Craig Murray will surrender himself for prison

https://thedissenter.org/whistleblower-craig-murray-will-surrender-himself-for-prison/

by jjgreen • 5 years ago

325 226 5 years ago

ameminator4• 5 years ago

Craig Murray is a gem! I knew him for his reporting on the Assange trial [0]. The fact that they convicted him is absolute lunacy. I happen to agree with his interpretation of the conviction, because I don't see how anyone could reasonably convict him. Godspeed Mr. Murray.

[0] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/02/your-man-in-...

mhh__4• 5 years ago

Calling him is a gem is a bit odd given his intellectual gymnastics about the Skripal poisoning (he said they could've been a gay couple and honestly expects people to either believe him or at least not think he's taking the piss).

ameminator4• 5 years ago

I did not know about that! You've given me something to look into.

ChrisKnott5• 5 years ago

He stridently accused Bellingcat of photoshopping a picture which showed one of the assassins on a wall of honour at a Russian military base (under his real name). Bellingcat subsequently released several more photos from different angles, IIRC some of which were still online. Crickets from Murray...

zarzavat2• 5 years ago

He's a conspiracy theorist sure but the rest of the UK media is in bed with the government, perhaps more concerned about maintaining their connections so they can keep cranking out stories. You take what you can get.

His reporting on the Assange trial has been fantastic. Considering this trial is one of the most important in recent times, the lack of reporting from the conventional media has been very telling about the actual independence of media in uk.

AllegedAlec• 5 years ago

Absolutely disgusting. Murray did nothing wrong.

gadders3• 5 years ago

Craig Murray has some strange theories, and is pretty far from me politically, but him being sent to jail for this ridiculous allegation re: "identifying" "victims" of Alex Salmond is appalling.

It just shows how corrupt Scottish politics and the SNP is.

mxmilkiib2• 5 years ago

https://www.dounetherabbithole.co.uk for the festival they and their kid Jamie have been involved with, looking forward to that next year

mxmilkiib2• 5 years ago

Ah, for the days of /., when you would know why you were being downvoted (or upvoted), because there was a drop-down menu to choose from (plus meta-moderation).

jackweirdy2• 5 years ago

The March 25 judgement referred to is here: https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/docs/default-source/cos-genera...

mandmandam• 5 years ago

This isn't just brazenly corrupt retribution; it's also brazen witness tampering.

matthewmacleod4• 5 years ago

I've often been surprised to see enthusiastic admiration for Craig Murray in this forum in particular. He's an outright raving conspiracy theorist, in this case painfully obviously sneaking out information about witnesses in a rape trial in part because of his belief that the trial was part of a massive state conspiracy.

His commentary on the Assange trial was so overwhelmingly and obviously biased that it was impossible to derive any useful objective information, so it was very strange to see him so heavily promoted.

It just seems like it would be possible you might object to the treatment of Assange—or be concerned about the trial's effect on free speech—without weirdly uncritical promotion of such an unreliable and unsympathetic narrator. At least it would be wise to treat anything he says with extreme skepticism.

gadders3• 5 years ago

> sneaking out information about witnesses in a rape trial

Citation needed. Did he "sneak" out any more information than was in newspapers?

And given how Nicola Sturgeon lied to parliament etc, there is decent evidence it was an SNP (not the state even though the SNP thinks they are the state) conspiracy.

matthewmacleod4• 5 years ago

Citation needed. Did he "sneak" out any more information than was in newspapers?

Yes. Feel free to read the court's judgment for more information.

And given how Nicola Sturgeon lied to parliament etc, there is decent evidence it was an SNP (not the state even though the SNP thinks they are the state) conspiracy.

I think it's safe to say that this statement demonstrates you are not interested in any good-faith discussion on this matter.

seanhunter• 5 years ago

This case literally is the citation. He was found to have done this, which is why he will go to jail.

imwillofficial3• 5 years ago

outright raving conspiracy theorist

I guess in this instance “They” were really out to get Him, eh?

imwillofficial3• 5 years ago

obviously biased that it was impossible to derive any useful objective information

You mean to tell me He was obvious on His position? He didn’t pretend to be objective, an impossible effort for any human? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you!

