“We are prepared to extend the deadline for you to give an undertaking until 4pm on Thursday 13 July 2006 on condition that the documents referred to in my first letter are immediately removed from your website and not reproduced by you anywhere else…”

Click here for the full text

Craig Murray replies:

Mr Buttrill,

Thank you for this second letter. It is rather a peculiar request. You claim to be willing to extend the deadline for me to be able to take legal advice, providing that I concede the principal point in the meantime.

I cannot see the need for this haste. In copyright cases it is not my understanding that it is generally considered necessary to remove a publication from circulation pending a court decision. For example, there was a recent highly publicised copyright case over the Da Vinci code. Was it deemed necessary by the court to withdraw the Da Vinci Code from sale while the case was heard? No, it was not.

Your peremptory demands reveal the motive behind your actions in this case – the suppression of information for political purposes. I don’t believe it is right to use Crown Copyright in this way. Otherwise the government has an arbitrary power to keep secret absolutely anything that it does. Your contention in your letter of 7 July that the government can use Crown Copyright arbitrarily and politically to suppress material released under the Freedom of Information Act, would obviate the whole purpose of that Act in giving the public a “Right to know” what is being done in their name.

I have this morning contacted solicitors to take legal advice. I could not do so over the weekend as this is not a criminal matter, and copyright lawyers do not run 24 hour call out services. Unfortunately I must spend much of today at St Thomas’ Hospital for treatment of serious medical conditions. The Foreign & Commonwealth Office’s treatment of me, as detailed in the documents you are trying to suppress, was the direct cause of those medical conditions, a fact I would welcome the chance to discuss in court.

You have been free to advise me what I “Must” do. You must bear in mind what the content of the story is, that I am seeking to tell and the government is seeking to suppress.

I accept your renewed deadline as reasonable, but will not be removing the documents in the interim – until I get advice, I shall go by what I know of the law, and all I know in this matter is the Da Vinci Code precedent.

In the meantime, I should be grateful if, entirely without prejudice, you could furnish me with some practical advice. If the documents are, as you allege, Crown Copyright, where and how do I go about making a formal application for permission to reproduce them?

Also, I am copying your letters to my website. Do you allege that to be also a breach of Crown Copyright? If I remove the documents but not your letters, would you still go for an injunction? If I am served an injunction and remove the documents, but put the injunction on my website to explain why, do you allege I am breaching Crown Copyright by publishing the injunction?

Do you allege it to be a breach of Crown Copyright to reproduce on a weblog any document at all produced by government? The definition given in your letter of 7 July would plainly cover speeches given by Ministers and written by civil servants. Is it a breach of Crown Copyright to reproduce such ministerial speeches on a weblog? How long a quote could you make from a ministerial speech before breaching copyright? Does this cover, for example, letters from local authorities and health trusts, or just from central government? Does it cover parking tickets? What about quotes from the King James Bible?

If all or any of these are, in your view, matters of discretion where the government can exercise Crown Copyright if it so chooses, then the following is perhaps the most important question of all. Are there any criteria of reasonable action which the government is obliged to consider when deciding whether to enforce claimed copyright or not, or is the Crown claiming a power which is solely arbitrary?

I apologise for my confusion. You can see why I need to take legal advice. I will revert to you.

Craig Murray

From The Guardian

The effect the war in Iraq has had on motivating Muslims planning acts of violence in the UK is underlined to senior Scotland Yard officers in a private briefing document compiled by anti-terrorist specialists.

The document, marked “restricted”, says the conflict in Iraq has had a “huge impact”. It explains that British policy over Iraq and Palestine is used by terrorists to justify their violence, and early progress in reducing the threat to the UK is not expected.

After the London bombings, British counter-terrorism officials intensified their efforts to understand why some Muslims turned to violence. The document, which has been seen by the Guardian, is the product of that work, and was completed within the past three months before being distributed to senior officers across London. The document says in a headline introducing one section: “Foreign policy and Iraq; Iraq HAS [its emphasis] had a huge impact.”

It continues: “Iraq is cited many times in interviews with detained extremists but it is over-simplistic to describe terrorism as the result of foreign policy. What western foreign policy does provide is justification for violence …”

It says changing jihadist attitudes is a long term issue: “Whatever preventative measures are taken or discussed around the world, none are comprehensive and early results are not expected. Many jihadists do not feel that ‘winning’ is important because God will see to that eventually – what is important is ‘taking part’.”

