The Guardian Newspaper's Special Report

[Rinrada]

[Duncan Campbell ,isnt he the guy who was always being arrested by MI5 and MI6 back in the 80s for leaking info on UK security ? he has writen a few books .

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Indeed, I would expect something more meaty from him, maybe still to come?

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Agree ...dont seem like him.....

Heres a little bit of info for all of us with Long memories

Roundup of the way he sees things over the years....

Campaigner Against Official Secrecy ..

Journalists in the dock, information suppressed, telephones tapped: to Duncan Campbell, it sounds all too familiar

Tuesday 22 June..

That morning, at Bow Street Magistrates Court, in London, Tony Geraghty, a former Sunday Times reporter, was indicted along with Lieutenant-Colonel Nigel Wylde, a retired army officer, under the Official Secrets Act.

The Attorney-General had consented to the prosecution, the court was told. The kernel of the alleged offence was that Geraghty's book, The Irish War, published in 1998, revealed details of official computer surveillance systems used mainly in Northern Ireland.

They are code-named Vengeful (vehicle surveillance) and Crucible (personal information).

As long ago as 1974, Merlyn Rees, then Northern Ireland secretary, revealed the existence of Vengeful. I wrote a book, published in 1986, which contained far more information on the matter than Geraghty's. It attracted no attention.

Harold Wilson had come to power in 1974 with a pledge to repeal the relevant law. Yet three years later the state decided that my filing cabinet contained too much information for the safety of the realm.

That my "secrets" were about as exciting and well-concealed as the Post Office Tower was beside the point. MI5 was determined that no Watergate-style journalism should take root in Britain.

Indeed MI5 was remarkably vigilant at the time: as we now know, the files in its Mayfair offices listed Peter Mandelson as a communist, Jack Straw as a communist associate, Robin Cook (I believe) as a Trotskyist associate.

My own file had - and for all I know still has - the more romantic designation of "unaffiliated revolutionary".

So I was arrested and charged, along with Crispin Aubrey, a fellow journalist, and John Berry, a former intelligence corporal. Sam Silkin, the then attorney-general, gave consent for what became known (after our initials) as the ABC case. We were acquitted, but only after the case had dragged on for three years, during which we faced the prospect of 16 to 30 years' imprisonment.

But at the time of the case, the strongest campaigner against official secrecy and intelligence abuse was ....and In 1980 he was joined by a young barrister, Anthony Blair, who wrote a pamphlet for the National Union of Journalists castigating the Official Secrets Act and its abuse in the ABC prosecution.

(Five years later, Tony, now an up-and-coming Treasury shadow, keen as mustard, sat on my Habitat sofa in Stoke Newington, asking for secret information leaked from the Bank of England to the New Statesman.)

The NS published a story about how the Ministry of Defence had deceived parliament and secretly committed £500 million to building an all-British signals intelligence satellite, code-named Zircon.

Yet Labour's pledge to introduce freedom of information and "place the burden on the public authorities to justify withholding information" has been policy for more than 20 years.

In 1978, the Liberal MP Clement Freud came top of the ballot for private members' bills and helpfully put forward his proposed Freedom of Information Bill, expecting support.

The Labour cabinet wanted none of it. Instead, it was persuaded to endorse a new Official Secrets Bill aimed in part at criminalising investigative journalism, by creating a "jigsaw puzzle offence" of learning too much about government secrets, even from open sources.

What a pity that the Security Service Bill, introduced by a back-bench Labour MP in December 1979 under the ten-minute rule, never got anywhere. It proposed a prohibition on issuing general tapping warrants and a strict definition as to what constitutes subversive activity. The MP was..

This article first appeared in the New Statesman. (abridged by R)

with thanks From The N.S.

http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/199907050006.htm

All good memories.....wotcha...

and lots of others...American, British and Allied intelligence agencies are soon to embark on a massive, billion-dollar expansion of their global electronic surveillance system.

According to information given recently in secret to the US Congress, the surveillance system will enable the agencies to monitor and analyse civilian communications into the 21st century.

Identified for the moment as Project P415, the system will be run by the US National Security Agency ....but dont say I mentioned it .

[boris]

Thomas, I'm agreeing with you 100%!!

Unlike Duncan Campbell you actually made a point and made it well!