My friend, that’s a feature, not a bug. Journalistic objectivity is a meme.

upofadown• 5 years ago

Who better than a conspiracy theorist to report on actual conspiracies?

tablespoon8• 5 years ago

Who better than a conspiracy theorist to report on actual conspiracies?

Conspiracy theorists don't typically report on real conspiracies, they report on imagined ones.

So having a conspiracy theorist report on a real conspiracy can actually have the effect of making the real conspiracy less believable (e.g. a stopped clock may be right twice a day, but you'll disbelieve it even then).

0110101001• 5 years ago

He claimed that he received the DNC and Podesta e-mails from a disgruntled DNC source in a park and forwarded them to WikiLeaks on Assange's behalf. He lacks any credibility. Even Assange had to tell people that "Craig Murray is not authorized to talk on behalf of WikiLeaks," afterwards.

user-the-name3• 5 years ago

Literally anyone would be better to report on it.

Conspiracy theorists are absolutely awful at reporting facts. When talking about things that are actually true, they often still manage to mix in so many untrue and misleading things that the actual truth gets clouded.

ameminator4• 5 years ago

All these things may be true, but even then, at least he was there at the Assange trial. No other source was a as diligent or up to date with their reporting, even if it was biased.

Even if you believe all these bad things about him, I don't believe someone should be jailed for reporting in general. In specific, I don't see how the facts support a conviction - the way the argument for "jigsaw" identification of witnesses was used could apply to any and all reporting about a court case. No reasonable standard was used (in my opinion).

Do you think it's alright to put someone in jail because you don't like them?

ChrisKnott5• 5 years ago

What part of GP's post made you think they supporting jailing people you don't like?

probably_wrong• 5 years ago

His commentary on the Assange trial was so overwhelmingly and obviously biased that it was impossible to derive any useful objective information

I don't know anything about his other works, but AFAIK he was the only one reporting what was going on in detail during Assange's trial. I respect him for that.

I read criticism similar to yours before, but I can't shake a simple question: if there are better reporters out there, where were they during the trial?

Traster• 5 years ago

The simple answer is that what Craig Murray was reporting about Assange was massively overblown conspiracies about every single element of the trial. The reason other reporters weren't covering to the same level of detail because "Trial continues as expected" isn't news-and there are plenty of examples of this. In the mainstream news the big revelation that someone just tangentially related to the Assange extradition hearing had come out as a liar was covered, but in the context of it not really being core to the case. In Murray's coverage you would be mislead to believe that that person was some star witness.

the_optimist• 5 years ago

Do you think it’s acceptable to persecute people who don’t agree with you? Who you don’t like?

Equal rights under the law means equal rights. Not that you defend your friends, hang your enemies.

mhh__4• 5 years ago

Couldn't this argument basically be used against any court case short of there being footage of the defendant holding a gun next to a body? You can nearly always construe some kind of narrative like this in a "political" case, I'm not sure it's specific enough.

teddyh• 5 years ago

“For my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.”

CRConrad10• 5 years ago

Do you like criminals? Say, armed robbers, murderers? If someone is on trial for stuff like that, and the evidence seems to support their guilt, wouldn't most people take a dislike to them?

You reasoning feels like having "equal rights under the law" mean that then you'd have to let them go free, because convicting them would be "just because you don't like them".

imwillofficial3• 5 years ago

An absolute travesty. Justice is not served by this. The open corruption in the west is getting to banana republic levels.

cmurf• 5 years ago

Well past it. The bribe is "be a normal everyday docile consumer who minds your own business". This is relatively easy and affordable for most folks

r721• 5 years ago

The Scotsman story: https://www.scotsman.com/news/crime/craig-murray-to-begin-ja...

tyingq2• 5 years ago

Is there a UK equivalent of a "Presidential Pardon"? Seems like the only remaining way for some future PM to try and fix this.

pydry8• 5 years ago

About as likely as Navalny getting a presidential pardon.

manquer8• 5 years ago

Royal pardon or more formally "Royal prerogative of mercy" exists in the U.K. Formally it is power of the crown, however in practice it is delegated to Lord Chancellor in England. Scotland has a different structure for this AFAIK.

