-Caveat Lector-
Gary Webb on the Silencing of Narco News
From: "Alberto M. Giordano" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
March 16, 2001
Zero Hour for Narco News
A Letter from Pulitzer Prize Awarded Journalist Gary Webb:
Dear Friend,
Not long after I wrote a series for the San Jose Mercury News about a
drug ring that had flooded South Central Los Angeles with cheap cocaine at
the beginning of the crack explosion there, a strange thing happened to me.
I was silenced.
This, believe it or not, came as something of a surprise to me. For 17
years I had been writing newspaper stories about grafters, crooked bankers,
corrupt politicians and killers -- and winning armloads of journalism awards
for it. Some of my stories had convened grand juries and sent important
people to well-deserved jail cells. Others ended up on 20/20, and later
became a best-selling book (not written by me, unfortunately.) I started
doing television news shows, speaking to college journalism classes and
professional seminars. I had major papers bidding against each other to hire
me.
So when I happened across information implicating an arm of the Central
Intelligence Agency in the cocaine trade, I had no qualms about jumping onto
it with both feet. What did I have to worry about? I was a newspaperman for
a big city, take-no-prisoners newspaper. I had the First Amendment, a law
firm, and a multi-million dollar corporation watching my back.
Besides, this story was a fucking outrage. Right-wing Latin American drug
dealers were helping finance a CIA-run covert war in Nicaragua by selling
tons of cocaine to the Crips and Bloods in LA, who were turning it into
crack and spreading it through black neighborhoods nationwide. And all the
available evidence pointed to the sickening conclusion that elements of the
US government had known of it and had either tacitly encouraged it or, at a
minimum, done absolutely nothing to stop it.
And that's when this strange thing happened. The national news media,
instead of using its brute strength to force the truth from our government,
decided that its time would be better spent investigating me and my
reporting. They kicked me around pretty good, I have to admit. (At one
point, I was even accused of making movie deals with a crack dealer I'd
written about. The DEA raided my film agent's office looking for any scrap
of paper to back up this lie and appeared disappointed when they came up
emptyhanded.)
To this day, no one has ever been able to show me a single error of fact in
anything I've written about this drug ring, which includes a 600-page book
about the whole tragic mess. Indeed, most of what has come out since shows
that my newspaper stories grossly underestimated the extent of our
government's knowledge, an error to which I readily confess. But, in the
end, the facts didn't really matter. What mattered was making the damned
thing go away, shutting people up, and making anyone who demanded the truth
appear to be a wacky conspiracy theorist. And it worked.
As a result, the CIA was allowed to investigate itself, release a heavily
censored report admitting that it had worked with cocaine traffickers, and
simultaneously declare itself innocent of any wrongdoing. And that's where
our firebrand national news media has let the matter lie to this day.
Now it's NarcoNews' turn for the silence treatment. And, if I had to guess,
I'd venture to say that it's probably more important to the folks selling us
the Drug War to shut up Al Giordano than it is to silence mainstream
reporters who, in my father's eloquent words, wouldn't say shit if they had
a mouth full of it.
No one can lean on NarcoNews's editors, or their bosses, or its board of
directors to reign Al in or, failing that, reassign him to the night copy
desk. The only person they can lean on is Al, who doesn't take to being
leaned on. And they can't shut down the Internet either. So two choices
remain.
They can grit their teeth and suffer Al's reporting, day after aggravating
day, as he exposes the ugly underside of this endless war on drugs and
actually makes things happen, like real journalists are supposed to do. Or
they can try to make it impossible for him to do his job by harassing him
with specious lawsuits, bedevil him with lawyers and depositions and
interrogatories and subpoenas, and reduce him to penury. Why? To silence
him. To make him go away. To keep him from looking under rocks that
reporters aren't supposed to look under.
Make no mistake. This court fight isn't about any particular story NarcoNews
has done. It's about ALL of them, and all of the ones yet to come. And it's
a battle over the continued independence of Internet journalism as well. The
silencing of Al Giordano and NarcoNews isn't a theoretical possibility that
might happen a couple years from now. It's already happening. Al and his
volunteer lawyers are hip-deep in it right now. And they need our help.
Narco News and Al Giordano face an April 9th deadline to respond to the
Banamex censorship lawsuit or they will be declared in default guilty
without a single fact being heard in a case where the facts prove them
right.
A civil lawsuit is different than a criminal case: complex legal issues
require trained lawyers to dig through the law books on procedural issues so
far from the basic truths about photographs of cocaine trafficking on the
coast of Mexico. The bank's lawyers at Akin Gump are paid astronomic fees to
raise every small point of process and delay the day when the facts come to
light in New York City court.
If this case goes to trial, that's when Narco News will triumph. And all of
us will win with it as the real facts of the corruption of the international
drug war come to light in the media center of New York.
The hard part comes right now, in navigating the maze of irrelevant process
issues, as any reporter who has covered the courts has seen. Narco News will
either be able to have skilled attorneys get them through this complicated
phase or I can see it coming Al will have to take a long trip to the law
library himself, abandon reporting for the coming weeks or months in order
to wage his own defense. Then you and I will not be able to read new reports
on Narco News at this key moment when Plan Colombia explodes regionally and
more Latin American voices are raised against the drug war, like the Mexican
police chief yesterday, who, if not for Narco News, would never be heard by
those of us who speak and read in English.
That is what is at stake: Whether a skilled reporter has to retire for
months to become a pro se lawyer, or whether he can continue reporting the
facts to us.
I was silenced but am not silenced any more. When, the other day, the film
rights to my book Dark Alliance about US complicity in the cocaine trade
were purchased for a television movie, I wrote Al to pledge part of those
proceeds to his defense. In the years to come, there is no question that
Narco News will be proven right and will be helping the next generation of
reporters fight efforts to censor them.
But wouldn't it be wonderful if this time the censors failed entirely to
take Al and Narco News out of circulation, for a year, for months, even for
a week? Wouldn't that be the best deterrent against bankers and lobbyists
from waging these frivolous lawsuits against Free Speech on the Internet? I
understand that Narco News needs only about $13,000 more to be able to have
the most difficult stage of the lawsuit process that which it faces
immediately handled with professional legal assistance, thus allowing Al
to continue expending his energy and time in reporting to us the facts. One
person of means could solve this problem with a check. Two dozen people
giving $500 could do it. 130 people giving a hundred dollars… you can do the
math: If half of Narco News' readers give one dollar each, Narco News will
keep publishing.
The hard part is that it must be done now, today. Please join me in sending
a check to:
Drug War on Trial
C/O Thomas Lesser, Esq.
Lesser, Newman, Souweine & Nasser
39 Main Street
Northampton, MA 01060
Al often says that Narco News never wanted to ask its readers for a cent,
and I sense that it pains him to ask the readers who benefit from his
reporting to support his defense in court. That's why I'm writing you. This
lawsuit is bigger than the fate of one Internet publication. It is larger
than, but it will decide, free speech issues in cyberspace for years to
come. What is at stake here is nothing less than whether the public knows
the truth and the facts about the war on drugs in our hemisphere.
If we don't all act today, we will be in the dark again tomorrow,
Sincerely,
Gary Webb
Journalist
For information about the lawsuit and its defense:
http://www.narconews.com/warroom.html
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