Meanwhile… Politics.ie stops talking about the Taoiseach. March 30, 2008
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Irish Political Blogs, Irish Politics.trackback
Interesting times at Politics.ie just got… well… more interesting as noted by Starkadder. For, on foot of a discussion of the Tribunal dealings the week before last David Cochrane was sent a letter from Frank Ward and Company which called on him to remove ‘comments ‘ from P.ie and to identify the names and addresses of six contributors to the debate.
On foot of the letter David has said:
Until further notice, the Tribunal section of the forum is out-of-bounds, and no Tribunal discussion is allowed. Furthermore there can be no discussion with respect to the Tribunals or anything concerning Bertie Ahern.
It is a problematic – and no doubt for David worrying – issue. On the one hand – and I only loosely followed the original discussion – it is clear that there was considerable heat on the matter. On the other isn’t this an issue of moderation? Why not just have a limited number of discussions on the Tribunal and Ahern which are tightly moderated? The letter doesn’t require P.ie to do anything other than two very specific things one of which has been done, the removal of the offending comments, one of which David (entirely) rightly says he won’t:
Under no circumstances can I be in a position to disclose the identity of any user on this website, and I will not be doing so.
So why the guillotine on all discussion of the Tribunal and Ahern?
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
I’m not sure about the reason for the “guillotine” on
discussion of these issues-no doubt Mr. Cochrane is
simply treading carefully, given the strict nature of
Irish libel law. I wonder if pressed, will they have to
ban the six posters rather than hand over their names?
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I’d be fairly amazed if they did, and btw I don’t think they should, indeed if this went anywhere much more than they did. I just said on the other post that I think that maybe this indicates either supercaution on David’s part (understandable), or a lack of capacity to have tight moderation (quite likely).
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One final thing. People are making some play of the Libertas connections to all this, but that is a very very complex dynamic…
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I have to agree with one of the P.ie Posters who suggested
people write to the newspapers about this issue-maybe
it could start a discussion about libel laws and the the internet.
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I think it highlights the problem of being a player AND a commentator. David Cochrane´s profile, while not exactly mainstream, is high enough in political circles, given his prominent role in Libertas. People know who he is, and that he is resident in Ireland. And with libertas, he’s putting himself up against a lot of people who actually enjoy playing dirty. Mind you, so does libertas! 🙂
Furthermore, it is complicated by the fact that the actual servers used by politics.ie (hosting365) are also situated in Ireland. If the servers were situated in America, or Finland, Russia, it would make attempts to “get” information from those servers all the more difficult. In other words, the physical presence of politics.ie´s servers in Ireland means that the courts and the guards can call up to the offices of hosting365 in Park West, Dublin, and physically take them. Hard to do that if they are in the States, or Russia.
so. A perfect storm of servers and administrators in the same legal jurisdiction.
The lesson is simple: if you are going to run a political message board, keep your identity ambiguous, or even better, secret, including your WHOIS identity, and keep your servers out of the country. (well that’s me and Donagh on dublin opinion fucked, but there you go.)
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David Cochrane’s reaction to this is all very strange. In the very first sentence of his “Announcement”, he concedes liability, admitting that at least some content was defamatory.
There’s no rowing back from that concession. While not specific in conceding exactly which posts were defamatory, the admission is all that the firm of solicitors need to take a trip to the High Court for some serious redress. (It’s probably also enough to convince that court that it should make an Order to compelling David and/or the hosting company to do all their power to identify at least some of those users cited in the solicitors letter.) I’m not spoofing on how black-and-white this is (I just it wasn’t as bleak for Dave and P.ie): I have recently practiced High Court litigation including defamation proceedings.
I can’t see the law firm taking this lying down. They can claim (with whatever level of justification) that the libel was damaging to their standing and their ability to do business into the future. A significant award of damages cannot be ruled out. I’d say it’s a probability.
So what can be done to persuade them not to follow through? Well, posting up their solicitor’s letter isn’t a good start. Neither is the empty promise not to disclose information on site users.
All in all, a couple of silly posts from know-it-all users could shut leave David Cochrane with a bill he can never hope to pay. Of his assets, he could be forced to sell his controlling interest in Politics.ie or hand it over to the complainants as part of a settlement.
