Common Dreams - News & Views for the Progressive Community\n\n\n\n\n\r\n<\/p>
New York City Independent Media\nCenter journalist Mike Burke conducted a brief email interview on Monday\nDecember 10 with Al Giordano, the founder of the muckraking online new site\nNarcoNews.com which covers\nthe Latin American drug war. On Friday, December 7, a New York State Supreme\nCourt Judged ruled in favor of NarcoNews in a landmark freedom of press case\n for online news sources. NarcoNews and Mario Menendez, Mexican newspaper\npublisher, had been sued for libel by the Mexican banking mogul Banamex for\nexposing a top executive as a drug smuggler. After three failed attempts\nfor a libel verdict in Mexican courts, Banamex filed suit in New York but\nthe case was dismissed on Friday. <\/p>\r\n
\"Since principles of defamation\nlaw may be applied to the Internet... this court determines that Narco News,\nits website, and the writers who post information, are entitled to all the\nFirst Amendment protections accorded a newspaper-magazine or journalist in\ndefamation suits,\" ruled New York Supreme Court Justice Paula Omansky.<\/p>\r\n
INDYMEDIA:<\/b> How did the suit affect your ability to report As NarcoNews on the Drug War?<\/p>\r\n
NARCONEWS:<\/b> It was nearly\nfatal and took half of my hours away from the real work - reporting on the\nUS-imposed \"war on drugs\" from Latin America - for the past year.<\/p>\r\n
I first heard I was being sued\nby Banamex in late October of 2000 - almost three months after the suit had\nbeen filed. I was in an isolated area of Mexico and checking in with journalist\nMario Menendez by telephone, and he had just been served papers on the lawsuit.\nI had to cut short an investigation on political prisoners in Oaxaca and\nrushed back, 11 hours away, to what we affectionately call the Narco Newsroom,\nwhich is nothing more than a little rented house and a laptop. There, my\nneighbors were in an uproar. Armed men had come into the community, an indigenous\ntown, looking for the \"gringo with a mustache\" and they were, well, diverted\n(at a future date I'll elaborate more on the cat-and-mouse game with Banamex's\ninept attorneys at the Akin Gump firm who failed to legally serve me papers\non the case).<\/p>\r\n
I had been in Mexico already\nfor years. I had no money, no regular contact with more than a dozen people\nin the United States, Narco News had about 3,000 daily readers and 185 subscribers\n- the site had just been launched in April 2000 - and I certainly couldn't\nafford a lawyer. The PRI regime was lame-duck but still in power at that\ntime and there were also very reliable sources who were telling me of a plan\nto expell me from the country as has happened to 400 colleagues in journalism\nand human rights who had spent time in Zapatista territory. It was, well,\na weighty time.<\/p>\r\n
In terms of workload, I would\nestimate that responding to this lawsuit, studying the law and court rules,\ngathering all the mountains of documentation about the Banamex president\nRoberto Hernandez's reported cocaine trafficking activities on his properties\nand the other related issues, travelling five times to New York to defend\nthe case, raising some money so that the narconews.com internet site could\nhave a legal defense on the complex technical internet jurisdiction issues,\ncoordinating with my codefendant Mario Menendez, his lawyers Marty Garbus\nand David Atlas, Narco News lawyer Tom Lesser, writing legal memoranda, all\nof this cost me more than half of my hours over the past year. And I'm speaking\nof more than a 40-hour work week, of course.<\/p>\r\n
It's still taking time away\nfrom the reporting. Right now I'm in Bolivia. There is a very heated conflict\nbetween the coca growers, organized as a labor union, and the government,\ntaking orders from the US Embassy, a major growers union leader, Casimiro\nHuanca, has just been assassinated, and I'm trying to do the ground-level\nreporting and maintain a \"war log\" of sorts on Narco News to inform the world.<\/p>\r\n
But obviously it is also important\nto respond to the press. I'm answering these questions from Indymedia first\nbecause, A., Indymedia supported our battle before the press bandwagon on\nour case had started, and, B., I know it will be published uncensensored\nand I can send other reporters there to get some background info.<\/p>\r\n
