http://www.avaaz.org/en/canada_fair_and_balanced

More information, and an audio clip of an interview with Talon can be found at the Arsenal Pulp blog Arsenalia (see link below.

http://www.arsenalia.com/barrick-gold-versus-talonbooks/

The one for academic professors is here: http://www.freespeechatrisk.ca/academic-petition/

THANKS!

U.K. libel suit nearly silences investigative report, even in U.S.

[In 2001] a Canadian firm managed to use British law to shut down part of a U.S.-based website. The suit, which pitted Barrick Gold and Goldstrike Mines against Guardian Newspapers UK, was brought over “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,” a Nov. 26, 2000 column by Greg Palast which appeared in the Guardian’s Sunday publication, the Observer. In it, Palast looked at the links between several corporations and the Bush family.

Palast pointed out:

In the final days of the Bush (Senior) administration, the Interior Department made an extraordinary but little noticed change in procedures under the 1872 Mining Law, the gold rush–era act that permitted those whiskered small-time prospectors with their tin pans and mules to stake claims on their tiny plots. The department initiated an expedited procedure for mining companies that allowed Barrick to swiftly lay claim to the largest gold find in America. In the terminology of the law, Barrick could “perfect its patent” on the estimated $10 billion in ore—for which Barrick paid the U.S. Treasury a little under $10,000…

Barrick saved—and the U.S. taxpayer lost—a cool billion or so. Upon taking office, Bill Clinton’s new interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, called Barrick’s claim the “biggest gold heist since the days of Butch Cassidy.” Nevertheless, because the company followed the fast-track process laid out for them under Bush, this corporate Goldfinger had Babbitt by the legal nuggets. Clinton had no choice but to give them the gold mine while the public got the shaft. http://www.gregpalast.com/poppy-strikes-gold/

Barrick sued to silence Palast and have the article removed from the Observer. So this is their typical use of libel law to bury their critics. It’s worked for them in the past. This time they don’t have the law on their side so will beat the journalist to death with money.

My understanding is that people are thinking of options to stop this kind of thing, but it’s actually pretty hard to do. Crafting a law that weeds out these sorts of strategic lawsuits without stopping legitimate ones is challenging. Still, I hope to see some legal changes around this in the next few years (the law is slow).