Can the firm be “shamed” out of following through? I don’t think this particular firm works that way, and their highest-profile client isn’t about to do a favour for Mr Libertas by telling his solicitors to lay off. If anything, institutional Fianna Fáil will be cackling to themselves at the fate in store for Cochrane.
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Folks,
It is not really that difficult to discuss politics or anything controversial without provoking solicitors’ letters. Just why should anyone get exemption from the law of the land by running a website ? BTW, I am not a fan of web-based discussions and nothing that p.ie produced has persuaded me to change. Usenet is your only man – and there are no self-appointed censors, either.
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“Can the firm be “shamed” out of following through? I don’t think this particular firm works that way, and their highest-profile client isn’t about to do a favour for Mr Libertas by telling his solicitors to lay off. If anything, institutional Fianna Fáil will be cackling to themselves at the fate in store for Cochrane.”
I disagree. A legal case could get much media coverage and that coverage could frame this story as a case of Ahern silencing criticism about him. As that is a real possibility, I can’t see them pursuing it in earnest at the moment. A confidential deal involving a grovelling apology and tighter future moderation of Ahern related threads would probably be more prudent than a public legal assault, with the danger that it might be used as yet another stick to beat Ahern with. .
Plus, they are unlikely to be able to get a huge amount of cash out of Cochrane – he’s not super-rich is he?
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Well, Cochrane’s reaction has certainly done the Irish blogging world no favours. Methinks there’s going to be a rash of self-censorship for the next couple of weeks, especially around Bertie and the tribunal.
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David Cochrane has said over on jc skinner’s blog, skinflicks, that Sean Dorgan, FF general secretary, drew the solicitors´attention to the posts.
Quote: “I can absolutely 100% confirm it was Sean Dorgan from Fianna Fail who drew this to the solicitors attention.
Liam Guidera (The solicitor in question) told me this during a rather tense phonecall yesterday evening.”
Jc skinner is one of the bloggers mentioned in the socilitor’s letter. He said that he has not said nor done anything wrong. Thing is, David Cochrane has already apologised on his behalf for his comments. where does that leave skinner?
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As I write, Politics.ie has gone offline.
There’s an illuminating take on this controversy, by one of those directly involved, here:
http://skinflicks.blogspot.com/2008/03/aherns-solicitors-try-to-silence-online.html
The sooner Fianna Fáil get rid of Bertie, the better for all concerned.
It’s funny how, up to one year ago, the Greens seemed to see all these matters very clearly (www.greenparty.ie/en/news/latest_news/address_by_john_gormley_to_the_national_convention), and then, perhaps inevitably, they hit their “four legs good, two legs better” stage…
“You can end the nightmare of Planet Bertie in the summer of 2007.”
Well, maybe a year later.
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The messages are still available through google cache. Are google now liable for libel proceedings? I mean, it’s still on their servers.
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I presume that there are problems in posting a link to the Google cache, eh?
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I hope I’m not being too pessimistic about things. For all I know, David Cochrane is talking to Liam Guidera right now and they’re all seeing sense.
As things stand though, they have a lot of leverage over Dave.
I don’t share Chekov’s confidence that this situation can be presented as Ahern silencing criticism. The simple fact is that one or more of the solicitors in that firm was libelled (unless the accusation made was true, and I have no reason to believe is the case). It is now their call what they want to do about the libel. If they go down the legal route (and the ARE solicitors), it cannot be said to be at Ahern’s request.
Of course, Bertie Ahern and other clients of that firm could be in a position to tell the firm to lay off. But I don’t see why they would, and it would be reasonable of the firm’s partners to politely tell them that it’s the partners’ decision, not their clients’.
Anyway, hopefully it’s not going to get too messy because it could get very messy.
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On the other hand, here’s the latest from David Cochrane’s Facebook page: (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=660505954)
“David Cochrane is taking no lessons from lawyers who are representing a liar at a tribunal. Bring on the legal pain.”