In sum, my life of the past\nyear has been one of a nearly full-time professional defendant. Somehow we've\nalso gotten some good reporting done on the drug war, but oh, at what a grueling\nwork schedule. That was made possible by Attorney Tom Lesser coming into\nthe case to defend Narco News (I had been sued twice, in effect, once as\nAl Giordano and also as \"Defendant The Narco News Bulletin\"). Lesser pitched\na perfect game against the Akin Gumpsters of Banamex and the Judge has just\ndismissed all the charges at the first possible instance.<\/p>\r\n
I strongly urge you and other\nmedia to interview Attorney Tom Lesser, the great civil liberties and free\nspeech barrister from Massachusetts. His office phone number is 413-584-7331,\nand you can publish it.<\/p>\r\n
Lesser was *the* difference\nbetween victory and defeat on this battle. He has been my friend for 24 years,\never since I was a 17 year old lad being ejected from the New Hampshire national\nguard armories after anti-nuke protests in Seabrook, New Hampshire, and Tom\nwas part of the legal team into whose custody we minors were placed after\nthat 1977 protest. I'd say he's taken his custudy responsibilities quite\nseriously, no? Seriously, he's a great man and a laser sharp attorney who,\nfrom day one, plotted the winning strategy with this broke pro se defendant.<\/p>\r\n
INDYMEDIA:<\/b> Could you summarize what the court's ruling mean for online journalists?<\/p>\r\n
NARCONEWS:<\/b> So far I have\nonly seen parts of the 29 page decision. The key part regarding online journalists\nis posted on the front page of Narco News:<\/p>\r\n
There, Judge Paula Omansky explains\nthat she conducted a \"careful review\" of all the works published on Narco\nNews during the relevant time period of the lawsuit; I had given her 568\npages of every word and every story and had asked her to please read it during\nour July 20th court hearing in New York. \"It ain't exactly popular summer\nreading or the latest John Grisham novel\" I said to her in Court. And she\nlaughed, saying, \"I should hope not! We get Grisham here every day!\" Well,\nshe apparently kept her promise and actually read all of Narco News, not\njust the reports on the narco-bankers.<\/p>\r\n
She concluded that Narco News\nwas, lo and behold, a real and serious project in journalism that deserves\nthe \"heightened protection\" accorded to the New York Times and commercial\nnewspapers and magazine based in the Sullivan v. NY Times<\/b> decision.\nShe said that Narco News deals with an important policy issue: the drug war\nand its affect on the peoples of the hemisphere. She noted that the fact\nthat we publish letters to the editor and allow readers to comment makes\nit even more important to protect our First Amendment rights.<\/p>\r\n
In sum, with this decision,\nshe broke the commercial press's legal monopoly on First Amendment protection,\nand extended that protection to an online periodical. This is a huge precedent.\nIt applies to Indymedia. It applies to the website of Washington-based independent\njournalist Jeremy Bigwood\n, he wrote to me yesterday, because he's been reporting on Bolivia and the\nAndean drug war, too. It applies to any independent online journalist or\nwebsite who makes a fair and responsible attempt to publish the facts and\nopinions on important public issues. It endorses, from the Court, the essence\nof Indymedia; that citizens can and should be journalists too, and can and\nshould have the same legal protections as the paid media.<\/p>\r\n
The decision should be read and studied, particularly that section.<\/p>\r\n
INDYMEDIA:<\/b> Had the court\nruled in favor of Banamex how do you envision online reporting, especially\ninternational reporting, would have changed?<\/p>\r\n
NARCONEWS:<\/b> The fact that\nbillionaires filed the lawsuit in expensive New York City against a Mexican\ninternet site, a Mexican journalist, and a US journalist for his work in\nMexico, already has had a chilling effect. You don't know how many emails\nI received in the past year from other web journalists and website producers\nfearful of the consequences for them. Some had even curtailed their activities\n- we didn't, but some who were not party to the case did out of a reasonable\nfear that the same can be done to them.<\/p>\r\n
The most damage was done by\nthe filing of this frivilous lawsuit and its abuse of the court system. It\nwas a malicious prosecution, without basis in the facts. Banamex and the\nAkin Gump mercenary lawyers tried to overpower us by spending, I estimate,\nmany millions of dollars on this prosecution. They hired an espionage firm,\nDSFX, to spy on us. According to Mexican journalist Carlos Ramirez, a document\nshowed that Banamex had two Mexican judicial police \"physically following\"\nme. Ha! A lot of good it did 'em!<\/p>\r\n