Craig Murray is a former ambassador and supports Scottish independence so it would be lot more complicated even if the government wanted to do something about it. Also it is only 8 month sentence, so it won't make any practical difference if some future government post-facto does pardon him.

Side note: U.S. tooks its legal system largely from England and made modifications as they thought fit, presidential pardons were specifically designed to mirror the royal pardon without the monarchy part of it.

tyingq2• 5 years ago

Also it is only 8 month sentence, so it won't make any practical difference if some future government post-facto does pardon him.

I imagine it would make some difference for his legacy, to his family, etc.

metalliqaz• 5 years ago

Quoted from the article: “I genuinely do not know who I am supposed to have identified or which phrases I published are said to have identified them, in combination with [details] in the public domain.”

This sounds really bad, until you see that the court did point to specific blog posts. His position apparently hinges on the fact that specific phrases were not picked out from a handful of blog posts. It seems to me that the relevant facts that were revealed could be enumerated quite easily from that list of blog posts.

Victims are protected for a reason. This guy seems like a bit of a bastard.

p_j_w6• 5 years ago

Do you have some examples to share? My first thought reading this was, similar to what you say, "this sounds really bad," and my inclination here is to side with Craig Murray. At the same time, the article linked by OP doesn't point to any sort of court ruling or proceedings where the reader might be able to check against the claims being made that the trial was, indeed, Kafkaesque. This obviously raises some suspicions.

jessaustin4• 5 years ago

I guess we're unlikely to see the forbidden phrases Murray dared to utter, since after all they're forbidden and few HN commentators want to go to prison.

jackweirdy2• 5 years ago

The judgement is here, page 36 onwards lays out all the articles the petitioner claims had contempt of court, and the courts interpretation of whether they did or didn't

https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/docs/default-source/cos-genera...

celticninja2• 5 years ago

Are they still victims if the accused is cleared of wrongdoing?

Don't they become false accusers at that stage?

Why do accusers get to keep anonymous when defendants can not?

MisterBastahrd2• 5 years ago

Potentially?

"Not guilty" does not mean "innocent."

micv• 5 years ago

There not being enough evidence to convict does not equal a false accusation.

jjgreen• 5 years ago

The law under which Murray was prosecuted does not protect victims, it protects accusers -- Salmond was cleared.

gorgoiler2• 5 years ago

In what way did he identify the Salmond trial complainants?

croes4• 5 years ago

He didn't, but the judge said he made jigsaw identification possible.

gorgoiler2• 5 years ago

I guess a better question would have been what did he write?

basisword• 5 years ago

I knew nothing of this case until today but it seems like he breached an injunction against reporting the identity of complainants or information that could lead to their identification. From the little bit of reading I’ve done it seems pretty like an open and shut case (and I actually went into my reading expecting my be on Murray’s side).

Can anybody explain why there is an injustice here? Almost every comment I see here in his favour gives no reason why this is unjust.

quietbritishjim2• 5 years ago

He claims to have revealed too little information in his reporting for it to be possible to identify the complainants. The court disagrees. Really I just see his word against theirs.

I'd like to see some more specific details so I could form my own view, or at least hear the view of a disinterested third party that's seen the relevant posts.

pydry8• 5 years ago

If they provided specific details that would all but require identifying the suspects.

shellac2• 5 years ago

I did read some of the (now offending) posts.

He didn't name anyone, but at the time I thought he provided more than enough information to identify one one of the complainants. Although I'm not au fait with the SNP there were details about situations, people, and roles that seemed more than specific enough for people to work out.

I don't think it was deliberate, and he is probably ignorant about how easy it can be to de-anonymise people. However he should have been more sensitive to these issues.

version_five• 5 years ago

I'm just learning about this now and don't know enough to have an an opinion, but "his word against theirs" (the court's) should not be the basis for a conviction.