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Libero, I’d tend to agree with you. Sure, it’s possible that this was done to create a ‘chilling’ effect to debate. But again, that wasn’t what was in the letter from the solicitors. Two things and only two things were asked for. One was reasonable, the other… well… DC acted entirely appropriately in both instances, so why go thermonuclear on the issue and shut the whole lot down, except for caution. As for debate and discussion. The IT editorial which I quoted yesterday makes entirely reasonable points which I or any of us would repeat.
It’s all very messy because often people don’t want to act either in the best interests of P.ie (or arguably that of their argument) by moderating their tone and secondly by blowing it out of proportion. But equally I would agree with chekov that most likely the implied course of action in the letter will not be followed through.
Pidge, re Google cache, that’s a most interesting question. Conor, that’s also a most interesting question re admissions…
P.ie is back up now…
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David Cochrane has just announced on politics.ie that he has changed servers. The website is now hosted in the USA.
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P.ie is back up now…
It’s not up for me. 😦
I presume that there are problems in posting a link to the Google cache, eh?
Pidge, you must understand. Too many people know me. It’s bad enough having Greens after my scalp…
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As of 8.32, I couldn’t get P.ie either. I wonder what will
happen to it? Down for almost a fortnight a few weeks
ago, and now this.Be terrible to lose it….
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It’s been working for me
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If memory serves me correctly, the controversial thread on Politics.ie was entitled “Grainne Carruth”, and the opening post was by “saul of tarsus”. It wasn’t particularly memorable…
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I don’t why, Garibaldy, but I can’t get on thru any
of my browsers (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Netscape).
Maybe there’s a reason why some of us can’t get on?
One thing struck me-I remember Cochrane
starting a thread about Ahern called “Is it the end?”.
If he’s unlucky, it may well be 😦 .
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Starkadder, did you try clearing your internet cache? Sometimes the browser picks up the address stored in your internet temporary files. P.ie has just changed servers, so it may be the case that your browser is going to the old server address, not the new one. If you clear all history, and then try to log on, it might work then.
This whole case, though, it’s all very, very strange. P.ie has changed servers, but with Cochrane still resident in Ireland, he can still be brought to court. Don’t matter if the case is subsequently thrown out or not, he still can be brought to court because he lives here.
I dunno. The general secretary of FF himself rang the law firm in question to report the alleged libel. It’s like we’re down a fucking rabbit-hole.
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The Tribune had a bit on Bertie’s lawyers today. Frank Ward & Co. seem to be an interesting bunch – they describe themselves as a “boutique style practice”, whatever that means.
And soubresauts, nice work on tying the Greens in on this one, it’s hard to believe that they’ve remained silent on this scandal as it enters its second day.
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Jesus H. Christ.
If you get a chance head over to politics.ie. The law firm has written to Cochrane condemning his actions in reproducing the original letter. Furthermore, they say that the letter is NOT to be reproduced in any fashion. Cochrane’s only gone and done it! p.15 of the comments.
Quote from Cochrane: “I am posting the following, on the basis that this website is hosted in the United States of America, and as such I am using the First Amendment which guarantees freedom of speech, Politics.ie is not responsible for what you post on this website, however YOU ARE responsible for your own comments. My response in quotes follows. ”
The guy’s insane. He lives in Dublin! The only people protected are the host company.
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[…] and addresses of six contributors be passed over to the firm. The issue as unfolding was covered here by cedarlounge. Ar first, the case seemed to be one of enormous significance for the Irish blogging community. […]
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above link just disappeared – one of several links leading to 404s on this issue I’ve found on my wanderings this evening – they’re disappearing b4 google caches them – which is neat – irishelection blog was another- lots of lawyers staying up late browsing websites?
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Conor, that thought crossed my mind re publication of letter. Better by far to keep quiet and let the lawyers for both sides who apparently are meeting today sort it out…
‘Boutique’ style? One of my least favourite prefixes… i.e. boutique style architects, boutique style this… boutique style that…
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The article from pingback comment 26 is back up. Not a case of lawyers browsing the Internet, more rather whether I wanted to publicly call Cochrane a fucking idiot or not. Decided to go ahead and call him a dope. I mean, calling around to a lawyer´s house and shitting on his coffee table. It’s hardly Zhukov when it comes to battle tactics, no?
