UK Prime Minister Urges Investigation Of The Guardian Over Snowden Leaks; There Shall Be No Free Press

from the chilling-effects dept

While freedom of the press is fairly deeply engrained in the US, that's not so true elsewhere -- and that became abundantly clear with the absurd theatrics of UK officials forcing the Guardian to destroy a computer in the basement for no reason at all. And now UK Prime Minister David Cameron is ratcheting things up, urging Parliament to investigate The Guardian to see if it broke any laws:

David Cameron has encouraged a Commons select committee to investigate whether the Guardian has broken the law or damaged national security by publishing secrets leaked by the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

He made his proposal in response to a question from former defence secretary Liam Fox, saying the Guardian had been guilty of double standards for exposing the scandal of phone hacking by newspapers and yet had gone on to publish secrets from the NSA taken by Snowden.

I've read that statement over and over and over again, and I still don't see what the double standard is. Both involve reporting on things of public interest, which, last I checked, is exactly what news organizations are supposed to do.

Then it gets even more bizarre, with Cameron arguing that the above-mentioned computer destruction somehow "proves" that the news organization knew it was breaking the law.

Speaking at prime minister's questions on Wednesday, Cameron said: "The plain fact is that what has happened has damaged national security and in many ways the Guardian themselves admitted that when they agreed, when asked politely by my national security adviser and cabinet secretary to destroy the files they had, they went ahead and destroyed those files.

"So they know that what they're dealing with is dangerous for national security. I think it's up to select committees in this house if they want to examine this issue and make further recommendations."

That's a plainly ludicrous interpretation of what happened. First, it wasn't a "polite" request, but there was a very clear implied threat to the Guardian if it didn't comply. Second, using oppressive censorship on the one hand to argue in support of further oppressive censorship on the other hand isn't exactly a winning argument.

In the end, what Cameron is doing is making it clear that the UK can have no free press. It can only have stenographers. When the government threatens to have you investigated for reporting on the excesses of government, you've created massive chilling effects, and guaranteed much greater corruption and abuse, as you've wiped out a key factor in keeping those things in check. Cameron's statements reflect poorly on the wider UK and its supposed belief in free speech and a free press.

Filed Under: chilling effects, david cameron, edward snowden, free press, freedom of the press, gchq, investigation, surveillance, uk
Companies: the guardian

Aaron Swartz's Final Project: Secure Whistleblower Submission Platform Gets New Support

from the and-a-detailed-security-audit dept

Back in May, we wrote about Aaron Swartz's final project, done in collaboration with Wired's Kevin Poulsen, to create a very secure platform to allow whistleblowers to anonymously submit documents to the press. At the time it was called DeadDrop, and the initial media partner was The New Yorker, which set up its version as Strongbox. It's unclear if anyone's actually used Strongbox, but obviously since that launch there's been renewed attention concerning leakers and whistleblowers, and ways to leak information safely.

Today it was announced that the Freedom of the Press Foundation, an offshoot of the EFF which we've covered before, has taken over the project, now dubbed SecureDrop. Besides having the support of the Foundation to help with development and deployment of the platform, they've also announced that the system has gone through a significant security audit by some of the most respected names in the business, leading to a few additional improvements:

SecureDrop’s code has gone through a detailed security audit by a team of University of Washington researchers, led by Alexei Czeckis. Other authors of the audit include renowned security expert Bruce Schneier and Tor developer Jacob Appelbaum. Freedom of the Press Foundation has made a number of updates to SecureDrop based on these findings and will be making a significant investment in continually improving the system.  

On top of that the Foundation has hired computer security expert James Dolan to maintain the code and to help install the system for media organizations. He helped do the original installation of StrongBox for the New Yorker. Hopefully a bunch of media organizations look into using this system, as it will help provide better ways to protect whistleblowers, especially in an age where they're under such constant attack from the government.

Filed Under: aaron swartz, freedom of the press, journalism, securedrop, security, whistleblowers
Companies: freedom of the press foundation

UK Asked New York Times To Destroy Edward Snowden Documents; NY Times Ignored Request

from the good-for-them dept

There's been some back and forth concerning the David Miranda legal fight today and it's getting fairly ridiculous. The UK government is making some extraordinary claims about Miranda and the encrypted information he was carrying. They claim that some of the information was potentially incredibly damaging to UK national security interests (the same rhetoric we always hear, but is rarely shown to be true) and they also claim that they found a piece of paper on Miranda that allowed them to "decrypt one file on his seized hard drive." Furthermore, they claim that Miranda (and Greenwald and Poitras) "demonstrated very poor judgment in their security arrangements with respect to the material," in order to suggest that it might easily fall into dangerous hands.

