------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Small business owners... Tell us what you think! http://us.click.yahoo.com/vO1FAB/txzCAA/ySSFAA/KlSolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> August 1, 2001 Please Distribute To Good People Everywhere "Judge Omansky, who made it clear that she wanted more information about Mexican law and how this case was handled there, nonetheless said that if she were in the defendant's shoes, 'I would feel free to come to the United States and say substantially the same thing' if I'd just been cleared in Mexico." -- Amy Langfield, Online Journalism Review Dear Colleagues, We are racing in the Narco Newsroom to post Issue #13, tonight or tomorrow. Put on yer seatbelts! Stuff is going to fly. Meanwhile, journalist Amy Langfield has published two stories about our case - the cover story of Online Journalism Review this week, "Cross-Fire in the Drug War," out of the University of Southern California Journalism School's Annenberg Center. We're the top story: http://ojr.usc.edu/ And there's a message board where you can post your views: http://ojr.usc.edu/forums_messboard/Thread.cfm?CFApp=8&Thread_ID=779&mc=1 The first story is at: http://ojr.usc.edu/content/story.cfm?request=613 (Second story, "Mexican Bank, Mexican Web Site, New York Courtroom", and link appear below)... Cross-fire in the Drug War Narco News editor warns of libel action's chilling effect on free speech By Amy Langfield, OJR Contributor American journalist Al Giordano runs Narco News from his laptop in Mexico, reporting on the drug trade with a decidedly activist slant that aims to get under the skin of drug traffickers, money launderers, corrupt governments, and journalists for big news companies he thinks have overlooked important stories in Latin America. Among his targets has been Roberto Hern�ndez Ramirez, the president and primary shareholder in Banco Nacional de Mexico (known as Banamex), Mexico's second biggest bank, which was acquired last month by Citigroup for $12.5 billion. Hern�ndez, whose stock value would be $1.9 billion if the deal goes through, was first accused in 1996 by the Mexican newspaper Por Esto! and later by Narco News of cocaine trafficking, money laundering and other illicit acts. He has vigorously denied the charges and pressed for sanctions against Por Esto! in three Mexican courts, both for publishing the stories and for taking photos on his private beachfront in the Yucat�n. Three Mexican courts dismissed the case. (See sidebar, Mexican Bank, Mexican Web Site, New York Courtroom.) But now, Banamex has brought a libel suit in New York against Narco News, Giordano, and Mexican journalist Mario Renato Men�ndez Rodriguez. It claims the state has jurisdiction in the case because Narco News' site is registered at a post office box in Manhattan and Giordano repeated the drug allegations at a forum at the Columbia University School of Law, among other reasons. The parties had their first hearing in the suit July 20 in New York, where Judge Paula Omansky expressed concern about her court's jurisdiction and sought to find out exactly what happened in the Mexican courtrooms. She has asked both sides to file affidavits before the next hearing begins. The ramifications of the libel suit extend well beyond this case. An attorney for Narco News filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that if the lawsuit is allowed to proceed, it would send a signal to libel plaintiffs that they could shop for a friendly forum in which to sue any Web site anywhere in the world -- a precedent that would imperil free speech on the Net. OJR spoke to Giordano, a former writer for the Boston Phoenix, last week at a Greenwich Village restaurant for more than an hour about his case, the Web site and public journalism. What follows is an edited transcript of that conversation. Q. How did you start Narco News? A. I went to Mexico in July 1997 and I spent the better part of the next year retired from journalism. I'd had it. I was a political reporter and there was nothing happening anymore in politics. And the state of journalism itself bothered me. ... I went to Chiapas with the idea of learning from the Zapatista independent rebels because they seemed to be the only ones in the hemisphere having any success at making social change. The Zapatistas taught me what I should have already known: "Look, we don't want you to live like an Indian. We just want the right to live as who we are. And who you are is a journalist." (And I responded,) "No, I'm not." They got me thinking maybe there was a way to do journalism without being beholden to advertisers or the constant struggle to pitch work at a market niche that is bought by consumer products. And much of the alternative press has really gone down that route just as a matter of economic survival. They had to. But what I want to do as journalism seems to be dying. Q. Have you found a way to do that and still make a living? A. I don't make enough to live in New York, but I make enough to live comfortably in Mexico. The cost of living is very cheap. Q. So you're still doing freelancing? A. Yes, I do translation work and analysis work. I get small grants so it seems to be working out. Q. But does Narco News have any income? A. No, it doesn't even have a bank account. It has a defense fund now, but that all goes to lawyers. I have regularly been approached by people who want to advertise because they're looking at the hit count and it's quite substantial. But part of the point of Narco News is that it doesn't need to make money. It really needs no more than your $270 annual (payment) to the ISP. I use Hotmail, which is a free Internet service, and part of the thing is that you don't need a large corporation or sponsor behind you. Q. Let's talk a little about the site. How many hits you get? A. Before we got sued we had an average of 3,000 hits a day and now we have an average of 25,000 hits a day. Q. Do you know where your audience is from? A. Primarily the English-speaking world, but whatever method we use to measure hits, the part about how they measure what countries they come from doesn't work. But I have almost 1,000 subscribers now. And a good solid percentage of them are journalists, from the United States, from Mexico, from the rest of Latin America, and the rest are from Europe. Q. And has that mostly been since the trial got underway? A. I had 185 subscribers when the Village Voice published the story last December. Q. Are you kind of a one-man Narco News? A. Yes. Q. You had something way down there (on the site) that refers to correspondents. Do you have people feeding you stuff they couldn't print elsewhere or were giving you tips? A. All of that. This is a project in citizen journalism. From day one we have always invited the public to participate, to criticize, to publish their thoughts whenever it was relevant or newsworthy. Q. You say this is a project in public journalism. Talk to me about how this has been a success as public journalism and where you would like to go with it. Say the lawsuit goes away, what is Narco News in your wildest dreams? A. Narco News will simply stick to what works, which is translating the work of courageous Latin American journalists and commentators and perspectives on the war on drugs that are generally not heard in the English-speaking world. And doing original reporting, analysis and commentary, and offering space for myself and others on the drug war in Latin America and the United States' drug policy. Narco News is born to die. The day that drugs are legalized, the day there is no more narco trade, the day there is no more mafia, Narco News will simply be an archive. It's not a profit-making venture. But unfortunately, it looks like Narco News is going to be around for a while. Q. Are you married, or have kids? Assets? A. I have no kids. I have no assets. I own no property. I own no car. When I left the Boston Phoenix, I defaulted on my credit card and I went to Mexico with $800 to my name. I own a laptop, which was bought with a grant from the Angelica Foundation, and I own a guitar that I use sometimes to supplement my income. Obviously Banamex has plenty of laptops, so I figure that Roberto Hern�ndez is after my guitar, but he ain't getting' it. Q. If somebody else wanted to start an activist Web site but owns a house and has some assets -- should he have no assets to start a Web site like this? A. No, I would recommend that he join the National Writers Union and take out libel insurance, which is something any NWU member can do. People can do what silly old me should have done. Q. Who else has been supporting you? I know you have the Electronic Frontier Foundation filing a brief, but what about the First Amendment Coalition or other newspapers? A. Nope. Nope. Nope. Q. Have you contacted them? A. I have contacted them all. Q. And can you summarize why they said no? A. You should call them and ask. I think in some cases the organizations are sincere and overburdened. Some say that because it's in a state court a national organization can't do it. Or because it's a foreign case they can't do it. ... This case is going to make new law. It is either going to make good law or it is going to make bad law. That's why we're here. I could have avoided this; I didn't have to be here. But if I didn't come, then every other Internet site in the world, every other activist site would be in greater jeopardy because of my own cowardice. Q. What's the most important element of this case? A. It's the big economic powers that forum shop and use the courts to harass people of modest means. That is the real threat to free speech in this day and age. In other words, it's not the government anymore doing the censorship, it's the private sector. It's the new ruler. Q. Anything else you'd like to add? A. In Banamex's motion to dismiss, they sought to add more reasons why they had jurisdiction in New York, each of them more spurious than the next. The most outrageous one was that they claimed because in the days after we founded Narco News, I received an invitation from the Media Channel, at Mediachannel.org, to affiliate with them. Now, there're no dues involved, there's no payment, there's no financial transaction involved. It is just a show of solidarity with other authentic journalists around the world. The Media Channel now has more than 600 affiliates. ... Banamex is trying to establish a precedent here where any one of these could be hauled into New York court for something they said in their home country. This is outrageous. Q. Are they based here? A. Yes, they are based in Times Square. Imagine the consequences not just for the Media Channel and its affiliates but for every journalism organization that has an office in New York, or for citizen organizations. New York would lose its role as a haven for free speech. And I'm not just talking about journalism, I'm talking about Broadway, the union movement, I'm talking about the Statue of Liberty, opening the doors up for people to pursue a certain kind of freedom. This is being threatened by the new world economic order, where people with lots of money can just throw their money around and abuse the court