UK newspaper names Zimmermann a "neo-Nazi sympathiser"

["Declan B. McCullagh" <declan+@CMU.EDU>]

From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic@well.com>
Subject: Re: UK newspaper names Zimmermann a "neo-Nazi sympathiser"
To: Declan McCullagh
Date: Wed, 24 Jan 1996 18:13:11 -0800 (PST)
Cc: fight-censorship+@andrew.cmu.edu

 
Zimmermann stands to recover a lot if he sues the Telegraph under British
libel laws.


--Mike

[...]

> 
>  Subject: "PRZ a nazi" to be retracted
>  To: cypherpunks@toad.com (Cypherpunks)
>  Date: Tue, 23 Jan 1996 21:58:48 -0700 (MST)
>  Cc: prz@acm.org (Philip Zimmermann)
>  From: Philip Zimmermann <prz@acm.org>
>  Reply-To: Philip Zimmermann <prz@acm.org>
>  X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22]
>  Content-Type: text
>  Sender: owner-cypherpunks@toad.com
>  Precedence: bulk
>  
>  The Sunday Telegraph of London printed a story last Sunday about neo-nazis
>  using PGP to encrypt their communications.  The story said that PGP was
>  devised by an American neo-nazi sympathizer.  As the creator of PGP, and
>  a human rights activist, I was outraged by such a defamation from a major
>  newspaper.  I called my lawyer Phil Dubois, who seemed to look forward to
>  having some fun with this newspaper.
>  
>  Not wanting to wait around till the morning, and slow lawyers, I called
>  Robin Gedye, the reporter in Bonn who wrote the story, at 7am Monday morning
>  Bonn time, and woke him up at home.  I introduced myself and told him how I
>  felt about it.  He had never heard of me, the Clipper chip, the
controversies
>  of cryptography, and knew nothing about PGP outside of the couple of
>  sentences in his story that mentioned PGP.  He said it wasn't really so bad,
>  because he didn't specifically identify me by name.  One can imagine the
>  effectiveness of that excuse with me.  I then went into some detail with him
>  to bring him up to speed.  I also called his editor in London, who also had
>  never heard of me or PGP.
>  
>  After some checking, they discovered that the Daily Telegraph, a related
>  newspaper, had run an article about my case just a week before.  They also
>  found about 20 recent articles on me in the UK press.  The editor said that
>  my story "checks out".  It was good to know that they now believed that I
>  was not a neo-nazi after all.
>  
>  Anyway, Mr. Gedye says that the Sunday Telegraph will print a retraction
>  next Sunday.  Not just a little retraction, but a whole article on the
>  subject, written by Mr. Gedye himself.  I'm glad to see that this probably
>  means that he will dig into the subject more, in order to write such an
>  article.
>  
>  I guess this means maybe I'll find some other things to occupy Phil Dubois's
>  time.
>  
>    -Philip Zimmermann
>     23 Jan 96
> 
> 
> // declan@eff.org // My opinions are not in any way those of the EFF //
> 
>