Carter Ruck, bringing down the wrath of the blogosphere on their heads, Trafigura are now backpeddling frantically to try to avoid some of the bad publicity, and have abandoned the gagging order.
Keep an eye out for more internet-related legislation being floated in the next few months as revenge for this...
Update: Near-universal, across-the-political-divide coverage of this helped win this.
Except for one blog. A raspberry to Pickled Politics, who didn't bother to mention it.
Update II: Sue at Muffled Vociferation reports on another win for free speech today, plus one in the eye for Jacqui Smith.
10 comments:
I better commit blog suicide, for I did not mention it either.
In other news I also did not mention global warming, Stephen Gately, etc..
I expect they'll be some random murmering on legislation designed to shut us up but at the end of the day, it would be very hard to police and possibly cause more trouble than its worth. I for one, would not be silenced.
It wasn't a subject that particularly caught my eye this morning except for the fact that they had attempted to gag the free press, so I blogged about it, as did many others...
I liked the expression you used earlier. I had never heard of it before :) "The Streisand Effect"..
It certainly shows that the more you try and stop a story from being told, the more popular it actually becomes.
Do you think they've learnt from this? Nah, I bet they haven't!
Actually, PP have been busy since you posted:
all this highlights that while the mainstream media lives in a cosy consensus – blogs play a vital role in giving light to real stories that are often ignored.
Oh, wait...
"I better commit blog suicide, for I did not mention it either."
Oh, for bloggers unable to update, out working, etc, it wouldn't be a surprise. If I hadn't been at home, I'd have found it difficult.
But the big political blogs, with multiple contributors, all did.
With that one exception...
"Do you think they've learnt from this? Nah, I bet they haven't!"
That's a pretty fair bet.. :)
"Oh, wait..."
Heh!
Is that the same legal firm that a satical magazine refers to with a hint of Grauniad irony as "Carter-F@ck"?
It was great stuff.
The news about Wilders is also very welcome. It is important that he is allowed to show his film to parliamentarians. But the reason this is important is more about politics than it is about freedom of information.
In fact, almost everyone has seen this film online, and knows what is in it. And it's contents are difficult to dispute, because they simply reproduce islamic scripture, and the use of same by muslims to successfully incite jihad.
But our politicians have not "officially" seen it, so they can cling to their public stance of belief in the non-violent nature of islam, and no argument will be allowed. They deperately need to avoid the likely islamic rage riots which will ensue if this film is aired in parliament. They aren't ignorant of the truth, they are desperately trying to keep it under wraps. But of course they can't come out and say that.
Oh how they must wish they could exert absolute control over all the information we get, and everything we ever dare say.
Ho ho
Next weeks Private Eye is going to be a keeper
It's possibly a failing in my powers of search, but I can't find anywhere the name of the judge who imposed the gagging order in the first place. S/he's the real villain of this piece, not Carter-Ruck who, I assume, were just doing what the client required.
That said, solicitors are formally "officers of the court" and not just the passive instruments of their clients. Accordingly, they have to have an eye to possibilities of abuse of process and the interests of justice in carrying out their clients' instructions. IMHO, this application for (and, worse, the granting of) a gagging order comprises precisely an abuse of process contrary to the interests of justice.
"Oh how they must wish they could exert absolute control over all the information we get, and everything we ever dare say."
That's what they dream about. It's certainly what they are planning...
"Next weeks Private Eye is going to be a keeper"
Indeed! :)
"It's possibly a failing in my powers of search, but I can't find anywhere the name of the judge who imposed the gagging order in the first place."
Nope, not one report or blog has mentioned it, which is odd. Perhaps that too is subject to a gagging order?
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