system. That's what is at stake here. Q. Do you think you're going to get a fair trial? A. Yes. Q. Anything else you want to add? A. I have not stopped publishing about Hernandez or Banamex or Citigroup or any of the parties here. To the contrary, ever since I learned about the lawsuit, and particularly after the Citigroup-Banamex merger were announced in May, I have published far more about all three entities than I had before the lawsuit was filed. We start reporting again next month. Stay tuned. Amy Langfield is a freelance reporter living in New York City. � Copyright 2001 Online Journalism Review Sidebar: http://ojr.usc.edu/content/story.cfm?request=614 Mexican Bank, Mexican Web Site, New York Courtroom Is Banamex forum shopping or simply seeking its day in court? By Amy Langfield, OJR Contributor When Al Giordano, a former political reporter for the Boston Phoenix, moved to Mexico and started a Web site to cover the drug wars in Latin America, he didn't suspect the endeavor would land him in a New York courtroom. But there he was on July 20, sitting in front of Judge Paula Omansky of the state Supreme Court, New York's trial-level court. The court's actions in the case bear watching by the legal community, law professors -- and anyone running a Web site. (For Giordano's take on the case, see the main article, Cross-fire in the Drug War.) Narco News, which Giordano published from his laptop in Mexico, now has him in a legal standoff with one of Mexico's most important bankers and a powerful Washington, D.C.-based law firm. The lawsuit was filed a year ago, the first hearing was held 10 days ago, and attorneys said it could take five months before even the issue of jurisdiction will be decided. Make no mistake, Narco News posts a style of writing you won't find landing in your typical American driveway or on the major wire services. The slant is opinionated, left-wing and activist. But that doesn't undermine its legitimacy, especially on the Web. 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. And Giordano takes credit for spurring major U.S. papers like the Los Angeles Times to report that the president of Uruguay was calling for the decriminalization of illicit drugs. The current libel and slander case was originally brought in 1997 against Por Esto!, a daily newspaper in the Yucat�n with a circulation of 70,000; it also publishes a Web site. It ran a three-part series in December 1996 alleging that drugs were being shipped to banker Roberto Hern�ndez Ramirez's beachfront property in the Yucat�n, unloaded and flown to the United States. It also said he was damaging Mayan ruins on his property and that he and his business partner were trying to run off local fisherman and other landowners. Giordano said the Por Esto! report was "supported by witness testimony, documents, facts." He said "the neighboring fishermen also went on the record, including at least one by name, as witnesses to the boat and plane activity in and out of Hern�ndez's property." The bank and Hern�ndez deny the accusations and maintain that the publishers of the Web site and the newspaper knew the statements were false when made. Por Esto's reporters were taken to the Hern�ndez property by local fisherman who said they had seen drug trafficking taking place on the property. The reporters also took photos, which, according to the captions, show trash washed up on the shoreline that indicates drug traffickers were in the area. Another photo shows stacks of packages in a warehouse. The caption identifies the packages as cocaine seized by local authorities. Thomas McLish, an attorney with Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, the firm representing Banamex, disputes the caption information. "Men�ndez and Giordano have continually mischaracterized and misrepresented what those photographs show. Banamex is unaware of any photographs that support the defendants' accusations," he said in an e-mail interview last week. However, after Por Esto publisher Mario Men�ndez ran the story, turned the cocaine over to the police, and filed a criminal complaint against Hern�ndez, the paper was slapped with trespassing and defamation charges. Giordano said local law officers were in Hern�ndez's back pocket, which is why the publisher and not the bank faced charges. Men�ndez's case was heard in three different courts, but he eventually won at all levels. McLish said the case was dismissed on a technicality. "Banamex did everything it could do under the law of Mexico," David Atlas, the attorney for Men�ndez, said told the New York court July 20. After the case was dismissed, Men�ndez and Giordano traveled to New York in March 2000 to attend an event at Columbia Law School, where they both made statements recounting the story about Hern�ndez. They returned to Mexico and in April 2000, Giordano started the Narco News Web site. In late May, he ran his first story about Hern�ndez, in which he cited Por Esto's reporting and says his own investigation into the allegations have convinced him the accusations are true. On Aug. 9, 2000, the bank filed suit in New York, charging libel over the written accusations and slander charges for the statements made at the law school as well as statements made to the press around the same time. The defendants are Men�ndez, Giordano and the Narco News Bulletin. Judge Omansky, who made it clear that she wanted more information about Mexican law and how this case was handled there, nonetheless said that if she were in the defendant's shoes, "I would feel free to come to the United States and say substantially the same thing" if I'd just been cleared in Mexico. The bank, popularly known as Banamex, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Grupo Financiero Banamex-Accival, also known as Banacci. Hern�ndez is the chairman of the board of directors, general director and largest shareholder of Banamex. U.S. financial behemoth Citigroup is in the process of buying Banacci in a $12.5 billion cash and stock deal. Reuters reported earlier this month that Hern�ndez's stake would be worth $1.9 billion if the takeover is completed. Banacci is also one of the most popular Latin American stocks with U.S.