LeifCarrotson• 5 years ago

The court could ask an independent without inside knowledge of the case to read his reports and check whether or not they can identify a protected person as a result.

It's true that the judge can't publicly state "Look, the third sentence in paragraph four at this URL gives the victim's initials, a week later in paragraph seven he said the complainant worked in such-and-such government agency, and here he tweeted that it was the individual's 47th birthday. There is only one person who fits these fingerprints, and their identity is obvious to anyone with a passing familiarity of that individual." That would invite everyone else to go read paragraph four, paragraph seven, and the tweet, and to search out this secret. Or more likely, that the individual is named directly and repeatedly in the post, and Craig named them because their name and their involvement is on public documents, but that they've decided that he's not allowed to name them.

But you'd expect them to explain that reasoning behind closed doors, and then to more publicly deny his rebuttal, unless there is no such individual.

pydry8• 5 years ago

I genuinely do not know who I am supposed to have identified or which phrases I published are said to have identified them, in combination with [details] in the public domain.
How I genuinely do not know who I am supposed to have identified or which phrases I published are said to have identified them, in combination with [details] in the public domain.

How on earth is that open and shut?

Open and shut would be if he published the names, which nobody claims that he did.

Conveniently it is also impossible to verify if the crime was actually committed without naming the individuals. All that is required to convict is one judge's say so.

If you were to pick a convenient politically motivated prosecution this ranks up there with navalny skipping bail by dint of being in a coma.

tablespoon8• 5 years ago

> I genuinely do not know who I am supposed to have identified or which phrases I published are said to have identified them, in combination with [details] in the public domain.
> How I genuinely do not know who I am supposed to have identified or which phrases I published are said to have identified them, in combination with [details] in the public domain.
How on earth is that open and shut?

I don't see how those statements have any bearing on whether the case is "open and shut" or not. You're quoting the defendant, who's almost certainly going to come up with some argument for their own innocence no matter how strong the case is.

user-the-name3• 5 years ago

Why are you taking his words at face value here?

dahfizz3• 5 years ago

If you were to pick a convenient politically motivated prosecution this ranks up there with navalny skipping bail by dint of being in a coma.

I would agree with you, except his prison sentence is only 8 months. If this was some corrupt hit job, they could have easily put him in prison for decades.

orra4• 5 years ago

Craig Murray was warned multiple times that his blog posts were in contempt of court.

He should have taken down the blog posts, but instead doubled down.

Hard to see whence your outrage originates.

smcl3• 5 years ago

I’m the same. Everyone was told not to reveal identities of the victims, he was blogging about the case and was deemed to have published info that could’ve doxed them. The news is understandably vague on the subject (lest they repeat the offence) and the posts are down. So it’s hard to know what to think. Just remember that there’s a lot of very strong feelings about Scottish independence (which is kinda wrapped up in this) and the SNP (the dominant party in Scotland) so anyone speaking definitively for/against him who was not directly involved in the case are likely drawing more from personal feelings and other grievances than the actual case itself

pydry8• 5 years ago

was deemed to have published info that could’ve doxed them. The news is understandably vague on the subject

"Could" have doxxed them? The newspapers are "understandably vague"?

How does that align with this being an open and shut case?

Especially it's a law that hasnt been used for 70 years applied against a well known dissident.

jollybean• 5 years ago

In this case they were accusers not victims.

pmyteh4• 5 years ago

The judgement is available[0]. It doesn't read to me like the judges were out to get him: they specifically reject the majority of the allegations of contempt made by the crown. Paragraphs 70-90 contain the interesting bit, and 70 is absolutely damning in my view. It basically reports Murray as openly writing an 'encoded' version of some of the claimants names in the form of some Yes Minister fanfic, in the knowledge of the anonymity order and with the intention that the code would be broken by close reading 'between the lines' (which he expressly encouraged).

