Posted on 13/12/2001

NarcoNews Wins Rights For Internet
by Mike Burke*

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.

New York City Independent Media Center journalist Mike Burke conducted a
brief email interview on Monday December 10 with Al Giordano, the founder
of the muckraking online new site NarcoNews.com which covers the Latin
American drug war. On Friday, December 7, a New York State Supreme Court
Judged ruled in favor of NarcoNews in a landmark freedom of press case for
online news sources. NarcoNews and Mario Menendez, Mexican newspaper
publisher, had been sued for libel by the Mexican banking monolith Banamex
for exposing a top executive as a drug smuggler. After three failed
attempts for a libel verdict in Mexican courts, Banamex filed suit in New
York but the case was dismissed on Friday. "Since principles of defamation
law may be applied to the Internet... this court determines that Narco
News, its website, and the writers who post information, are entitled to
all the First Amendment protections accorded a newspaper-magazine or
journalist in defamation suits," ruled New York Supreme Court Justice Paula
Omansky.

INDYMEDIA: How did the suit affect your ability to report As NarcoNews on
the Drug War?

NARCONEWS: It was nearly fatal and took half of my hours away from the real
work - reporting on the US-imposed "war on drugs" from Latin America - for
the past year. I first heard I was being sued by Banamex in late October of
2000 - almost three months after the suit had been filed. I was in an
isolated area of Mexico and checking in with journalist Mario Menendez by
telephone, and he had just been served papers on the lawsuit. I had to cut
short an investigation on political prisoners in Oaxaca and rushed back, 11
hours away, to what we affectionately call the Narco Newsroom, which is
nothing more than a little rented house and a laptop. There, my neighbors
were in an uproar. Armed men had come into the community, an indigenous
town, looking for the "gringo with a mustache" and they were, well,
diverted (at a future date I'll elaborate more on the cat-and-mouse game
with Banamex's inept attorneys at the Akin Gump firm who failed to legally
serve me papers on the case).

I had been in Mexico already for years. I had no money, no regular contact
with more than a dozen people in the United States, Narco News had about
3,000 daily readers and 185 subscribers - the site had just been launched
in April 2000 - and I certainly couldn't afford a lawyer. The PRI regime
was lame-duck but still in power at that time and there were also very
reliable sources who were telling me of a plan to expell me from the
country as has happened to 400 colleagues in journalism and human rights
who had spent time in Zapatista territory. It was, well, a weighty time.

In terms of workload, I would estimate that responding to this lawsuit,
studying the law and court rules, gathering all the mountains of
documentation about the Banamex president Roberto Hernandez's reported
cocaine trafficking activities on his properties and the other related
issues, travelling five times to New York to defend the case, raising some
money so that the narconews.com internet site could have a legal defense on
the complex technical internet jurisdiction issues, coordinating with my
codefendant Mario Menendez, his lawyers Marty Garbus and David Atlas, Narco
News lawyer Tom Lesser, writing legal memoranda, all of this cost me more
than half of my hours over the past year. And I'm speaking of more than a
40-hour work week, of course.

It's still taking time away from the reporting. Right now I'm in Bolivia.
There is a very heated conflict between the coca growers, organized as a
labor union, and the government, taking orders from the US Embassy, a major
growers union leader, Casimiro Huanca, has just been assassinated, and I'm
trying to do the ground-level reporting and maintain a "war log" of sorts
on Narco News to inform the world. But obviously it is also important to
respond to the press. I'm answering these questions from Indymedia first
because, A., Indymedia supported our battle before the press bandwagon on
our case had started, and, B., I know it will be published uncensensored
and I can send other reporters there to get some background info.

In sum, my life of the past year has been one of a nearly full-time
professional defendant. Somehow we've also gotten some good reporting done
on the drug war, but oh, at what a grueling work schedule. That was made
possible by Attorney Tom Lesser coming into the case to defend Narco News
(I had been sued twice, in effect, once as Al Giordano and also as
"Defendant The Narco News Bulletin"). Lesser pitched a perfect game against
the Akin Gumpsters of Banamex and the Judge has just dismissed all the
charges at the first possible instance.

I strongly urge you and other media to interview Attorney Tom Lesser, the
great civil liberties and free speech barrister from Massachusetts. His
office phone number is 413-584-7331, and you can publish it. Lesser was
*the* difference between victory and defeat on this battle. He has been my
friend for 24 years, ever since I was a 17 year old lad being ejected from
the New Hampshire national guard armories after anti-nuke protests in
Seabrook, New Hampshire, and Tom was part of the legal team into whose
custody we minors were placed after that 1977 protest. I'd say he's taken
his custudy responsibilities quite seriously, no? Seriously, he's a great
man and a laser sharp attorney who, from day one, plotted the winning
strategy with this broke pro se defendant.

INDYMEDIA: Could you summarize what the court's ruling mean for online
journalists?

NARCONEWS: So far I have only seen parts of the 29 page decision. The key
part regarding online journalists is posted on the front page of Narco
News: There, Judge Paula Omansky explains that she conducted a "careful
review" of all the works published on Narco News during the relevant time
period of the lawsuit; I had given her 568 pages of every word and every
story and had asked her to please read it during our July 20th court
hearing in New York. "It ain't exactly popular summer reading or the latest
John Grisham novel" I said to her in Court. And she laughed, saying, "I
should hope not! We get Grisham here every day!" Well, she apparently kept
her promise and actually read all of Narco News, not just the reports on
the narco-bankers.

She concluded that Narco News was, lo and behold, a real and serious
project in journalism that deserves the "heightened protection" accorded to
the New York Times and commercial newspapers and magazine based in the
Sullivan v. NY Times decision. She said that Narco News deals with an
important policy issue: the drug war and its affect on the peoples of the
hemisphere. She noted that the fact that we publish letters to the editor
and allow readers to comment makes it even more important to protect our
First Amendment rights.

In sum, with this decision, she broke the commercial press's legal monopoly
on First Amendment protection, and extended that protection to an online
periodical. This is a huge precedent. It applies to Indymedia. It applies
to the website of Washington-based independent journalist Jeremy Bigwood,
he wrote to me yesterday, because he's been reporting on Bolivia and the
Andean drug war, too. It applies to any independent online journalist or
website who makes a fair and responsible attempt to publish the facts and
opinions on important public issues. It endorses, from the Court, the
essence of Indymedia; that citizens can and should be journalists too, and
can and should have the same legal protections as the paid media.

The decision should be read and studied, particularly that section.

* mikeburke99@yahoo.com For full story see
http://www.nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=14874&group=webcast