And another thing…

Would you prefer they ignored the (admittedly flawed) law?

Is civil disobedience the right answer?

These are not rhetorical questions, for the avoidance of doubt.

Nice one, Tom. It’s good to see so many in the blogosphere posting this video – strength in numbers,etc.

Trafigura/CarterYuck should be ashamed of themselves. But they won’t be. The sooner the whole set of archaic laws that TrafYuck use to intimidate are revoked, the more credibility the UK will have in the eyes of the watching world.

You guys need to change the law to stop lawyers threatening people like this. It is one thing to have a pop at large corporations like the BBC caving in, but what if this had been a blogger with no funds to fight the lawyers?

This is a lot more important than “Three Strikes” and deserves a lot more government and parliament time.

It’s not so much this video that will worry Trafigura, I don’t think, as Liz McKean’s original report on the dumping.

If the libel laws are to be sorted legislators should do the business on the media, largely owned by foreign based billionaires or their copyists, who libel and lie endless ly in their master’s interests.

THAT is a bigger problem than these kinds of gagging injunctions which are circumvented online so regularly.

Good play, Tom.

Can’t the New Labour government see that Carter-Ruck be closed down? They are nothing but a public nuisance. Sadly we cannot prosecute them under the Common Law for Barratry any more, but even attainting them would be justifiable in this case. Or more realistically, could pressure be put on the Law Society to disbar them?

i suggest the bbc refer carter ruck and their client to arkell v pressdram

Why do these companies not understand that the bigger fuss they make, the more interested we become in the story?!

Geeesh.

What are MPs going to do about this, Tom, apart from post on their blogs? This case is sub judice, but “disappearing” BBC reports consisting of genuine investigative reporting is a matter of national importance – especially given Trafigura’s “previous”. The Speaker has a discretion to allow debate and questions, and certainly should do so. Surely Harriet Harman and her opposition counterparts could find half an hour – at midnight tonight if need be – for this to be debated. It depends on pressure from MPs like you.

I’m afraid if not, it looks as though MPs are only concerned about freedom of expression when they themselves are affected (as in the case of the attenpted gag on reporting Paul Farrelly’s question). To be honest, I got the impression at the time that quite a few MPs were under the impression Trafigura was trying to silence Parliament itself – and wouldn’t have been too bothered had they understood what was actually at stake.

By posting the video I assume you believe there is a problem with our libel laws.

How about a private members bill rather than blograge ?

Nice to see a civil suit outranks the supposed functioning of a supposed open democracy.

Tom

Loving Glasgow’s “Community Enforcement Officers”

http://www.seeglasgow.com/media-office/news/glasgow-streets-ahead-in-style-stakes

Check Page 9 of Private Eye for further details of the succour given by Carter *uck et al. for the most illiberal elements in British society and beyond to silence dissent, and line their pockets.

Then read how a non-British citizen or even resident was able to suppress discussion of a topic occurring outwith our borders:

http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2009/12/for-every-bear-that-ever-there-was.html

Then sign this:

http://www.libelreform.org/sign

Then ask Tom precisely what he’s doing about it.

Can you not persuade the Treasury Bench to put forward legislation to protect our freedom of speech? Yours in Parliament is protected by privilege (and rightly so, since you represent us) – ours seems to be in the hands of lovely people like Carter-Ruck. These super-injunctions are just plain wrong, and are about protecting the wealthy not the citizenry.

I’m sure such a law would find support on both sides – and might go some way in preventing this Parliament from going down as the worst Parliament ever.