That's an open and shut contempt, and courts do not play silly buggers with people who think that if they're very clever orders don't apply to them. Even given that the crown (the Scottish government, who were prosecuting Salmon and made the contempt of court complaint) are out to get Murray, that doesn't make him a martyr, it makes him an idiot.

[0] https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/docs/default-source/cos-genera...

manquer8• 5 years ago

He didn't directly disclose any name the accusation is he wrote multiple clues from which witness could be identified . I haven't seen a clear explanation of how it was identifiable.

Even if that was true, jailing for media contempt is very very rare in U.K. and the timing given his involvement with Wikileaks case is suspect.

throwaway0a5e• 5 years ago

So a classic case of "enforcing laws we don't usually enforce and stretching the law to do so because we don't like you"?

LorenPechtel• 5 years ago

It's quite understandable that he could have done this by accident. People avoid directly identifying someone they're not supposed to identify but do not realize that they leaked enough details to uniquely identify them.

If he's guilty of it we of course do not see the evidence--posting the evidence would amount to the same crime that he was convicted of.

jlarocco2• 5 years ago

He didn't directly disclose any name the accusation is he wrote multiple clues from which witness could be identified .

Well, judges aren't stupid. I guess he's finding out the hard way.

FireBeyond4• 5 years ago

He was warned that his blog posts and his hinting at identifying people was considered contempt...

... and then he wrote a Yes Minister-esque fanfic which fairly bluntly painted very direct "clues" to those identities, and then told his readers "read this carefully and you'll get those identities", and then acted shocked when the court didn't say "Damn you, Craig, you foiled and outsmarted us!", but instead "Posting 'nudge nudge wink wink' hints to people is effectively the same thing. You know it, because you told people that's what it was, and we know it. So we're treating it the same".

colordrops• 5 years ago

Because secret hearings at unjust.

matthewmacleod4• 5 years ago

Can anybody explain why there is an injustice here? Almost every comment I see here in his favour gives no reason why this is unjust.

I am far from an unbiased source on this – I'm personally aghast that anybody would take Craig Murray seriously.

But trying to be a little objective, I expect that this effect is primarily because of an instinct we all have to ignore the flaws in people who are saying things we think are important.

Murray is popular here for his commentary on the Assange trial. He is virtually certain to be correct in some of his accusations about Assange's treatment, and in a community that values freedom of speech and the rights of whistleblowers that is a stance that attracts attention and support. Given this, it could be tempting for some to assume that his imprisonment was a deliberate action to silence a troublemaker – particularly when the defendant himself makes that argument.

On the other hand, it's also totally feasible that someone with views you support is also entirely seperately capable of doing dumb things and getting themselves arrested.

I paid quite a bit of attention to the case in question. His level of obfuscation was a bawhair away from 'cartoon rat Ricky Raus', and he requested everyone read "very, very carefully indeed. Between the lines." It seemed quite obvious to me what he was trying to do, and a subsequent conviction isn't really surprising – nor does it require thinking about it in terms of a conspiracy theory. It just seems strange to me to assume a state-motivated conspiracy when there's a much simpler answer right there – regardless of whether or not you agree with the particular details of the case, or his views in general!

I guess maybe it's sometimes hard to separate out the views that we agree with from the harsh realities of flawed individuals.

kstenerud2• 5 years ago

It's a quite long and sordid affair, but I'll do my best to summarize:

Craig has been a thorn in the side of the government for some time, first for exposing corruption in the Scottish seats of power, the too-cozy relationships between the judicial and executive branches, and the biased and tainted prosecutions of anyone who gets in their way (including MPs).

The accusations against him hinge on the "jigsaw identification" theory, whereby people could piece together persons from the material he published. The problem is that it's so vague that it could be used against *anyone* who publishes *anything* about a case such as this (and in fact many publications DID publish information that could easily lead to the identification of the accuser, but they were given a pass). This is why he's calling it retribution.

Furthermore, he's been reporting on the Assange case, and that has angered the British government, which is why his appeal was rejected, and why he was not allowed to travel to Spain to give testimony in a case where the Americans were spying on Assange and his lawyer via UC Global.

