------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-~> Make good on the promise you made at graduation to keep in touch. Classmates.com has over 14 million registered high school alumni--chances are you'll find your friends! http://us.click.yahoo.com/03IJGA/DMUCAA/4ihDAA/K4NVlB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> April 4, 2001 Please distribute widely and with great enthusiasm Dear Colleagues, My former Boston Phoenix colleague Mark Jurkowitz, one of the foremost media critics on the mainland, spills a few of my secrets in the Boston Globe today. He is the first daily newspaper reporter in the United States to address what he calls "one of the most riveting libel cases in recent history" - the Banamex lawsuit against Narco News. Thirty Mexican dailies have shouted the Free Speech implications of this case. We thank Mark Jurkowitz for being the first U.S. daily newspaper reporter to address it. In the coming days, we will announce the location of The Narco News Bulletin gala first anniversary celebration in New York City planned for April 18th. We will also make a fraternal call to graphic artists, musicians, writers, poets, journalists, actors, actresses, painters, activists, citizens and human beings everywhere to put this censorious attack on the free speech, cyber-liberty and press freedom rights of *all of us* to rest once and for all by launching a thousand ships that say: THE ONLY SOLUTION TO CENSORSHIP IS MORE SPEECH! It's showtime. Please note, in the article, that the roustabout linebacking wound-up mechanical clones of the deteriorating narco-system at Akin Gump tell more knowing falsehoods when "attorney" Thomas McLish claims ''the defamatory statements Menendez and Giordano made in New York have not been addressed by any court.'' We remind: The Mexican court ruled that all the reports of drug trafficking by U.S.-and-Mexican-government-protected banker Roberto Hern�ndez Ram�rez "were based on the facts." On to New York City! If we can break the lies there, we can break them everywhere! And we will. It's up to you, New York, New York! >From somewhere in a country called Am�rica, Al Giordano Publisher The Narco News Bulletin http://www.narconews.com/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Defense fund checks can be made out to "Drug War on Trial" and sent to: Drug War on Trail c/o Attorney Thomas Lesser Lesser, Newman, Souweine and Nasser 39 Main Street Northampton, MA, 01060 U.S.A. Here is today's Boston Globe story. If the link is broken into two lines, it may require recomposition. Anyway, the entire article, unabridged, appears below. http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/094/living/Libel_suit_threatens_future_of_online_drug_war_publication+.shtml THE MEDIA Libel suit threatens future of online drug-war publication By Mark Jurkowitz, Globe Staff, 4/4/2001 For much of the '80s and '90s, Al Giordano cut a wide swath among Massachusetts journalists and political junkies. An antinuclear activist who became the Boston Phoenix's political reporter, Giordano was sometimes abrasive, usually controversial, always passionate, and invariably innovative. (Who else would have sent GOP pundit Mary Matalin a little tie-dyed T-shirt from a Grateful Dead concert as a baby gift?) Giordano seemed to drop off the radar screen after departing the Phoenix in 1996 and then leaving the country. A year ago, he surfaced as publisher of the online publication The Narco News Bulletin ( www.narconews.com ), which sees its mandate as challenging ''the illusion that the drug war is about combating drugs.'' Later this month, Giordano will return to New York from his undisclosed base of operations in Latin America to celebrate the first anniversary of Narco News. He will also formally respond to what could potentially become one of the most riveting libel cases in recent history - if it actually goes to trial. The suit, filed in New York by Banco Nacional de Mexico (known as Banamex) against Narco News, Giordano, and Mexican journalist Mario Renato Menendez Rodriguez, pits the law firm of such ex-presidential intimates as Robert Strauss and Vernon Jordan against two notable First Amendment attorneys. And it happens to focus on the subject that has captivated Academy Awards voters who recently honored the film ''Traffic'': the drug smuggling trade. ''For us, `Traffic' is not a movie,'' Giordano said in a phone interview this week. ''We live it every day.'' The suit charges the journalists with ''defamation and interference with prospective economic advantage,'' accusing them of ''maliciously smear[ing] Banamex with accusations that, among other things, it is controlled and operated by narcotics traffickers and has engaged in illegal activity.'' It claims that the defamation occurred in New York last year in a Menendez interview with The Village Voice; in a Giordano and Menendez interview on a radio show; in remarks by the defendants at conference at the Columbia University School of Law; and in Narco News articles. The defense attorneys say the case is another effort to challenge Menendez, following unsuccessful legal proceedings against the journalist in Mexico. At the heart of the dispute are articles published by Menendez alleging involvement by Banamex owner Roberto Hernandez Ramirez in drug smuggling. In a statement released to the Globe, Banamex attorney Thomas McLish, of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, said, ''Menendez and Giordano have been engaged in a campaign to convince people that Banamex and its chairman are involved in criminal conduct.'' ''The Mexican courts dismissed the claims on technicalities,'' the statement continued. Yet ''the defamatory statements Menendez and Giordano made in New York have not been addressed by any court.'' Banamex filed a lawsuit in New York to ''clear its name'' of ''ludicrous'' charges, the statement added. Giordano calls the suit an attempt to stifle his First Amendment rights. ''They're trying to exhaust us out of existence,'' he said in the interview. ''It's an attempt to silence freedom of the press, freedom of the Internet, freedom of speech.'' While Giordano plans on representing himself, Narco News itself will be defended by Northampton attorney Thomas Lesser, best known for successfully defending Abbie Hoffman and Amy Carter in a 1987 case stemming from their participation in a protest against the CIA at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Lesser challenges the Banamex suit on the grounds that, among other things, the defendants' New York appearances did not interfere with the bank's ''economic advantage,'' and because there's ''no question, in Mr. Menendez's mind or Mr. Giordano's mind, that these allegations are, in fact, true.'' Menendez is defended by New York attorney Martin Garbus, whose client list has included Lenny Bruce and Timothy Leary. Garbus has filed a motion to dismiss, which is being opposed by Akin, Gump. ''There have already been two cases brought by Banamex against Menendez, and they lost,'' Garbus said. He also argues, as does Lesser, that the only rightful plaintiff is Hernandez, not his bank. ''If I call Bill Gates a crook, can Microsoft sue me?'' Garbus said. ''I don't think so.'' Meanwhile, the battle goes on for Giordano. (In the interests of disclosure, he is a former Phoenix colleague of this writer and a nephew of Globe editor Matthew V. Storin.) On Narco News, he is publicizing his legal defense fund, which he calls ''Drug War on Trial.'' One backer is Gary Webb, author of the explosive and highly controversial 1996 San Jose Mercury News ''Dark Alliance'' series that alleged CIA complicity in a Los Angeles crack epidemic. Last fall, Giordano gained media attention when an Associated Press correspondent in Bolivia resigned after Narco News reported that the AP writer had lobbied the government there on a water project. Now the fate of Narco News, which he calls ''an act of participatory citizens' journalism,'' hangs very much in the balance. Subscribe for immediate updates: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/narconews To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