-based investment funds, according to a Reuters report. McLish, who argued in court that the accusations against Hern�ndez could jeopardize his assets under the U.S. Drug Kingpin Act, declined in an e-mail exchange to address whether the issue holds any implications for Citigroup. EFF warns of threat to independent journalists The Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a brief with the court in support of Giordano. "The EFF is concerned that the bank resorted to New York courts to try to shut down this Web site because it could not do so in Mexican courts," Cindy Cohn, legal defense director of the EFF, said in a statement. "This kind of forum shopping threatens to shut down one of the greatest benefits of the Internet -- giving a voice to independent, Internet-based journalists. Faced with having to defend themselves in far-flung jurisdictions, many independent journalists will simply choose not to publish on the Internet." But McLish said his client is not shopping around for a forum to convict. "This is the first lawsuit that Banamex has filed regarding these accusations. There were prior proceedings in Mexico, but they were brought by the Mexican government, not Banamex, and did not even involve the same statements at issue now, and did not address the truth or falsity of the statements. Banamex was not a party to the Mexican proceedings." The bank's complaint spells out its defamation claim: "Describing it as 'the Banamex story,' the Narco News Bulletin articles have falsely asserted and implied that (a) Banamex was purchased and is funded with the proceeds of illegal drug trafficking, (b) Banamex is controlled and managed by a criminal drug trafficker, (c) Banamex maintains a favored position with the government of Mexico, including law enforcement authorities, through bribery with money illegally obtained from drug trafficking, and (d) incontrovertible proof exists that Banamex's president and chairman is involved in drug trafficking. In addition, some of these articles repeated and republished false and defamatory statements defendant Men�ndez made about Banamex while in New York." Giordano claims that all his stories are true and whatever issue there is should be resolved in Mexican courts since that is where he posted the stories. Attorneys for the bank claim the stories are false, that the pictures do not show what the captions claim, and that the case can be tried in New York for a number of reasons. McLish said in court that the bank pays taxes in the United States and does millions of dollars of business here. The complaint also points out that the Narco News site is registered to a post office box in New York, and that many of its readers live in New York. It also states that Narco News is affiliated with organizations in New York that raise funds on his behalf. "Their false and scurrilous statements are highly damaging to Banamex in New York, where it is subject to U.S. laws that impose harsh and potentially ruinous penalties upon foreign banks associated with drug trafficking and money laundering. It would make no sense to sue somewhere else for false statements they made in New York to New York audiences," McLish said. The Internet service provider for Narco News, Voxel.net, is in Maryland. Jurisdiction on the Net a murky issue The problem faced by Narco News is not unique, said Jonathan Zittrain, an assistant professor at Harvard Law School and the faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society. Zittrain, who has no involvement with the case, said that generally, someone could sue wherever a claim of harm arises. "It would be up to the court where it was filed. The court could say people could read it here," he said. "It gets mushy pretty quickly." Zittrain said the possibility of so many Web sites being hauled into court is slim because of the expense in bringing a suit. But if a big corporation decides to sue a little guy and begins a long and costly court fight, that's nothing new just because it happened online. "If a large bank wants to make you unhappy, they can make you unhappy even if you go nowhere near the Internet," Zittrain said. Giordano said about $20,000 has been given so far to the legal fund to battle Banamex, but that more is needed. "This is becoming very expensive," he said at a news conference following the New York court hearing. "We're fighting for freedom of the press for journalists everywhere." Giordano also asserts that the case was filed in New York just to raise costs and slow down the process. "They don't want a speedy trial. They don't want speedy justice," Giordano said. "They know this is the most bogged court in the United States." Amy Langfield is a freelance reporter living in New York City. � Copyright 2001 Online Journalism Review Comment on this story on the Online Journalism Review message board: http://ojr.usc.edu/forums_messboard/Thread.cfm?CFApp=8&Thread_ID=779&mc=1 _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp 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/