If the Court had ruled against\nthe motions to dismiss, the case would have gone to the next phase, the \"summary\njudgment\" stage, and discovery, which means that both sides would be able\nto subpoena witnesses and documents from the other. We were ready for that,\ntoo. We were ready to take this all the way to trial, to a jury, and to turn\nthe tables and put the Drug War itself On Trial. Attorney Tom Lesser, with\nAbbie Hoffman, Amy Carter and a group of UMass students did exactly that\nto the CIA in 1986, and the CIA, not the students, was found guilty by the\njury of citizens. This was our plan here. But it was a plan that would have\ncost us half a million dollars more (My co-defendant and I are each at least\n$200,000 in debt just to win this victory.)<\/p>\r\n
But am I glad the Court shut\nthem down in the first instance? You bet. Because as much fun as I would\nhave had representing myself at trial, it would have cost five more years\nof my life, tread upon the real reporting from Latin America, and had this\nchilling effect on all independent online media. That the Court did its homework\nand wrote what attorney Marty Garbus, who has read the entire decision, tells\nme is a very strong decision written to defeat any appeal against it, was\na miracle. And when your life is spent working for social change, you come\nto rely on regular miracles, as so many of our colleagues already understand.<\/p>\r\n
INDYMEDIA:<\/b>How has the Mexican press covered the case?<\/p>\r\n
NARCONEWS:<\/b> This has been\na much bigger story in Mexico than it was in the US. It has been in virtually\nevery daily newspaper. I mentioned the national columnist Carlos Ramirez\nabove, the grand fighter for press freedom in Mexico. He dedicated about\na dozen columns to this case, put his weekly magazine, La Crisis, to work\ninvestigating it, and really organized the conscientious Mexican press to\ncover it extensively. Also, a regional group based in El Salvador, Periodistas\nFrente de la Corrupcion, maintained a Spanish language web page on the case\nand sparked a Pan-American interest.<\/p>\r\n
Compare that to the New York\nmedia: Absolutely nothing was covered by the New York Times (the corrupted\nactivities of one ex NYT correspondent, Sam Dillon, was in fact an issue\nin the case and Dillon had been mentioned by Banamex in its complaint as\na journalist who opposed our activities; so it is understandable why the\nTimes ran from the biggest press freedom trial in New York), the News, the\nPost, nor the Wall Street Journal, which spent two months investigating the\ncase and then came September 11th, their offices destroyed, and wham, all\nthat work seemed to come to naught. <\/p>\r\n
INDYMEDIA:<\/b> Are there plans for any countersuit again Banamex to recover damages? Or is there any word on Banamex filing an appeal?<\/p>\r\n
NARCONEWS:<\/b> We don't know\nif Banamex will appeal. Ask them. If they want to throw more money into the\npit, let them. An appeals court would have two options: affirm Judge Omansky's\ndecision or send the case back to a Judge who has already shown herself to\nbe conscientious, hard-working, serious. If Banamex wants that, bring it\non!<\/p>\r\n
And as for counterclaims, stay\ntuned. This was a malicious prosecution, aimed only to silence your and my\nfree speech rights. It was an abuse of the court system. The law was broken\nby bringing this frivilous lawsuit. Is Narco News now going to switch from\ndefense to offense in Court? Should Banamex (now Citigroup) be made to pay\nfor its abuse of the legal system? Talk to Attorney Tom Lesser about this.\nOf course we're going after them, with the same relentless passion that characterized\nour defense. You think I'm going to let all this great legal training I received\nas a pro se defendant in this case go to waste? Yes, I think I'll be seeing\nthose greedy billionaire swine in court again, but with the tables turned.<\/p>\r\n\n<\/body><\/html>\n","contact":" mikeburke99@yahoo.com","link":"","address":"NYC IMC","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"On Friday, December 7, a New York State Supreme Court Judged ruled in favor of the muckraking online news site NarcoNews in a landmark freedom of press case for online news sources.","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2001\/12\/nycimc.html","filesize":"15.6 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2001\/12\/13515.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[]}