Of course, there are many reasons to suggest that this is all hogwash. The choice of wording from the UK government is pretty precise. Note that they don't actually claim they've unencrypted any of the Snowden files. They make two separate claims in succession: one is that there were 58,000 documents that Miranda had and then, separately, that he had a password that allowed them to get into a file on his drives, and then they use that to insist that there was poor security. But they don't reveal what that one file was, nor do they admit to having figured out what was actually on the drives. Glenn Greenwald says that it's a flat out lie that Miranda had a password on him that would allow anyone to decrypt the documents (suggesting any password he might have had on him was totally unrelated). Greenwald also mocks the idea that Poitras's security was "sloppy," since it appears that the UK hasn't yet been able to figure out what was actually on the hard drives.

However, the strongest response to all of this comes from The Guardian itself, who reveals that after the Prime Minister's office ordered them to destroy hard drives, the Guardian told the UK government that the NY Times and Pro Publica also had copies of all of the documents related to the UK spying by GCHQ... and the UK government didn't seem particularly concerned:

"The government wanted the judge to believe that they have at all times behaved with the utmost urgency because of a grave threat to national security represented by newspapers working responsibly on the Snowden documents and their implications for society," he said. "But for most of the time since early June little has happened. On July 22 the Guardian directed the government towards the New York Times and ProPublica, both of whom had secret material from GCHQ. It was more than three weeks before anyone contacted the NYT. No one has contacted Pro Publica, and there has been two weeks of further silence towards the NYT from the government. This five weeks in which nothing has happened tells a different story from the alarmist claims before the court. The government's behaviour does not match their rhetoric in trying to justify and exploit this dismaying blurring of terror and journalism."

This leads to an even more mystifying situation, in which (as noted above), weeks later, UK officials asked the NY Times to destroy the documents, and the NY Times basically ignored the request entirely:

The British government has asked the New York Times to destroy copies of documents leaked by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden related to the operations of the U.S. spy agency and its British partner, Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), people familiar with the matter said.

The British request, made to Times executive editor Jill Abramson by a senior official at the British Embassy in Washington D.C., was greeted by Abramson with silence, according to the sources. British officials indicated they intended to follow up on their request later with the Times, but never did, one of the sources said.

Ah, freedom of the press. Either way, this suggests that the UK's arguments against Miranda are just misleading FUD designed to paper over the thuggish behavior of detaining Miranda in the first place.

Filed Under: david miranda, ed snowden, encryption, first amendment, freedom of the press, glenn greenwald, jill abramson, national security, uk
Companies: ny times

UK's Suppression Of Freedom Of The Press Drives Guardian To Partner With NYT On Snowden Reporting

from the will-they-threaten-the-nyt-too? dept

With the Guardian forced on orders directly from the Prime Minister's office to physically destroy some hard drives with the Ed Snowden documents on them, the Guardian made it clear that the reporting on the leaks would continue, but out of its NY offices, rather than the London ones (and, of course, via Glenn Greenwald in Brazil and Laura Poitras in Germany). However, another bit of fallout from all of this is that the Guardian has teamed up with its nominal "competitor," the NY Times to share some (not all) of the documents and to work together on the reporting of what's in them.

Amusingly, this comes just after a NYT editor argued (somewhat ridiculously) that the NYT has done more to advance the story than any other publication after the very first stories from The Guardian and the Washington Post. That statement is laughable. While the NYT has done some very good reporting on all of this, the Washington Post and the Guardian have continued to "break" a variety of big stories from the documents. The NYT has certainly added to the coverage, and added very important details to some of those stories, but it's been way, way, way behind. It will be interesting to see what happens now. Of course, one of the reasons why Snowden says he didn't go to the NYT originally, was due to stories of how they held onto some other stories, such as the original story about warrantless wiretapping, which it held for many months at the request of the feds.

Filed Under: ed snowden, freedom of the press, glenn greenwald, nsa, nsa surveillance, reporting, uk
Companies: ny times, the guardian

Orders To Destroy Guardian Hard Drives Came Directly From PM David Cameron

from the and-now-the-nation-is-more-secure-than-ever! dept

More details continue to emerge on the UK government's two recent anti-journalist actions. The Guardian reports that the order to (pointlessly) smash up Guardian hardware came from the top.