At this point, Craig's only remaining option is to appeal to the EU court of human rights, but that's gonna be a tough one because he's pissed off the Americans too much with the Assange case.

alisonkisk2• 5 years ago

At this point, Craig's only remaining option is to appeal to the EU court of human rights, but that's gonna be a tough one because he's pissed off the Americans too much with the Assange case

Does the EU Court of Human Rights care whar Americans think about him?

mritun2• 5 years ago

You're responding with an argument that says "he pissed off the government so he was sent to prison" - but he actually was convicted of violating a court injunction (in India, that would be contempt of the court).

It's hard to connect contempt of the court proceedings with pissing off the government without also alleging that courts are in the pocket of the government... which is a very serious connection to draw here. This happened in UK!

FireBeyond4• 5 years ago

Furthermore, he's been reporting on the Assange case, and that has angered the British government, which is why his appeal was rejected

Whilst not impossible, this is entirely speculation.

p_j_w6• 5 years ago

The accusations against him hinge on the "jigsaw identification" theory, whereby people could piece together persons from the material he published. The problem is that it's so vague that it could be used against anyone who publishes anything about a case such as this

Have you read the court ruling on the matter? I looked through it, and it sounds like that's not at all what's going on here. The court went through each individual accusation of jigsaw identification he was accused of, and in cases where jigsaw identification was unlikely, said so. On top of that, it seems Murray himself was trying to hint to his readers that he was indeed trying to give information out for the purpose of helping people figure out who the accusers were.

Craig's only remaining option is to appeal to the EU court of human rights, but that's gonna be a tough one because he's pissed off the Americans too much with the Assange case.

Perhaps. Or perhaps he just doesn't have a very strong case.

chris_wot2• 5 years ago

Furthermore, he's been reporting on the Assange case, and that has angered the British government, which is why his appeal was rejected

Appeals aren’t rejected by the government.

jlarocco2• 5 years ago

Yeah. It seems he (indirectly) released the names of (alleged) sexual assault victims, against a court order.

Regardless of what he's done otherwise, it seems pretty clear he was in the wrong here.

mritun2• 5 years ago

Exactly. UK is a democracy with a pretty good justice system that follows the law, so I was very surprised to read so negative comments about the outcome of the case.

Do I feel sorry for the person - yes, but breaking any injunction from court has extremely predictable outcome! I'm thinking it could have gone way worse than the 8 months in prison for him, especially if he were in any other country (including USA).

Sad to see this unfold, but extremely predictable outcome of breaking a court injection... courts take very dim view of it!

ChrisKnott5• 5 years ago

Craig Murray has a lot of fans on HN because he reported extensively on the Assange extradition hearings in a way that flattered HNers' biases.

His actual record as a "journalist" is not great (his reporting on the Skripal assassins a particular lowlight).

toyg• 5 years ago

Exactly. UK is a democracy with a pretty good justice system that follows the law

The UK is a 500-year-old monarchy which somehow absorbed democratic representation. Which is the reason the Queen, to this day, still has privileges like being able to oversee draft legislation and ensure her possession are exempted from it - something that was confirmed this week, coincidentally, in Scottish matters.

This also means the UK system is absolutely ridden with obsolete and fundamentally anti-democratic devices, that occasionally rear their ugly head. Like when the Snowden revelations first emerged, and some GCHQ goons showed up at the offices of a newspaper (the Guardian), ensuring all computers that had touched related info were smashed to pieces. Or the fact that there are multiple parties in the Parliament, but only two of them are admitted to the Privy Council and receive security briefs. Or, well, the cesspool of corruption and wealth that is the House of Lords (want a seat? Just pay the party in power, you'll be in by next Christmas). And of course, the City of London - a constitutional abomination by any reasonable standard, in the third millennium, but still firmly at the very heart of the capital.

Knowing all this, you'd be less surprised that people might think the system is corrupt. Because, well, it fundamentally is.

james10713• 5 years ago

What is it that you think he did? He was accused of 'jigsaw identification' but, to my knowledge, no-offending words have been produced.