Lawyers are professional gunslingers. cochrane’s like the farmer in “Shane”, and at the moment he’s got Jack Palance saying to him. “pick up the gun.”
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Discussion websites and blogs have serious opinion-forming power. Politics.ie, through its clever software, generally enlightened moderation, and sheer weight of numbers of contributors, is an outstanding example. Bertie and his not-so-merry men have recognized this and are moving to gain as much control as they can.
Bertie & co are more worried about the opinion-forming power of ordinary people than of the power of journalists trained to be circumspect. At the same time they think the ordinary people are easy targets, since they (Bertie & co) have been successfully screwing them for decades.
Glancing at what journalists are writing, you can see the meaning of their words is pretty much the same as what appeared in the “offending” Politics.ie page.
For example, David McKittrick, in The Independent last Saturday, wrote:
“The secretary’s near-breakdown under cross-examination produced both a wave of public sympathy for her and a surge of anti-Ahern feeling, the allegation being that she had been pushed to carry the can for her boss.
“… Mr Ahern’s coalition partners, whose support he relies on to stay in power, demanding he explain glaring discrepancies in accounts of his finances.
“Ms Carruth’s public humiliation and distress have rebounded badly on Mr Ahern. Her emotional reaction starkly contrasted with the performance of many wealthy individuals who had been asked to explain donations to Mr Ahern. Some brazened it out with versions of events which seem suspicious and implausible. A widespread perception is that some of them care little whether or not they are believed, so long as wrong-doing cannot actually be proved against them.
“Opposition leader Phil Hogan, said: ‘The public concern with these issues did not begin the day the Taoiseach shamefully hid behind his constituency secretary and forced Grainne Carruth into an impossible position.'”
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Has this business of claiming First Amendment rights just because the data happens to be stored in the US ever been tested in Ireland?
Methinks David is being badly advised, and not by lawyers.
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That is not what was said on politics.ie though. The alleged libel was against the law firm. They wanted the allegations regarding themselves taken down. Nothing that was said about FF or Bertie was brought up – just the law firm. We can look for conspiracies, but the law firm wanted the allegations regarding their professional conduct withdrawn.
god, this is all very depressing. I feel that Cochrane is looking at destroying all of the hard work he’s put in with politics.ie, and that is actually quite sad.
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I wonder if Cochrane is hoping that controversy will produce media work, and perhaps open up a new career.
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I can’t believe what a bunch of wimps you bloggers are! Typical middle class bottlers.
I’m not a fan of Cochrane but fair play to him for having the balls to stand up to the all feared “solicitors letter”. Fuck them. Do you really think that Ahern will allow this crowd of fools to get him onto the front pages again? The Irish media are already under serious pressure with the libel laws (a good recent example was a serious criminal awarded nearly €1 million) and will row in behind anybody with the balls to take on the libel laws. At the moment the last thing Ahern wants is more bad publicity. The rest of the blogging world should be rushing to back Cochrane up, not shafting him. If the suits are successful with Cochrane you will see some serious self censorship in the future. Already Indymedia, the fairly open left wing website, has become more and more censorious over the past couple of months.
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What a provocative and brave contribution, anonymous internet contributor.
Two quick points. Firstly, people may genuinely think that the approach taken by Dave is misguided. This hardly makes them “bottlers”. Secondly, what precise difference do you think the support or otherwise of the ‘blogging world’ would make one way or the other?
As for your “middle class” comment, how would you know what background the contributors to this thread come from? I look forward to hearing what Conor has to say in response.
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Babs, that’s working class wimp I’ll have you know.
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Oh and Babs, as I said, the law firm in question said nothing about comments regarding Bertie and FF. They were concerned only with libel regarding themselves.
The problem now is that because the original posts are gone, even from google cache, it’s hard to show people that FF, Bertie, and the Mahon tribunal were not part of the contentious comment. It was all about the law firm in question.
But the little tykes, gawd bless ém, on politics.ie got on their horses and starting screaming “free speech!”.
This is not to downplay the enormous pressure that David must have been under, but all the more reason for a cool-headed approach.
There’s free speech, and there’s free speech, and then there’s walking up to mike tyson and calling him queer to his face.