A spokesman for Clegg made clear that Heywood was acting on the authority of both the prime minister and his deputy. The spokesman said: "We understand the concerns about recent events, particularly around issues of freedom of the press and civil liberties. The independent reviewer of terrorism legislation is already looking into the circumstances around the detention of David Miranda and we will wait to see his findings.

"On the specific issue of records held by the Guardian, the deputy prime minister thought it was reasonable for the cabinet secretary to request that the Guardian destroyed data that would represent a serious threat to national security if it was to fall into the wrong hands.

"The deputy prime minister felt this was a preferable approach to taking legal action. He was keen to protect the Guardian's freedom to publish, whilst taking the necessary steps to safeguard security.

"It was agreed to on the understanding that the purpose of the destruction of the material would not impinge on the Guardian's ability to publish articles about the issue, but would help as a precautionary measure to protect lives and security."

So, let's get this straight. The UK government "understands the concerns" about its recent actions, but apparently wouldn't change a thing if it had to do it all over again.

The usual justification presents itself repeatedly: security uber alles.

The government forced (statement says "request" but we know how these things work) the Guardian to destroy hard drives containing content that was "a serious threat to national security" but still existed elsewhere. The government knew this and still forced the issue and then has the temerity to claim the pointless show of force was about "safeguarding security."

Look at how many times that empty word shows up in this brief statement.

"...serious threat to national security…"

"...taking the necessary steps to safeguard security…"

"...a precautionary measure to protect lives and security…"

None of this was "necessary" or "precautionary." It did nothing. The data that might "threaten national security" is still out there. The government knows because its own defensive statement says the action "wouldn't impinge on the Guardian's ability to publish articles." It was pure muscle-flexing. This security-heavy statement pretty much says precisely that while expending many more words.

There's also this:

The deputy prime minister felt this was a preferable approach to taking legal action.

Awesome. The government would rather throw its weight around than pursue any sort of process that might have allowed the Guardian to dispute the order. How telling. How utterly and vilely telling. Of course the government felt this "approach" was "preferable." Screw the adversarial process. We've got the nation's "security" at stake. Everything else is secondary, including the public's outdated ideals about a free press and a government willing to respect the rights of its citizens.

Filed Under: david cameron, ed snowden, freedom of the press, glenn greenwald, hard drive, the guardian

UK Gov't Forces Guardian To 'Destroy' Hard Drives With Snowden Info; Guardian Says Reporting Continues From NY

from the freedom-of-the-press? dept

Apparently, the UK government is now hellbent on demonstrating how broadly it will try (and fail) to censor the press these days. By now you've heard that the UK government detained David Miranda, Glenn Greenwald's partner, under an anti-terrorism law, all as a ruse to seize his electronic media and to intimidate Greenwald. In response, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger has revealed some of the pressure he's received from the UK government for reporting on this story, leading to an absolutely ridiculous situation in which the UK equivalent of the NSA helped the Guardian destroy some physical hard drives for no reason other than that they didn't want anyone reporting on the leaked Snowden documents from within the UK. The impact on actual reporting, of course, was nil. First came the demands:

A little over two months ago I was contacted by a very senior government official claiming to represent the views of the prime minister. There followed two meetings in which he demanded the return or destruction of all the material we were working on. The tone was steely, if cordial, but there was an implicit threat that others within government and Whitehall favoured a far more draconian approach.

The mood toughened just over a month ago, when I received a phone call from the centre of government telling me: "You've had your fun. Now we want the stuff back." There followed further meetings with shadowy Whitehall figures. The demand was the same: hand the Snowden material back or destroy it. I explained that we could not research and report on this subject if we complied with this request. The man from Whitehall looked mystified. "You've had your debate. There's no need to write any more."

Got that last bit? You've had your debate. There's no need to write any more. That's not just obnoxious but it shows the way the intelligence folks are dealing with these revelations: "okay, let some people talk about a little bit, and then shut them up and let's get back to the spying." From there, things got even worse, with the UK government basically telling The Guardian they had no choice but to "destroy" the documents:

During one of these meetings I asked directly whether the government would move to close down the Guardian's reporting through a legal route – by going to court to force the surrender of the material on which we were working. The official confirmed that, in the absence of handover or destruction, this was indeed the government's intention. Prior restraint, near impossible in the US, was now explicitly and imminently on the table in the UK.

