Posted on 07/20/2003 2:11:43 PM PDT by demlosers
When last there, it was about 65 UK Pounds per year. This was for a colour Licence, its less for B&W.
Also a easy thing to do for the government.
End of Story
However the problems this would cause would be two fold.
1. It would mean he has to go to a court of law and they have to produce evidence and he has a defence lawyer who can call any polititian to the court to give evidence, without the aid of Rasputin Spin doctors.
Therefore they would have to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The Truth telling would also include the BBC reporter, so this would be the best solution, if you want to get at the truth and put the so called bad boys of the BBC in their place.
2. If he is found gulity, and he can only be found guilty if he was telling the truth when he spoke to the BBC. If he lied, giving false information would not be breaking the offical secrets act.
You have to be giving information that has come into your possesion, that could put the lives of UK citizens in the employ of her majesties government or damage the government of the UK. Therefore they wanted to destroy the man publically with out the trial, that's why Jack Straw informed the government comittee to take it easy on the man, as he probably new he was very close to the edge.
Mr Kelly killed himself, but Tony Blair, Alistar Campbell and Jack Straw all had their hand on the knife and as so many of the press around the world are saying, they have blood on their hands.
I apologize for what will be a personal attack of sorts - though hopefully you'll take it as a slight against your reasoning and not you as a person - (not to worry, since this thread is old, I'm sure no one will notice except for you.) I really don't like people with your tag line making statements like this.
You have been claiming that Blair is at fault here (or we can even expand that to the larger British government) for this man's death because they released his name. Now, for the sake of argument, let's concede that they did release the name. Let's go further and say they aggresively got his name printed on every billboard in London.
My question was "so what?" You're response is well, they did this as an alternative to prosecuting him. Is that really the problem with releasing his name? Wouldn't his name have been released if he was being prosecuted? If I had a choice of either (a) having my name released as the source of some information or (b) having my name released as the source of some information and then being prosecuted for violations of something like the "official secrets act," I think I'd happily take option a). I mean, if I really wanted to be prosecuted so my "truth" would come out, I could just keep it up . . . and be more intellectually honest at the same time - putting a face to my statements. The government does, in all such cases, have the OPTION of prosecution. This isn't some new concept - we've had it since, uh, Hammurabi.
The natural order of things is that if people like Kelly want to go spill their guts to the press, they should expect repercussions, like public scorn, stress, etc. No government could allow a free press if people like Kelly were allowed to operate in the shadows perfectly untouchable and anonymously.
Imagine, 1941, Messrs. Wilson, Dunagee, and Hawkins working in the OSS, the Dept. of State, and the Dept. of Defense, respectively. Wilson and Dunagee are actually German agents. Hawkins hates the current administration because he only got a 2% raise in 1940 and doesn't expect a bigger one this year. As entry into WWII is being debated, these 3 undertake to undermine the war effort. They secretly go to the press and feed information about Hitler not being bad at all, about the lies, that all of the atrocities are being either exaggerated or commited by British soldiers wearing German uniforms, that the Wermacht is harmless and efficient (and all of the intelligence says so). Now, FDR finds out about these yahoos leaking info to the NYT, which delightfully argued their case (until Stalin was invaded of course). Should these three gentlemen continue to enjoy their cushy bureaucratic jobs without ever being exposed? Of course not. That's the trade off. You get to be a bureaucrat - but you are a PUBLIC official. If you do bad things, the PUBLIC has the right to know about it.
(That doesn't mean that a government has an obligation to prosecute you for those bad things - they are given discretion.)
I fail to see your point in the slightest. It's like I asked what color the man's shirt was and you answered "the girl's skirt is green." I still want to understand your issue here - but only if it's somewhat intellectually honest. If you're just some DU loser here, don't bother wasting either of our time any more.
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