Albany, Day Three

31 March 2009

Albany, NY State

No sooner am I awake and I'm packing my case again as we are off again to New York later this afternoon. 

We have time to visit the New York State Museum in Albany and view the 9/11 exhibition.  I didn’t know that the black boxes – two for each plane – were never found.   They are believed to have vaporised.

 

Albany, the state capital of New York, not the most attractive city in the world

It was budget setting day in the State Capital and the Republican’s tails were up hoping to influence the Democrat controlled chamber.  Our meeting was with Senator Skelos, the Republican minority Leader in the State who was behind a piece of State legislature that seeks to prevent libel judgements made overseas being enforceable in the USA.

Freedom of speech is sacrosanct and enshrined in the 1^st Amendment to the US constitution.  The attitude seems to be that there are no circumstances where speech should be curtailed or prevented, particularly by a foreign court - in the case that led to this legislation a British Court.

The attitude of the State politician is somewhat intransigent but I guess this is partly a front for the fact that he might not be the brains behind the legislation and he is actually out of his intellectual depth explaining it to us. 

Now Senator Skelos if you are reading this in the US prove yourself a hypocrite and sue me!  However, if you are  reading this in the UK then I apologise unreservedly for suggesting anything other than the fact that you a man who fully understands the intention of the legislation and how it should be interpreted.

I actually admire the Senator’s position on freedom of speech and share it.  His view, shared by other politicians we have met on this trip, is that the truth will out and you don’t need the law to protect you - only a free and fair press.

We meet with a couple of New York State University professors of law who brief us on the detail of the law the state has passed and the law that is being proposed for the Federal Government.

They offer us academia’s view of the laws of libel in the US and how they compare with the rest of the world which is interesting but doesn’t really add much to what we had already uncovered from non-academic witnesses to the enquiry.

 

A train ride down the banks of the Hudson past WestPoint military school and the end of the line at New York's Penn Station. 

 

 

 

 

An abandoned castle in the middle of the Hudson on the journey from Albany to New York

 

Unpack my case in a different hotel room for the third time in as many nights.