If anyone believes in freedom of the press, this should be incredibly important -- and the statements by the UK government should be offensive. The government flat out told the paper that it would basically shut down the publication if it didn't abide by the government's wishes to destroy key research for reporting and stop its continued efforts to report on these issues of immense importance to the public.

Of course, to anyone who's in touch with reality knows, banning the reporting of the subject in the UK is both stupid and meaningless. It's stupid because it's a "head in the sand" approach to things, which never works. Furthermore, it was only a matter of time until the details of this came out and the UK government was revealed for their thuggish police-state, free press-suppressing ways. And, it's meaningless because the world is global. The Guardian doesn't need to report on this stuff from the UK, especially since Greenwald is already based in Brazil.

I explained to the man from Whitehall about the nature of international collaborations and the way in which, these days, media organisations could take advantage of the most permissive legal environments. Bluntly, we did not have to do our reporting from London. Already most of the NSA stories were being reported and edited out of New York. And had it occurred to him that Greenwald lived in Brazil?

But, no matter to the government spooks. They demanded a destroyed hard drive, so a destroyed hard drive is what they got:

The man was unmoved. And so one of the more bizarre moments in the Guardian's long history occurred – with two GCHQ security experts overseeing the destruction of hard drives in the Guardian's basement just to make sure there was nothing in the mangled bits of metal which could possibly be of any interest to passing Chinese agents. "We can call off the black helicopters," joked one as we swept up the remains of a MacBook Pro.

Rusbridger notes that this was a particularly "pointless piece of symbolism that understood nothing about the digital age," but I'd go even further than that. The symbolism of brainless, impotent thuggery for the sake of pure bullying, rather than having any intended impact, says quite a lot about the UK government, the GCHQ, and how far behind the times they are. Rusbridger uses this horrifying story to note that the similar stealing of David Miranda's technology won't stop the reporting either -- but one hopes that it will lead people in the UK to rise up and speak out against such police-state intimidation tactics, and to demand serious reforms to protect basic freedoms and the value of investigative journalism.

Filed Under: alan rusbridger, david miranda, free speech, freedom of the press, gchq, intimidation, uk, uk glenn greenwald
Companies: the guardian

Journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin Suggests US Should Arrest Glenn Greenwald For Doing Journalism

from the sickening dept

Some have argued that Meet the Press' David Gregory was just playing "devil's advocate" in asking reporter Glenn Greenwald if he should be arrested for "aiding and abetting" Ed Snowden for doing journalism. I'm not sure I agree with that, but now the NY Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin, normally a business reporter, has gone even further in saying flat out that given Snowden left Hong Kong, he'd "arrest Snowden and now I'd almost arrest Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who seems to be out there, he wants to help him get to Ecuador or whatever." Of course, there is no evidence that Greenwald is helping Snowden get anywhere. In the meantime, a journalist suggesting another journalist be arrested because his relationship with a source is too close is incredible, and ridiculous. This is doubly true for Sorkin, a journalist who has been, at times, accused of cozying up to Wall Street bankers to tell "their side" of the story of the economic troubles of the past few years.

After a bunch of people called Sorkin out for this he tried to argue that he was not calling for Greenwald to be arrested despite his clear statements in which he appeared to call for exactly that. Sorkin then claimed that he was just "raising other questions." In response, Greenwald shot back: "Did you conspire with all of your extremely close WSJ-executive sources to commit fraud? Did you know about it? #JustAsking." And, really, that's the perfect retort. Anyone confusing a reporter reporting on some information with "conspiring" with the source is making a fool of himself.

Later, Greenwald opined on why he thinks various "establishment" journalists seem to be suggesting that he should be arrested for doing the journalism they failed to do:

Some of what is driving this hostility from some media figures is personal bitterness. Some of it is resentment over my having been able to break these big stories not despite, but because of, my deliberate breaching of the conventions that rule their world.

But most of it is what I have long criticized them for most: they are far more servants to political power than adversarial watchdogs over it, and what provokes their rage most is not corruption on the part of those in power (they don't care about that) but rather those who expose that corruption, especially when the ones bringing transparency are outside of, even hostile to, their incestuous media circles.

They're just courtiers doing what courtiers have always done: defending the royal court and attacking anyone who challenges or dissents from it. That's how they maintain their status and access within it. That's what courtiers to power, by definition, do.

It's a harsh assessment -- perhaps too harsh -- but it does offer a pretty good explanation for the way reporters are taking seriously (and, in some cases, appearing to advocate) for this ridiculous notion that by reporting on Snowden's leaks, Greenwald is somehow a co-conspirator.