In contrast, several newspapers have reported information which revealed the identity of one or more accusers, but were not prosecuted.

james10713• 5 years ago

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/02/04/murr-f04.html

This is the best description of what it was all about from the persepctive of Craig Murray.

dangerface• 5 years ago

This is nuts arrested for reporting on the justice system, thats a pretty fucked justice system.

briantakita• 5 years ago

See something say nothing...if you know what's good for you

The whistleblowers are punished while the criminals committing the crimes are regarded as heroes.

The consequence is that it's rational to assume that these agencies are not trustworthy nor do they work for the public.

baq• 5 years ago

lesson to whistleblowers of all kinds and agendas: if you want to keep blowing the whistle, do everything you can to stay undercover. live to fight another day.

wazoox• 5 years ago

He didn't give any name. The people that are supposedly "exposed" apparently are all fake witnesses, anyway, as Alex Salmond was cleared in court. This is really disgusting.

rozab• 5 years ago

Those witnesses were absolutely not found to be lying. It's just that Salmond was not found to be guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

thereddaikon3• 5 years ago

Title is misleading. He wasn't jailed for whistleblowing. He was jailed for apparently revealing identities of victims. Not sure about the specifics, I haven't been following the case and I'm not familiar with it. Sounds like its pretty contentious. All I know is many places including the UK have a far more restricted concept of freedom of speech than the US does. So its probably a lot easier for them to jail journalists over what they publish

croes4• 5 years ago

He was acquitted, so either they were misjudgements or the victims were just accusers.

thereddaikon3• 5 years ago

Good point.

billytetrud5• 5 years ago

What part of the title is misleading exactly? The title doesn't say he is going to jail because whistleblowing is illegal. But he is indeed going to jail for things about how his whistle blowing was done. I think it's misleading to call the OP's title misleading

thereddaikon3• 5 years ago

The title implies he was jailed for being a whistleblower. If you read it without having any prior knowledge of who this guy is or why he was being prosecuted that's how it sounds.

mattigames• 5 years ago

"revealing the identity of the victims"... Yeah, such identities were "revealed" by jigsawing documents which are part of the whistleblow, not because he gave their names or anything alike but by inference of the readers, who just happen to be extremely biased against the whistleblower. So yeah, it couldn't be clearer that he is being jailed for being a whistleblower.

srtjstjsj• 5 years ago

He described how the judges found Murray guilty of “jigsaw identification,” which refers to the “possibility that a person may piece together information from various sources to arrive at the identification of a protected witness.”

Why isn't every advertising/marketing data broker in jail for "jigsaw identification"?

dahfizz3• 5 years ago

I'm pretty confident that advertisers would not keep an `is_protected_witness` flag in their profiles.

cstross• 5 years ago

In Scottish law -- and in English/Welsh law in parallel (the legal systems are different) -- there is no absolute right of free speech, like the US first amendment. Consequently, exposing the identity of witnesses (and in some cases the accused and the victim) in a criminal trial is itself a criminal offense.

Note the important bit here is in a criminal trial. Murray is going to prison because he was found guilty of actions which threatened to cause a mistrial in a criminal case, not because he was deanonymizing advertising/marketing data.

makomk• 5 years ago

I'm pretty sure journalists have actually, non-hypothetically caused mistrials in criminal cases through their reporting in the UK and not been jailed for it. In fact as far as I can tell none of the journalists who did this in the UK have been jailed, at least not in the last few decades.

aimor• 5 years ago

Are these the articles in question?

https://web.archive.org/web/20200425044010/https://www.craig...

https://web.archive.org/web/20200426041821/https://www.craig...

gorak2• 5 years ago

Drawing people's attention to where jigsaw identification can be done can itself be construed as jigsaw identification.

alisonkisk2• 5 years ago

What whistle did he blow?

ttctciyf• 5 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Murray#Ambassador_to_Uzb...

billytetrud5• 5 years ago

And people wonder why Snowden didn't turn himself in

tablespoon8• 5 years ago

And people wonder why Snowden didn't turn himself in

Because he literally confessed to breaking a number of very serious laws?