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What a lot of heat has been generated by the Guardian article even from SOAS graduates (let's go along for the time being with this fiction).Most Thai residents would query some of the detail but the broad thrust is obviously largely correct.On the whole Pattaya does attract the more scummy elements and this is a matter of record,but I doubt whether the criminal group is particularly large.No, the main element is the brutalised Western proletariat that actually takes pride in its squalor and ugliness,Hence the comments about "working class bad boys" etc as though this was a badge of honour not of shame.

[taxexile]

Hence the comments about "working class bad boys" etc as though this was a badge of honour not of shame.

the working class ceased to exist , well in britain at least , about 20 years ago.

the days of the flat capped , woodbine gasping geezer cycling to do a days work at the mine , the pickled onion production plant , or picketing against the management are long gone.

the ugliness and squalor that you talk about pervades all echelons of british society these days.

pride in anything is non - existent.

[boris]

Hence the comments about "working class bad boys" etc as though this was a badge of honour not of shame.

the working class ceased to exist , well in britain at least , about 20 years ago.

the days of the flat capped , woodbine gasping geezer cycling to do a days work at the mine , the pickled onion production plant , or picketing against the management are long gone.

the ugliness and squalor that you talk about pervades all echelons of british society these days.

pride in anything is non - existent.

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I fear you are partly right about the squalid influence spreading.But speaking as one with very humble origins I think it is a real regret that old working class virtues have been largely lost.By virtues I mean self improvement, hard work, a genuine concern for the oppressed, solidarity with the exploited etc.The lack of any compassion or thoughtfulness (and other former w/class virtues) is why I find the Pattaya contingent on the whole so disagreable,feral and brutal.

[Kerryd]

The Nation is just now denying that Pattaya is a haven for Brit criminals.

UK CRIMINALS ON THE RUN: Police deny Pattaya is a crime haven

Published on April 13, 2005

Reject British media claims that resort city is a magnet for low-lifes; admit more international cooperation needed.

Supposedly, criminals flock to Pattaya because:

The article cited four main reasons why British criminals are attracted to Pattaya: an abundance of women, ease of finding accommodation, the chance to get a new identity, and illicit ways to make money.

But as (Colonel Somnuek Chankate, superintendent of Pattaya sub-district police station) points out:

He said other tourist cities were also vulnerable to similar allegations, as criminals could also find women, hideouts and new identities in those places.

UK CRIMINALS ON THE RUN: (The Nation, 13 April 2005)

They go on to mention that the majority of the criminals in Pattaya are Germans, "Ko-reans" and Chinese.

[Rinrada]

I was talking to a Swedish guy about 2 years ago who was staying in in Theparak and he told me that he was hoping to move down to Pattaya with his familily since he had heard so many "good"things about the place.

About a week later I bumped into him again and asked how his trip went and he reconed NO way......its FULL of Swedish gangsters and Mafia.

Decided its no place for him and family.

Couple of ways of course to look at it ...maybe he found his old lost friends and recognised them :huh:or genunine observations?

Swedish mafia......goes to show.

[Thomas_Merton]

I was talking to a Swedish guy about 2 years ago who was staying in in Theparak and he told me that he was hoping to move down to Pattaya with his familily since he had heard so many "good"things about the place.

About a week later I bumped into him again and asked how his trip went and he reconed NO way......its FULL of Swedish gangsters and Mafia.

Decided its no place for him and family.

Couple of ways of course to look at it ...maybe he found his old lost friends and recognised them :huh:or genunine observations?

Swedish mafia......goes to show. 

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This is an interesting comment, and worthy of further development (rather than the “petite bourgeois” remarks of Boris, or the “Thatcherism” of Taxecile – I will willingly argue with you on the “brutalisation of the working class”, but in another time and another place).

The British centre of the article is perhaps understandable: British newspaper and one language British journalist, seeing the world as they always do through British eyes.

I am not an expert on Pattaya, having only spent three weeks there, however I am fluent in all of the Scandinavian languages plus I understand most of the European languages – not to mention a couple of Middle Eastern. And the first foreign language I learnt at school was Russian.

As a fly on the wall in what The Guardian would have us believe is a British criminal ex-pat’s Sodom and Gomorrah, I could observe that the Brits generally were the suckers, the Scandinavians had most money and kept it to themselves, the Russians had no scruples in their pursuit of money, the guys from the Middle East made the most money and the Thai boys controlled everything.

But what do I know? I only heard what people were saying.

[ProfessorFart]

Boris,

I'm just saddened that in the aftermath of the tsunami, the best a supposedly quality newspaper can produce about Thailand is a piece of negative tabloid recycled dribble such as this.

