Comments on: Adventures in New Media public relations

By: Miss94

Miss94 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:16:48 +0000

Question is he allowed to work out at all? ,

By: ejh

ejh — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 09:35:34 +0000

Although he’s been known to try and misuse the libel laws himself (re: Marina Hyde, for instance) Elton John also comes to mind.

By: dsquared

dsquared — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:54:31 +0000

Was there ever a UK libel plaintiff who was not a fraud?

(Professor Sir) Tim Brighouse, chief education officer of Birmingham who in 1994 sued the then education secretary John Patten for calling him “a nutter, wandering around frightening children” and won.

By: Phillip Hallam-Baker

Phillip Hallam-Baker — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:33:02 +0000

Well the very dead war criminal Lord Aldington certainly used the libel laws to protect his reputation as did the equally dead criminal Robert Maxwell.

More recently a whole parade of Tory MPs, not least former Prime Minister John Major brought a sequence of libel actions that were intended to surpress the truth. Archer won his case but later did prison time for the perjury. Major bankrupted the New Statesman by bringing a libel case against them over an allegation of adultery only later to admit that he had an adulterous affair with Edwina Currie.

Was there ever a UK libel plaintiff who was not a fraud?

When so many verdicts go in favor of those proven to be crooks and liars, what vindication can there be?

By: Phil

Phil — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:59:56 +0000

Pete – whatever else Guantánamo Bay is, it’s not a jurisdiction. It’s a legally-created gap between three different jurisdictions, & a lawless zone by design – which looks quite exciting to people who’ve read too much Agamben, and just looks like a really dirty trick to the rest of us.

By: ajay

ajay — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:34:15 +0000

Dutch citizens have been extradited to the US to stand trial there for the alleged offence of selling drugs to American tourists in Amsterdam.

Link?

By: dsquared

dsquared — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:38:25 +0000

See also Gary McKinnon

Gary McKinnon perhaps not the best example since he’s a) definitely guilty and b) definitely guilty of a crime committed against the US government.

By: Pete

Pete — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 09:27:47 +0000

@38: presumably the DEA leans on them. See also Gary McKinnon and the lopsided UK-US extradition treaty: http://www.statewatch.org/news/2003/jul/25ukus.htm

Guantanamo was effectively inventing a jurisdiction to which (a) people could be transported against their will across international borders and (b) evaded any kind of outside scrutiny.

By: Walt

Walt — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:36:15 +0000

Why would the Netherlands extradite under those circumstances?

By: Martin Wisse

Martin Wisse — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:06:27 +0000

@21: Dutch citizens have been extradited to the US to stand trial there for the alleged offence of selling drugs to American tourists in Amsterdam. That’s mildly excessive in my view.

By: Substance McGravitas

Substance McGravitas — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:25:53 +0000

Isn’t “a webpage accessible to the US” the same thing as “a webpage”?

Apparently not, for rights holders. The BBC, for instance, blocks my access to certain audio and video based on my IP. This is easy to defeat – making your argument True For Geeks – but the purpose of it is to only show X content to those who are somehow entitled.

By: nick s

nick s — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:11:40 +0000

the impression I get is that US courts are pretty modest in terms of jurisdictional claims, by Western standards.

The claims of jurisdiction with regard to, say, a Canadian with a green card who smokes a a Cuban cigar in Canada, are amusingly expansive.

By: Chris

Chris — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:51:00 +0000

the idea that publishing something on a webpage accessible to the US made it subject to US law.

Isn’t “a webpage accessible to the US” the same thing as “a webpage”? I doubt the US would like it if the Chinese decided that publishing something on a webpage accessible to China made it subject to Chinese law.

The endpoint of this approach is that the web becomes subject to the harshest laws of every country (and locality?), combined.

P.S. Also, IIRC, this hyper-inclusive jurisdictional claim violates the US’s own precedent on jurisdiction.

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 18:16:22 +0000

“which involved the idea that publishing something on a webpage accessible to the US made it subject to US law. A very similar concept causes problems with British libel law – publishing it where it’s visible to the UK makes it subject to UK libel law.”

I may be wrong, but I thought it was the idea that intentionally marketing something to the US audience can’t be shielded from US law. This is in distinction for example to say ebay’s cases in France, where marketing to a US audience but accessible to France was asserted to be enough to assert French jurisdiction.

By: Ginger Yellow

Ginger Yellow — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:08:55 +0000

While the DMCA is seriously objectionable, I don’t see that case as being directly parallel to English libel law. Elcomsoft actively markets its products in the US, and indeed Sklyarov was talking about his circumvention methods in the US to a largely American audience.

I’m not sure what your argument is with regard to Guantanamo – again, seriously objectionable, but the whole point of it was that it was to be outside the jurisdiction of US courts.