Update: This morning Sorkin issued an apology to Greenwald, saying that he believes in freedom of the press and thinks this is an important story, and he didn't mean to imply that Greenwald should be arrested. Rather, he claims, it was a poorly executed attempt to raise some basic questions about the role of the media in all of this.

Filed Under: andrew ross sorkin, arrests, david gregory, edward snowden, free speech, freedom of the press, glenn greenwald, journalism

Rep. Peter King Says Reporters Should Be Prosecuted For Reporting On Government Leaks

from the that-whole-first-amendment-thing-sure-is-a-bitch dept

Rep. Peter King, apparently, is not a fan of the US Constitution that he's been sworn to uphold. In the past, he wanted Wikileaks put on the official terrorist list, argued that the Boston bombing meant we needed less freedom and more surveillance, and now has announced that reporters should be prosecuted if they report on leaked classified material. Apparently the whole concept of the First Amendment and whistleblowing is foreign to Rep. King, despite the fact that they're some of the fundamental parts of what America is based on.

"If they willingly knew that this was classified information, I think action should be taken, especially on something of this magnitude," King said.

"I think on something of this magnitude, there is an obligation both moral but also legal, I believe, against a reporter disclosing something that would so severely compromise national security."

Of course, as the article correctly points out, publishing classified information is not a crime, and trying to criminalize it would almost certainly go against the First Amendment. Of course, as we've noted in the past, Peter King is against terrorism, unless the terrorists are Irish. Then he's all for it. Apparently, overreactions, complete misunderstanding of the law and hypocrisy all go hand in hand.

Filed Under: classified info, ed snowden, first amendment, free speech, freedom of the press, glenn greenwald, leaks, nsa, nsa surveillance, peter king, terrorism

Bradley Manning Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize As People Begin Realizing How Damaging His Case Is To A Free Press

from the wake-up-people dept

With Bradley Manning pleading guilty to some of the lesser charges against him, Harvard law professor Yochai Benkler -- who is a possible expert witness in the trial -- has an excellent and detailed post about why the entire case against him should be seen as a threat to the nature of whistleblowing and a free press. He notes that the US prides itself on its support of the First Amendment, even in uncomfortable situations, but this case could flip that around in a very damaging way.

A country's constitutional culture is made up of the stories we tell each other about the kind of nation we are. When we tell ourselves how strong our commitment to free speech is, we grit our teeth and tell of Nazis marching through Skokie. And when we think of how much we value our watchdog press, we tell the story of Daniel Ellsberg. Decades later, we sometimes forget that Ellsberg was prosecuted, smeared, and harassed. Instead, we express pride in a man's willingness to brave the odds, a newspaper’s willingness to take the risk of publishing, and a Supreme Court’s ability to tell an overbearing White House that no, you cannot shut up your opponents.

Yet, in the case of Manning, the government is going much, much, much further. It is trying to make leaking information to the press the equivalent of espionage and aiding the enemy -- a capital offense. If you want to create chilling effects on free speech and a free press, this is how you do it. If you believe in the stories above, about the fundamental respect for the First Amendment, then the nature of the prosecution should worry you a great deal.

As for those who claim that leaking to Wikileaks is not like the Pentagon Papers or leaking something to the press, Benkler's detailed analysis shows why that's bunk. Since Wikileaks released some of the material that Manning sent them, the organization has been painted as being this evil anti-American organization, and there's also been a big spotlight on Julian Assange, who is certainly not presented as a particularly likeable character. But, as Benkler points out, before Wikileaks got that material, it was regularly seen as an upstart media property, and a great place for whistleblowers to go to expose fraud and corruption. In other words, the idea that Manning chose to go to Wikileaks to harm the US seems quite unlikely. His story of exposing wrongdoing by the US and forcing a debate on how to have America live up to its principles has more credibility when you realize just how Wikileaks was portrayed prior to Manning's material being submitted:

The reputation that WikiLeaks has been given by most media outlets over the past two and a half years, though, obscures much of this—it just feels less like “the press” than the New York Times. This is actually the point on which I am expected to testify at the trial, based on research I did over the months following the first WikiLeaks disclosure in April 2010. When you read the hundreds of news stories and other materials published about WikiLeaks before early 2010, what you see is a young, exciting new media organization. The darker stories about Julian Assange and the dangers that the site poses developed only in the latter half of 2010, as the steady release of leaks about the U.S. triggered ever-more hyperbolic denouncements from the Administration (such as Joe Biden's calling Assange a “high-tech terrorist”), and as relations between Assange and his traditional media partners soured.