I would have thought that even a Cambridge graduate ( ) would feel some disgust and even shame at the Guardian but I see you're still stuck in your class obsessed time warp.

[Pattaya_Fox]

I was talking to a Swedish guy about 2 years ago who was staying in in Theparak and he told me that he was hoping to move down to Pattaya with his familily since he had heard so many "good"things about the place.

About a week later I bumped into him again and asked how his trip went and he reconed NO way......its FULL of Swedish gangsters and Mafia.

Decided its no place for him and family.

Couple of ways of course to look at it ...maybe he found his old lost friends and recognised them :huh:or genunine observations?

Swedish mafia......goes to show. 

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The only Swedish criminal of any repute who made the headlines as far as I can remember was Tommy Lindfors who was a suspected drug trafficker and he was kicked out of Pattaya in 1988 and sent back to Sweden where he was wanted for importing illegal drugs.

Then there was the saga of the German national Wolfgang Urich who at the time of his arrest in 1998 was supposedly one of 34 undesireables which the Thai authorities were wanting to deport. He finally departed LOS in 2001.

Wherever you have a town or city where cash flows easily there will always be a small criminal element ....thats life...I suppose as to how much is made of this will depend how individual people interpret it....some may say gangsters others may say criminals...others may say mafia......But rarely are these statements and generalisations based on any proven facts.

[britmaveric]

I wager Duncan has never set foot in Patters - here say shi*e at its worst.

[gburns57au]

A few years ago, Oz 60 minutes set up 2 guys in Pattaya to be the subjects of a documentry....complete with government statistics on the prevalence of AIDS in Pattaya and a social commentator on the Poor Isaan girls who worked there...you get the drift ???

After it was proven that it was all a set up and nothing more than sensationalistic and gutter journalism.... The Presenter who was also the producer of the segment was fired from his job.

Perhaps the author of this report deserves the same fate.

[ProfessorFart]

gburns,

Its the biggest problem with the Western Media.

Given the wealth of topics they could cover about Thailand they always try and show a warped image of Sex Tourism, trying to falsely merge it with forced prostitution time and time again.

The sad thing is that the Western Media is not only run by cretins but staffed by cretins too.

[sriracha john]

But at the end of the day, the facts in the Guardian article provide an accurate, truthful depiction of a segment of Pattaya that's good for the readers overseas to be aware of.

[britmaveric]

But at the end of the day, the facts in the Guardian article provide an accurate, truthful depiction of a segment of Pattaya that's good for the readers overseas to be aware of.

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Without any recent facts to support what was written.

[ProfessorFart]

But at the end of the day, the facts in the Guardian article provide an accurate, truthful depiction of a segment of Pattaya that's good for the readers overseas to be aware of.

I don't think anyones denying that elements of the article are correct SRJ. However its not an accurate picture but a ridiculous sensationalisation which is not backed up with hard fact but appears to be mostly founded on guesswork, supposition and regurgitated sterotypes.

[lampard10]

I

Wherever you have a town or city where cash flows easily there will always be a small criminal element ....

Or large criminal element. My wife and me left England because you could not walk the streets safely in the evenings. Believe me Pattaya is a nuns tea party compared to most towns in the UK on a friday and saturday night. Theres a Dogs B's on every corner,two in every street. Compared with Surin,which has a garrison of around 500 policemen,Ramsgate,a town of the same size has 2. Constable Bob,who would flee at the sight of a granny with an umberella,and his rookie partner. I find living in Thailand safer,quieter and on the whole more friendly than anywhere else in the world.Up here in old Isaan for example,I have had 1,500 different visitors in the boozer from 35 diferent countries and in two years we have not had one fight. OK,I run a tight ship,but how many pubs in England could say that each month. What I cannot understand though is that there are so many Thailand knockers that still live here,and post their whinges reguarly on TV. No,for me England is a place to say I'm Enlg.ish,proud to be English and even prouder to be 5,000 miles away from

[Phil Clark]

sorry it was to hideous

/edit mod

A face only a mother could love 

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I wonder if he will use the money from the article to buy a better wig...

[fourbaht]

or at least one the same color as the little bit of hair he has

[britmaveric]

Striking resembelance....

[davethailand]

Striking resembelance....

         

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What.. you mean he looks like Yohan?

[Darknight]

Let's give sinbad one less worry so he won't feel abandoned in his thread

Topic closed,

Pattaya is pattaya , london is london, new york is new york

A teacher is a teacher after all