Man, you have got to pick your fights. The worst case senario here is if the libel case goes ahead, and by doing so sets the legal precedent regarding Irish free speech on the web.
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gawd bless ém
Heh, not used to the Spanish keyboard yet I see….
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🙂
ñot at all.
Çonor.
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Hello well known unanonymous internet contributor Smiffy.
Reading the comments of a number of bloggers the overriding opinion was that Cochrane was wrong to take on the feared suits and their “solicitor’s letter”. Some of the sadder comments implied that Cochrane’s actions had put the whole important world of internet blogging at risk. The real potential of blogging is that it gives people the freedom and ability to comment on issues without depending on the mainstream media to cover their point of view. With that potential goes the risk of having complete halfwits posting shite but that can’t be helped. If a blog site is good people will come back time and time again but if it is full of nutcases it will quickly die. Cochrane, not being a rebelous chap by nature, will need the support of as many people as possible because if he is forced to back down it will only encourage the suits to go after more targets.
Sorry Conor, I should have included working class bottlers as well!!!
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No problem 🙂
What I’m saying Babs is that over on politics.ie there are comments being made that give the impression that this is about Bertie and FF shutting politics.ie down. It is nothing of the sort. The comment related to a law firm, and that law firm wanted the comment removed. David did this, then apologised, and then printed the letter from the solicitors, and then printed their reply!
I don’t want to see anything bad happen to Dave, or to politics,ie, but what we’re talking about, at best, is an incredibly immature response, one in which you’ve got to wonder whether the people over on politics.ie really know the implications of for themselves.
I mean, WHAT the fuck was the whole moving the servers charade all about? You’ve got to wonder about the thought process there.
It seems to have died down a bit, and politics.ie is still carrying on, but this is not the last we’ve heard of this.
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“There’s free speech, and there’s free speech, and then there’s walking up to mike tyson and calling him queer to his face.”
According to the “New Statesman”, Tyson once attacked
Robert Downey Jr. during the film “Black and White” after Downey’s
character made a pass at him:
http://www.newstatesman.com/200206100009
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I mean, WHAT the fuck was the whole moving the servers charade all about? You’ve got to wonder about the thought process there.
I would have thought it was about ensuring that there could be no quick move to shut down the site through getting an injunction against the Irish hosting company.
Somebody pointed out above that even the Google Cache record of the offending page had been deleted, and, when I went to look for it the way I had looked yesterday, it was indeed gone. I presumed that someone had contacted Google citing “legal problems”, and I guessed that would be trivial stuff for Google, who must be well used to urgent requests from Chinese government agencies saying things like: “Obliterate immediately the following posts by XX, and help us track down XX who has committed serious crimes against the Chinese people.”
But then I tried searching for it a different way and, hey presto, there it was in Google Cache — the original Politics.ie page. At the top, it states:
“This is G o o g l e’s cache of http://www.politics.ie/viewtopic.php?t=33081 as retrieved on 27 Mar 2008 23:03:43 GMT.”
Of course I’m not going to tell you how I found it. This is a respectable site, unlike those other sites which are no doubt brazenly displaying the offending page. I’m just curious as to how these things work, or don’t work, or work themselves out.
I know there are other ways to retrieve old web pages, but the pages in question are not useful enough, or offensive enough, to make me try.
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I could take umbrage I guess at the CLR being termed wimpish and middle class – presumably in comparison to the horny handed sons and daughters of toil over at P.ie… But I’ll discuss this in another post soon. Not to cover the same ground, I think the problem here is that we’re being asked to support DC over a strategy which is demonstrably incorrect. Unlike babs (and while anonymity is one thing, at least people know where we’re coming from due to our already stated positions) I like and even admire DC, although politically I disagree with him, and have critiqued P.ie in the past and been asked to explain my position in return. But then, I tend to think telling the truth about a situation is as important as fighting some sort of nebulous ‘battle’ by proxy…
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Just to clarify something but the only comments that an apology was offered for were those of the original poster. Not those of JC Skinner or anyone of the others, so no liability was admitted in that regarded nor was there any admission that any libel took place instead the words used were inaccurate, untrue and malicious.
