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11 September 2004

Googlist

While we're on the subject of Google, if you run a query for Kazaa, Google very kindly includes the following message, "In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed x result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint for these removed results." Nice touch. What else is Google censoring?

9/11 Racketeering & Profiteering Continues

On the eve of the third anniversary of 9/11, and just as the three year statute on taking legal action is about to expire, the World Trade Center Agency that owns the site of the World Trade Center in New York says it is suing Saudi Arabia for damages suffered on 11 September, 2001.

Only last week the bond brokerage firm Cantor Fitzgerald who lost more employees in the attack than any other firm - sued Saudi Arabia seeking US$7 billion and claiming Saudi Arabia aided the attackers. Interestingly, there appears to be no mention of this action on the Cantor Fitzgerald web site, despite this being a fairly signifcant legal claim, and instead the latest news announcement at the time of this post was one relating to a September 11th charity fund.

Shortly before the events of 9/11 in the summer of 2001, Silverstein Properties won, with Westfield America, a 99-year right-to-lease of the World Trade Center from The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, with the deal resulting in Silverstein controlling the office space and Westfield America the retail space.

Assuming that the WTC Agency comprises at least the The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey and maybe some part of Silverstein Properties, neither of these organisations appears to believe that issuing a law suit against Saudi Arabia for allegedly aiding attackers on 9/11 is particularly newsworthy as neither Cantor Fitzgerald, Silverstein Properties, nor The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey web sites appear to contain any information about the issuance of these law suits, despite them being rather significant events.

Given all we've been told about who was allegedly responsible for the attacks, and everything that has transpired since - the ongoing 'war against terror' ('the bombing of an abstract noun' as described by Monty Python's Terry Jones) which has resulted in the bombing and occupation of Afghanistan (tenuously connected to the events of 9/11) and Iraq (entirely unconnected with the events of 9/11, nor did it possess any weapons of mass destruction (or 'bombs' as they were known before the impact and meaning of words started disappearing entirely)), and consider also the fact that two leading Saudi newspapers published articles offering the Saudi point of view, condemning the attacks and disassociating the majority of Muslims and Arabs from 9/11 - one might be forgiven for wanting to understand quite how it might be possible to seek compensation from Saudi Arabia, mightn't one?