Ansbacher report and the Internet

national | miscellaneous | news report Monday July 08, 2002 13:33 by Daithi - One of Indymedia Ireland macsithd at tcd dot ie

Why you can't download the report you paid for...yet

Officially, the Ansbacher report is not available on the Web. The Director of Corporate Enforcement has declined to make it available online. I encourage all participants in Indymedia Ireland to contribute to making the findings of the report available to all who wish to read it for themselves, minus the filter of a newspaper's "summary".

The Ansbacher report was commissioned by and paid for by the government of this country. The funds are of course public funds and the government acted in our name.

The report was complied in accordance with Irish law and the publication of the report was of course entirely legal.

Yet it's not being made available on the web, due to fears about legal action "in other jurisdictions".

This is a most terrifying development. An investigation of this magnitude is conducted by legal officers in one country, but the viewing of the results is restricted. What's next, court decisions being confined to the "home country" only? Nationality tests for those who access Internet versions of newspapers? Zimbabwe-style press laws where you can be prosecuted for publishing an article on the Internet site of a newspaper in another country?

It's funny how Ireland, or any other seemingly independent nation, is stopped from doing so many things because they would be "barriers to trade", but this freedom to trade, of course, doesn't extend to criticism of the consequences of naked, greedy, unrestrained and unregulated capitalism.

The people of Ireland have already paid the price of Ansbacher, through the cuts in public services imposed by successive Governments while tax evasion was endemic in this society. The people of Ireland paid for the investigation that should have been conducted by the Revenue Commissioners years ago.

And now the report is being withheld due to legal concerns, not under our law nor international law, but under the domestic laws of other nations.

This is why Indymedia and similar services are necessary.