Guardian may be charged under The Official Secrets Act

[dipsydoodle]

If they refuse to divulge their source ref. Milly Dowler hacking claim.

There are lots of links. My broadband is down and I'm not smart enough to post a link using my Android.

Amuses me that the subject has been selectively ignored in LBN given the obsessiveness in posting Guardian links there

[SwissTony]

1. Link to Guardian

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/16/phone-hacking-met-court-order>

A link to a piece by Geoffrey Robertson

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/sep/16/threat-press-freedom>

I particularly like the last comment by Robertson...

"That will be an ironic tribute to the stupidity of Scotland Yard – a police service that fails to investigate criminal hackers but puts in jail the journalists who exposed them".

[dipsydoodle]

2. The Act covers unauthorised disclosures

Which may be sufficient in this case. I can only assume the reporters concerned must be thickos for not knowing that. I doubt they give their source which I'm guessing will lead to imprisonment for contempt of court.

Being in the public interest cannot be used as a defence in cases involving the Official Secrets Act.


Btw - keep up the good work. Providing free online links to The Guardian is helping accelerate their demise.

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. "Providing free online links to The Guardian is helping accelerate their demise"

So, you are an internet sceptic, are you? You think that any encouragement to read something online - even to articles written and published online on Friday, and not linked to until Saturday afternoon, and thus highly unlikely to take a single sale of the physical paper away from The Guardian - is going to be bad for The Guardian, despite getting some people to go to its website? I'm surprised someone who think so little of the spread of information bothers to go online themselves. Then again, you seem to resent that The Guardian ever exposed the hacking in the first place, so you'll grasp whatever straw you can to defend Rupert and James (or is it the Met you're concerned for?)

I can only assume that the reporters were conversant with the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights that the opinion piece refers to, but which you appear to disagree with Robertson about. Or that, as the report says, the one previous attempt to use the OSA in this way collapsed. Or that another case of a police officer leaking to a journalist was thrown out, recognising that journalists and their sources have rights under the ECHR?

[dipsydoodle]

5. I accept our laws as a parcel

I dont pick and chose. Similarly yes I would defend the Met despite the fact they may have a few bad apples. The subject of the decline in The Guardian's readership since July is a matter of record. Their misfortunes added to bu providing free online content. It is foreseen they have c. 5 years max before dis appearing without trace.

I despise The Guardian for its cynisism.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. You're calling The Guardian cynical for exposing the hacking?

Wow. You think that it would be better than we didn't know the extent of it, unless some organisation you can personally admire could have been the ones to break the story?

"The subject of the decline in The Guardian's readership since July is a matter of record." I don't see what this has to do with anything. You were saying that any link to a newspaper site helps kill the newspaper. Therefore you should be quoting newspaper readership declines since 2000 or so, shouldn't you? It's not as if The Guardian has only been online since July, is it?

[dipsydoodle]

7. I had used the July figures

Because I came across it checking out media distribution figures since the demise of NOWT to see who'd gained as a result. The likely death of the Guardian was from a Bloomberg report.

Cynicism was with respect to their reports of others using backdoor info from the Met.

Using just my phone while my broadband is down for the foreseeable future prevents me from providing links - don't know how to do so.

You are aware it is not the Met now investigating itself. For whatever reason those investigating attach a lot of importance to the specific leak of the hacking of Millie Dowler's phone and probably the way in which her number was both obtained and distributed. Use of the OFA is related to that - was discussed live on tv news last Friday when this broke in relation to the subject being as of national importance.

[LeftishBrit]

4. As regards 'internet links to the Guardian hastening their demise'...

I would assume that if this were the case, the Guardian would not go online, or would charge for online views. I doubt that they would have survived as long as this if they were carelessly suicidal. Ultimately, all papers have to deal with the age of the Internet. We are not engaging in some sort of equivalent of 'pirating'; we are using links that the papers freely provide. And as regards American DU-ers, they would presumably not be purchasing British papers in any case.

Neither the Guardian nor any other paper is perfect; but the Guardian is certainly much better than the right-wing press (including though not limited to the Murdoch press), which has contributed to serious damage to our society, culture and politics.

[Ken Burch]

8. Why would you want the Guardian to die?

As far as I know it's the only left-of-center daily newspaper in the UK. If the Guardian were lost, the daily press would be totally in the hands of the hard right.

Why would anyone outside of Conservative Central Office think this would be a good thing?