The report says the removal of grievances the jihadists use to justify violence will take time: “What will change them – gradually – is argument, the removal of justifying causes (Palestine, Iraq), the erosion of perverted beliefs and day-to-day frustrations.”

In a speech weeks after London was attacked, Tony Blair said it was not the Iraq war but an evil ideology that was to blame for attacks on Britain: “If it is Iraq that motivates [the bombers], why is the same ideology killing Iraqis by terror in defiance of an elected Iraqi government? What was September 11 2001 the reprisal for?”

The police document says terrorist anger at UK foreign policy “masks” other motives, which are “insecurity and fear, loss of identity through encroaching secularism and a sense of cultural failure, past and present … Hatred of the west may be characterised as transferred self-blame and self-hatred.

“All that said, though, it is still important to a) continue to explain foreign policy, b) accept failings and disappointing results, and c) remember that a few seconds of film footage showing ill-disciplined behaviour by allied troops has more impact than thousands of well-argued words.”

The last point is believed to be a reference to allegations of UK and US troops ill treating and even killing Iraqi civilians, and to the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal.

There has been debate among counter-terrorism experts about the extent to which Britain’s foreign policy has made it a terrorist target. One counter-terrorism source said: “We should not slavishly follow the government line. It damages our ability to do our job.”

To: The British Government

We, the British Public, call for a fully comprehensive Public Inquiry into the July 7th 2005 London Bombings.

Only this can provide us with the information we need as to what actually happened, how it happened and why it happened so that we will be better prepared to prevent such a tragedy happening again.

We, the Public were attacked. We, the Public have questions. We, the Public want our questions answered, independently, transparently and honestly.

Sincerely…

To sign the petition go here

To read more from one of the survivors go here

The Foreign Affairs Select Committee of the UK parliament has published their latest report which confirms, yet again, the tragically obvious. The invasion of Iraq has provided a tremendous boost to Al Qaeda and violent extremism, the west is losing the propaganda war, Guantanamo Bay is a fabulous recruiting symbol (for terrorism), and people in the UK are at a significantly greater threat now due to the policies adopted by Tony Blair.

The report also calls for the UK and US to stop interferring in Iraqi politics, for the UK government to set out the circumstances under which it would withdraw its troops, and for the regulation of mercenaries in Iraq and elsewhere.

“The Committee concludes that al-Qaeda continues to pose an extremely serious and brutal threat to the United Kingdom and its interests, and that it will become more difficult to tackle the threat of international terrorism. The Committee also says that the situation in Iraq has provided both a powerful source of propaganda and a crucial training ground for international terrorists. Progress towards resolving key international conflicts would go some way towards removing the widespread feelings of injustice in the Muslim world that feed into causes of and support for terrorism. (Paragraphs 15, 21, 30)

The continuing deterioration of the security situation in Iraq is extremely worrying, as are the deepening sectarian and ethnic conflicts. Relying on Kurdish and Shia communities to build up the Iraqi Security Forces has contributed to the development of sectarian forces, and the Committee recommends that the Government must continue to work with its international partners to address this problem. Similarly, the Government should do all it can to facilitate the UN’s role in Iraq. The Committee reiterates its predecessor’s conclusion that the international community, particularly the US and UK, must refrain from interfering in Iraqi politics. (Paragraph 232, 238, 261)

The Committee recommends that the Government should set out in its response to the report the circumstances under which it would withdraw British Forces from Iraq, and sets out several other issues it would also like the Government to address in the response, including the level of detentions by coalition forces, where it recommends that wherever and whenever possible detainees should be handed over to the Iraqi government for trial; that the government should set out the number detained and the basis for their detention; and the slow progress towards resolving the issue of how to regulate private military and security companies, which are increasingly being used in Iraq and elsewhere.(Paragraphs 245, 247, 253)”

Riding pillion in the US ‘war on terror’ and the invasion of Iraq was predictable strategic folly. Yet despite overwhelming evidence of the disastrous effects on national security, our parliamentary system continues to show a stunning inability to self-correct its failed trajectory. For example, as of this post, the monitoring of EDM 1088 still shows only 157 signatures. Its just one indicator of the inertia and ostrich-like behaviour that besets the bulk of New Labour, and New Tory.

By Simon Jenkins in Times Online

Thank God for lawyers. When elected legislators fail in their duty to check executive power, judges must step forward or democrats will rely on soldiers or mobs.

