Some MEPs have tabled amendments to the EU Telecom Package (draft EU communications framework bill) which would see the previously voted-against ‘3 strike rule’ brought into law.

The ‘3 strike rule’ would see corporations (in some cases non-EU corporations) being given power of judge and jury over private EU citizens under the auspices of the corporations defending their ‘intellectual property’ rights. The EU Commission would effectively be able to mandate the installation of spyware at the ISP level so that 3rd party corporations would be able to directly spy on EU citizens data usage.

The legislation could also see EU ISPs having to bar access to Peer to Peer (P2P) networks such as bittorrent in an arbitrary manner. I’m sure that will go down really well with Linux users who can’t get their distros and World of Warcraft players who can no-longer download their game updates. The problem is that while the likes of the music industry may not like peer-to-peer software, it has so many legitimate uses that it’s as hard to justify blocking as HTTP Port 80.

I’ve written to my MEP opposing this stupidity. If you are an EU citizen, you can write to yours too. Click here for a searchable map to find your MEP. MEPs will vote on the amendments next Monday (7th July) so get cracking and get your MEP informed today!

I also suggets visiting EDRI and La Quadrature Du Net for further information. You can also read La Quadrature Du Net’s arguments against the amendments.

Okay, so I don’t really believe this to be an intentional dark conspiracy but the fact remains that the BBC did provably edit an interview between David Frost and Benazir Bhutto to remove a reference made by Bhutto to the murder of Osama Bin Laden by Omar Sheikh.

The original interview was broadcast in full on al Jazeera TV in November with the Bin Laden reference but when the interview was rebroadcast on the BBC, the reference was edited out rather crudely by the insertion of a still image of Frost to cover the audio join in Bhutto’s response.

A youtube user has uploaded both versions of the video (unfortunately, I can’t find one neatly edited together to demonstrate the cut quickly)

The original is first, the reference to the murder is just after the 6:00 minute mark:

In the next clip, we see the BBC’s edited version with the dodgey still of Frost turning up at 5:00 minutes

A Czech lecturer at the University of Glasgow enquired with the BBC about the apparent censorship*:

The video of David Frost’s interview with Bhutto on your website HERE contains a cut shortly after minute 5 where a still photograph of David Frost is inserted.

The uncensored version of the interview is available on YouTube and elsewhere.

In the cut out sequence, Bhutto says that bin Laden is dead.

Can you please advise who has cut out this sequence and what was the reason for this act of censorship?

You may be aware that among other places, this act of censorship is being energetically discussed on the discussion forum of Spiegel Online (in German).

Thank you very much

Dr Jan Culik
Senior Lecturer
University of Glasgow

The BBC sent back the following response.

The BBC has an agreement with al-Jazeera which enables both broadcasters to share certain news material including pictures and interviews. It was on this basis that we offered an extract of Sir David Frost’s interview with Benazir Bhutto to users of the BBC News website.

During the interview Ms Bhutto made an allegation that Osama Bin Laden had been murdered by Omar Sheikh. A claim which was unchallenged and so unexpected that it seemed most likely that she had mis-spoken.

Under time pressure the item producer responsible for publishing the video edited out the comment with the intention of avoiding confusion. On reflection this was clearly a mistake and should not have happened. There was no intention on our part to distort the meaning of the interview, and we will endeavour to replace the edited version currently available via the BBC News website with the original interview as broadcast by Al-Jazeera.

I would like to take the opportunity to apologise for what was an error of judgement and the confusion that this has caused.

Adam Batstone

Editor BBC News Website Audio Video

Which, to my mind is actually a pretty good explanation. Frost seemed to miss the reference (he looked pretty comatose in fact) so Bhutto was never challenged on the statement and she did not expand on it herself which suggests it was uttered as a statement of accepted fact. I’m actually surprised that al Jazeera didn’t make the same cut to avoid confusion too.

I believe she did not intend to name ‘Osama Bin Laden’, rather she intended to say “Omar Sheikh, the man who murdered Daniel Pearl“. Omar Sheikh was found guilty of the videotaped 2002 murder of the journalist. It’s possible that she just had Bin Laden on her mind at that moment in the interview and confused his name for Pearl’s without even realising the mistake.

The conspiracy theorists are very excited about this and of course, from their point of view, it really is golden. Now that Bhutto has been assasinated, it is impossible to ask her whether she actually intended to say ‘Osama Bin Laden’ or not.

Update: Steve Herrmann, the Editor of the BBC News Website has put his view forward too. I remain of the opinion that the whole hoo-ha was David Frost’s fault when he didn’t pick up on Benazir Bhutto’s mistake. If Frost had just asked her if she meant what she said (and I’m nearly certain now that she meant to say Daniel Pearl) the conspiracy nuts would still be bleating but wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.

*Please note, the letters quoted were ‘collected on the internet’, I’ve not found the primary source