[dipsydoodle]

11. Most here in the UK

don't buy newspapers because of their owner's political leanings so from that respect the fact that they are left wing is incidenal.

Personally I find the Guardian boring. I have a feeling that many others may feel the same from their flagging sales.

[Ken Burch]

13. Still, if the Guardian does go, all the daily papers in the UK

Will be following the Tory line like robots. Even if you think the Guardian is boring, how can you prefer a future like that?

Independent journalism simply wouldn't exist in the daily press in the UK without them. Doesn't the prospect of that bother you?

[T_i_B]

14. Mirror is left leaning.....

Although it's a trashy tabloid and sucks up to Labour far too much for my liking.

Independent is also left leaning, although I find it quite shrill.

Basically the only 2 newspapers I rate are the Grauniad and the Torygraph, and even then I find the political slants very much detract from things. Beyond that British newspapers are just a vast sea of awfulness, leaning over into pure scumbag territory in the case of the Daily Fail, Sun, Diana Express etc.

[LeftishBrit]

15. The Torygraph used to be good for news if not for comment...

but in the last 2 or 3 years, they've got much more selective and unreliable for news IMO, and the comment sections have moved from being standard old-fashioned Toryism to being something more like the American loony Christian-Right (including the hatred for President Obama).

I agree with your last statement that most 'British newspapers are just a vast sea of awfulness, leaning over into pure scumbag territory in the case of the Daily Fail, Sun, Diana Express etc.'

The Mirror is pretty rubbishy and inaccurate for news, though at least it doesn't go in for whipping up vendettas against immigrants and benefit claimants. But what does it say about our press when one even has to mention that as something slightly unsual!

[dipsydoodle]

9. Police have decided not to proceed.

Possibly just a Pyrrhic victory for the Guardian.

[LeftishBrit]

10. Are there any media sources that you like?

I prefer the BBC to any newspaper; but I prefer the Guardian and the Independent to any other newspaper.

[dipsydoodle]

12. Broadly speaking

I prefer tv news too. ....BBC, Sky and France24.

Personally I don't find Sky biased - they'd make themselves look stupid if they were so.

There was a time when many of my friends were in the print and we often discussed why people bought or at least read what. Political leaning was just one reason - there were many others including crossword puzzles and preference for tv guides.

On this subject the police will have been told to back off. Don't change the fact one of their officers will appear in court and all they need to is call the journalists as witnesses. If they refuse to answer under oath they'll be jailed for contempt. The moral is "don't accuse others of what you're doing yourself" When that officer was arrested the Met had set the Guardian up - entrappment which the mugs fell for.

:hi:

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. You just don't get it, do you?

"don't accuse others of what you're doing yourself"

The Guardian was not paying for illegal hacking of voice mail. It was not bribing police officers. It was not following police officers to help known criminals. It was in no way 'doing what it accuses others of'. You are incredibly wrong about this affair. This seems to be because you hate The Guardian, and love the Met and perhaps Murdoch.

[dipsydoodle]

17. You have no means of knowing

whether or not The Guardian paid for information. That is unlikely to become clear until their "source" comes to court. I have difficulty in believing he leaked information out of charity.

Yes I have in the past had a number of friends up to the level of Chief Superintendent in the Met. I have a respect for the Met and the police in general. I've also had acquaintances who've served up to 18 years or so for bank robbery etc. Both groups were mainly a bi-product of living in Wembley most of my life and our children being of similar ages too.

I am indifferent to Murdoch's antics, other than the Milly Dowler aspect, being of the firm belief that most of our newspapers have been at it some shape or form in the past. As far as I'm concerned if our public in general didn't feel the same as me the sales of Murdoch's other papers would've tubed : they have yet to do so.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. You claim you have respect for the Met, but think no police officer would blow the whistle

without payment?

I think there are some honest police officers in the Met, and one or more saw that extensive coverups had been perpetrated by dishonest Met staff over the years to hide the hacking and corruption; and they decided to leak these stories because the public deserved to know the truth. As a result, we have found out not just about Milly Dowler's voicemail, but the Soham parents, 7/7 victims' relations, and the ongoing cosy relationship of far too many Met officers with Murdoch companies.

Your 'respect' for the Met seems to consist of "they're all in it for the money, so none would expose others without payment".

[Anarcho-Socialist]

19. The Guardian aren't that bad

British journalism would be a sorry state without it. The Grauniad and the Morning Star are the only two dailies I have time for. I used to like the Indy, but indeed as someone said above it became really shrill.