In both Britain and America this past week, judges have begun to curb injustices invoked in the name of counter-terrorism by the Blair and Bush administrations in the years since 9/11. The British High Court’s ruling on ‘control orders’ and the US Supreme Court’s judgment on Guantanamo have demanded human and judicial rights against governments overreacting to Islamic violence. The calls have been modest, but they have begun.

In Britain, ministers had assured critics that orders for house arrest of suspects would be subject to judicial oversight. Now that oversight has occurred they are furious and will appeal (and doubtless change the law if they do not get their way). A heavy duty rests on the law lords.

Five years after 9/11 and one year after 7/7, the so-called ‘war on terror’ is acquiring a narrative. It started with an outrage and moved swiftly to belligerent retaliation, including the killing of thousands of non-participants. This led to a burst of repressive authoritarianism as embarrassed leaders sought to reassure the public while enhancing their power as ‘commanders in chief’. The narrative has now matured into trench warfare between that power and constitutional roadblocks meant to limit it.

(more…)

This exchenge of letters between Henry Porter to Tony Blair were published in The Observer earlier this year.

From: Henry Porter To: Tony Blair Re: Liberty

Dear Prime Minister,

Nine years ago, as I watched you arrive at the South Bank on the night when you became Prime Minister, I would never have imagined that I’d come to view you as a serious threat to British democracy. But regrettably I have. Either by accident or design, your ‘modernising’ Labour government has steadily attacked our rights and freedoms, eroding the Rule of Law and profoundly altering the relationship between authority and the people.

Successive laws passed by New Labour have pared down our liberty at an astonishing rate. The right to trial by jury, the right to silence, the right not to be punished until a court has decided that the law has been broken, the right to demonstrate and protest, the presumption of innocence, the right to private communication, the right to travel without surveillance and the details of that journey being retained – all have been curtailed by your legislation.

While hearsay has become admissible in court, free speech is being patrolled by officious use of public order laws. In Parliament Square we now see people parading with blank placards to make the point that they are not allowed to demonstrate within one kilometre of the Square under the new Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (SOCPA). And this in the land once called the Mother of Parliaments.

For a democrat, this is all profoundly troubling. I hope that you believe you are acting in good faith; that you are simply motivated by the need to respond to the threats of terrorism and organised crime and the nuisance of anti-social behaviour, but I wonder if you have any idea of the cumulative effect of the 15 or so bills which have incrementally removed or compromised our liberties.

(more…)

From The Independent

In another example of the Government’s draconian stance on political protest, Steven Jago, 36, a management accountant, yesterday became the latest person to be charged under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act.

On 18 June, Mr Jago carried a placard in Whitehall bearing the George Orwell quote: “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” In his possession, he had several copies of an article in the American magazine Vanity Fair headlined “Blair’s Big Brother Legacy”, which were confiscated by the police. “The implication that I read from this statement at the time was that I was being accused of handing out subversive material,” said Mr Jago. Yesterday, the author, Henry Porter, the magazine’s London editor, wrote to Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, expressing concern that the freedom of the press would be severely curtailed if such articles were used in evidence under the Act.

Mr Porter said: “The police told Mr Jago this was ‘politically motivated’ material, and suggested it was evidence of his desire to break the law. I therefore seek your assurance that possession of Vanity Fair within a designated area is not regarded as ‘politically motivated’ and evidence of conscious law-breaking.”

Scotland Yard has declined to comment.

Enemies of the state?

Maya Evans 25

The chef was arrested at the Cenotaph in Whitehall reading out the names of 97 British soldiers killed in Iraq. She was the first person to be convicted under section 132 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, which requires protesters to obtain police permission before demonstrating within one kilometre of Parliament.

Helen John 68, and Sylvia Boyes 62

The Greenham Common veterans were arrested in April by Ministry of Defence police after walking 15ft across the sentry line at the US military base at Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire. Protesters who breach any one of 10 military bases across Britain can be jailed for a year or fined ‘5,000.

Brian Haw 56

Mr Haw has become a fixture in Parliament Square with placards berating Tony Blair and President Bush. The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 was designed mainly with his vigil in mind. After being arrested, he refused to enter a plea. However, Bow Street magistrates’ court entered a not guilty plea on his behalf in May.

Walter Wolfgang 82

The octogenarian heckled Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, during his speech to the Labour Party conference. He shouted “That’s a lie” as Mr Straw justified keeping British troops in Iraq. He was manhandled by stewards and ejected from the Brighton Centre. He was briefly detained under Section 44 of the 2000 Terrorism Act.