German FOIA law

[Jan Klimkowski]

Yes, most FOI is a well kept secret least people actually find out about it and, god forbid, use it.

And if people do set about using it effectively, well, officialdom will fall back on the sort of tactics used against Craig Murray (ex-UK ambassador to Uzbekistan) to sanitise his book 'Murder in Samarkand'. Back in 2005 Craig was still battling with the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office over the contents of the book. He had made extensive use of the FoI Act to obtain documents relating to his dismissal as Ambassador and had posted them on his blog. Now, get this: He was forced to remove some of the documents because, in spite of them having been released to him under freedom of information legislation, the FCO still claimed copyright over them. Not only did they refuse permission to publish them, they threatened legal action which Craig was advised could easily bankrupt him to defend. QED.

Craig tells the story briefly here. At the time I forwarded them to both Cryptome and Wikileaks but the book had to be published without them because of that threat. You really couldn't make this up could you?

:joyman:

Kafka's grey and labyrinthine corridors of power being traversed by the C21st ruling elites to protect Their filthy secrets and lies...

Someone must have traduced Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.