I think it would be very strange that someone could seek to enter into correspondence with you that was legally bound as confidential without getting your agreement to that confidentiality.
I can’t help but wonder why you’re all running about declaiming that the sky is falling.
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Erm… who is claiming that the sky is falling Dan? Not me. Quite the opposite. I’m saying this has been a mishandled storm in a teacup.
As regards confidentiality. Well who knows. I hardly think that’s a silver bullet either way and I surely hope that the legal advice that DC got was firm on that issue rather than having people enquire after the fact two or three days later.
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I wasn’t implying that Ahern or FF was trying to shut down P.ie. The point I was making was that if P.ie was shutdown over this, the attention would once again be on Ahern because they are his solicitors and people would assume that he had some role in the affair. Ahern could certainly do without that at the moment.
The middle class comment was aimed at those who view the terrifying “solicitors letter” as unquestionable. This is a real middle class attitude of reverence to the law and solicitors. (Most political bloggers are of course middle class as is much of the political class including the Left in Ireland). If Cochrane does seek legal advice he will no doubt be told to concede to any requests from Frank Ward and Company because by their nature the legal profession are inherently conservative. Cochrane was absolutly right to publish the solicitors letters (or threats).
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This is a real middle class attitude of reverence to the law and solicitors.
Why would you say so?
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babs. How do you know that most political bloggers are middle class? Most of the ones I know are not.
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babs, you’re really wedded to this idea that we’re a) terrified of the solicitors letter and b) unquestioning of it – oh yeah, and somehow that c) to disagree with the tack taken means we’re middle class. In response a) we’re not, and b) we’re not. c) I think that you should really think through your worries and concerns about the middle class. They say more about you than me… The point is that trying to slug this out publicly is simply a bad idea and that my first port of call in such a context would be to get my own legal advice. Dan Sullivan has indicated elsewhere that there is some reason why that wasn’t done. Fair enough, but I think I’m entitled to point out that I think that’s a mistake. Indeed it’s nothing to do with reverence of law and the solicitors.
As regards the legal advice DC might get. I’m puzzled how you think you’re in any position to predict what it might be. As likely might be the advice that we’ve been giving which is firstly remove potentially defamatory material (done) and secondly don’t hand over usernames or take other measures to ensure they can’t be handed over. This trope about ‘conservatism’ specifically related to this case is entirely unsupported. Incidentally, do you think that it is reasonable that a company should seek to ensure that it isn’t defamed? I think that’s a reasonable right, but it’s one I’d like to see tested in law.
As for middle class bloggers, well, myself and Conor went to different primary and secondary schools in Kilbarrack within seven years of each other. I know for certain that both he and I have a distant relationship to the ownership of the means of production. Does that make us middle class or working class? I’m still not sure. As for others, some are, some aren’t. Or are you just projecting? And hey, while we’re at it, what’s your background?
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Me, I have middle class tastes and a working-class income level. Right now I’m down to one opera ticket a year.
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Do you know ejh, it’s a funny thing, I went to the opera once in Prague in the 1990s and sort of liked it and sort of didn’t. I think I’ll go back again…
re your other point… hmmm… sounds like me…
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Back to the Weberian thing eh? Social position is determined by consumption, and not by position in production?
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No, back to the irony thing.
WbS – I notice that The Marriage of Figaro is playing in Dublin RIGHT NOW.
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David Cochrane is currently giving Politics.ie a big
upgrade, and says it’ll be back to normal in several
hours. Meanwhile, it’s relocated here for a few hours:
http://www.politicall.ie/
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I don’t post there much any longer, I like Machine Nation and just wish I had more time to do so there. But I saw the Politics.ie 2.0 banner.
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I do not create many remarks, but i did some searching and wound up here Meanwhile
Politics.ie stops talking about the Taoiseach. | The Cedar Lounge
Revolution. And I actually do have 2 questions for you if it’s allright. Is it only me or does it look like a few of the comments appear as if they are written by brain dead folks? 😛 And, if you are posting on other places, I would like to follow anything fresh you have to post. Would you list of every one of all your communal sites like your Facebook page, twitter feed, or linkedin profile?
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I am regular reader, how are you everybody? This post posted at this website is
really good.
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