19 June 2006

Liam Clarke writes 19 June 2006:

I appreciate, and support, your stance against state censorship.

However, I do think there should be some test of the accuracy and relevance of the material you put up on Cryptome. There is a danger that you will be used to air crank theories, wild guesses or malicious allegations put up for the sake of slinging mud.

I think the current link to the suedenham blogspot falls into that category. It alleges that I have betrayed sources, which is untrue, and that I am a contributor to both Private Eye and Phoenix, which is also untrue. No evidence is offered because there is none. Even if true, this sort of stuff would be of doubtful relevance to an intelligence website. No censorship is one thing. Putting up anything that has appeared on an anonymous blogspot or bulletin board anywhere in the world is taking things a stage further.

Clearly if there is no editorial control or common sense anyone can accuse anyone of anything from espionage to eating babies and Cryptome would quickly be swamped with silly allegations and outraged denials.

I don't want to get into a war of allegation and counter allegation with the people who are putting this up. I've already spent long enough dealing with abusive phone calls and e-mails from one of them. Life is too short. On the other hand I can't really let stuff like this stand with no correction or health warning about the source.

I'm sure this sort of issue has come up before so I'd be grateful for your thoughts.