Literally his only hopes of escaping a conviction are 1) a prosecutor refusing to charge him (snowball's chance in hell), 2) a pardon, 3) some kind jury nullification. Whatever you think about the morality of his actions, what he did was indisputably illegal. "I thought I was doing the right thing, and many people agree," is not an actual legal defense.

And honestly, I think if Snowden had turned himself in, it would have made him more admirable and brave, and place his actions clearly in the "civil disobedience" category.

billytetrud5• 5 years ago

What Snowden did was herioc and needed to happen. The fact that he had to break awful oppressive laws to do it is an indictment of the laws, not Snowden.

Tycho• 5 years ago

Is there some succinct explanation for why Murray's reporting facilitated 'jigsaw identification' while other reports did not?

I don't want a link to a 50 page court ruling, I want someone to explain it in a couple of sentences. Something like:

Murray did not name Victim X but he specified the occupation of their spouse, the department they worked in, and their level of seniority. Given this information, a simple query of public records would be sufficient to identify this individual.

bolangi• 5 years ago

Is there some succinct explanation for why Murray's reporting facilitated 'jigsaw identification' while other reports did not?

That is the point: other media reports gave more information about the accusers than Murray's reporting.

thiagoharry• 5 years ago

Just a coincidence that another whistleblower is having problems with the law and being persecuted.

There is a term for when laws are weaponised to be used against enemies: 'lawfare'. This is becaming too common in the world.

trhway• 5 years ago

"jigsaw identification"

as performed by who? By Sherlock Holmes? or by a regular Shmoe lacking any logic skills and thus believing every bit of propaganda coming through TV and Internet.

coldtea• 5 years ago

It's like when someone gets in the eye of local cops, and they will "make their life difficult", come at them with trumped-up charges, etc....

States and their organizations work the same way, and prosecutors and judges friendly to their cause (and furthering their career) after a friendly chat with some official, are a dime a dozen. Add some diplomatic pressure (or offer) from a bigger power, and third countries are just as accomondating. E.g.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assange_v_Swedish_Prosecution_...

And good luck proving any of that collision (proof which the politically naive will demand, because they think no such thing can happen in the best of all possible worlds...)

8note• 5 years ago

Comment on the title: I've got no idea who this is or why it's interesting

gorak2• 5 years ago

Craig's "Yes Minister" article used pseudonyms and a comic style to lay out his opinion that the accusations against Salmond were false and the result of a politically motivated conspiracy using the anonymity convention to protect the conspirators from facing repercussion.

Although this accusation seems to have sufficient merit, given the verdicts, to justify further investigation it does not take away from the fact the the Yes Minister article can easily be used to deduce the identities of two of the accusers.

It was not this article but a mainstream one by Dani Garavelli that allowed me to jigsaw identify one of the accusers and the fact that her article remains visible and Garavelli has faced no similar consequences does speak volumes about the selectivity used.

However Garavelli's article required one Google search to cross check names from a different source, Murray's Yes Minister article allows for immediate identification from common knowledge (if you follow Scottish Politics).

Craig's article was published before the anonymity order was issued and he should have taken it down when that order was made and certainly shouldn't have directed attention to the fact this article could be used for jigsaw identification.

Although his courthouse reporting of what the defence said is invaluable and though the conspiracy he points to merits further investigation, be was an idiot to publish the Yes Minister article and acted with foolish hubris not to take it down sooner.

rrgmitchell• 5 years ago

If anyone wants to learn more about Murray and his ideas (and incidentally support him and his family), he has written a number of books:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Zionism-Bullshit-Interviews-Collect...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Murder-Samarkand-Mr-Craig-Murray/dp...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Catholic-Orangemen-Togo-Craig-Murra...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sikunder-Burnes-Master-Great-Game/d...

Craig Murray will surrender himself for prison

Related Stories