In early 2010, when Manning did his leaking, none of that had happened yet. WikiLeaks was still a new media phenom, an outfit originally known for releasing things like a Somali rebel leader’s decision to assassinate government officials in Somalia, or a major story exposing corruption in the government of Daniel Arap Moi in Kenya. Over the years WikiLeaks also exposed documents that shined a light on U.S. government practices, such as operating procedures in Camp Delta in Guantanamo or a draft of a secretly negotiated, highly controversial trade treaty called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. But that was not the primary focus. To name but a few examples, it published documents that sought to expose a Swiss Bank’s use of Cayman accounts to help rich clients avoid paying taxes, oil related corruption in Peru, banking abuses in Iceland, pharmaceutical company influence peddling at the World Health Organization, and extra-judicial killings in Kenya. For its work, WikiLeaks won Amnesty International's New Media award in 2009 and the Freedom of Expression Award from the British magazine, Index of Censorship, in 2008.

It's sometimes difficult to remember that, given everything that happened in the past two and a half years.

Benkler goes on to point out that the "precedents" that the US tries to rely on to argue that whistleblowing to the press is a form of aiding the enemy are ancient, obsolete and laughable. Many of the arguments go back to some Civil War-era precedents, and even then, when you look at the details you realize they were discussing something extremely different than what happened with Manning (i.e., the cases involved using the press to send coded messages about confidential info, not releasing the info to the public).

In the end, Benkler makes a powerful point:

If Bradley Manning is convicted of aiding the enemy, the introduction of a capital offense into the mix would dramatically elevate the threat to whistleblowers. The consequences for the ability of the press to perform its critical watchdog function in the national security arena will be dire. And then there is the principle of the thing. However technically defensible on the language of the statute, and however well-intentioned the individual prosecutors in this case may be, we have to look at ourselves in the mirror of this case and ask: Are we the America of Japanese Internment and Joseph McCarthy, or are we the America of Ida Tarbell and the Pentagon Papers? What kind of country makes communicating with the press for publication to the American public a death-eligible offense?

What a coup for Al Qaeda, to have maimed our constitutional spirit to the point where we might become that nation.

Given all of that, you can see why some have nominated Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize. While it is highly unlikely that Manning will be given serious consideration for the prize, the more you look at the case, the more you realize how dangerous the US government's own argument is here, and how much of an attack it is on fundamental principles we supposedly believe in and fight for here in the US.

Filed Under: bradley manning, chilling effects, espionage, free speech, freedom of the press, nobel peace prize, whistleblowing, yochai benkler
Companies: wikileaks

Max Mosley Says Newspapers Must Alert Famous People Before Writing Stories About Them

from the prior-restraint-for-the-rich-and-famous dept

Ima Fish alerts us to the bizarre idea of Max Mosley, the former head of the international motorsports organization FIA, to create a special rule for the rich and famous that would require the media to alert them to any stories mentioning them before publication. Mosley, of course, had a... um... well-known privacy incident a few years back, described in the above link by Kashmir Hill thusly:

In 2008, News of the World published a story about Mosley's raunchy role-playing rendezvous with five sex workers, in which they played prison guards to his naughty prisoner. One of the sex workers had a camera supplied by the tabloid, so the story had a graphic video component. The News of the World focused on the fact that the sex workers spoke German throughout the role-playing, and thus described it as a "Nazi orgy."

Not only was Mosley miffed to be part of a sex sting story, he said News of the World mischaracterized his sex fantasy. He said it was just a German prison camp, not a Nazi German prison camp (a crucial distinction... especially given that his father was Oswald Mosley, head of the British fascists who did associate with Nazis). Mosley sued News of the World for defamation and invasion of privacy. He won his case and was awarded nearly $100,000 plus legal fees. Heil yeah.

Of course, by that point the "damage" had been done, and everyone knew about his private sex life. I can understand how that's problematic and upsetting, and would make one want to do something. But, overreacting in the other direction is not a good idea. Yet, Mosley has now asked the European High Court to declare that the UK press is required to tell anyone famous before they write about them, so that if those rich and famous folks desire it, they can go to court to get an injunction barring the story from being published. Think of it as freedom from the press, rather than freedom of the press. A court ruling isn't expected for many months, but hopefully it comes back with a succinct "nein," to the idea.

Filed Under: freedom of the press, journalism, max mosley, prior restraint