Iceland aims to become the Caymans of journalism

A group of Icelandic MPs have launched an exiting new collaboration to turn the country into a haven of investigative journalism. The MPs are collaborating with Wikileaks to amend laws to grant protection for journalists, sources and whistleblowers. The plan would also provide data storage facilities as well as combating “libel tourism”, the practice of bringing defamation charges wherever the law is most attractive for the plaintiff. The intention is to provide a comprehensive Freedom of Information Act, whistleblower and source protections, limited prior restraint, protection for ISPs and protection from the insidious act of “libel tourism”.

The proposal submitted to the Althing (Icelandic Parliament) yesterday asks the government to find ways to strengthen freedoms of expression and information freedom in Iceland, as well as providing strong protections for sources and whistleblowers. The proposal requests changes to law, and an examination of the legal environments of other countries to get a “best of breed” law in freedoms of expression and information. It also recommends the establishment of an international prize to be called The Icelandic Freedom of Expression Award.

The aim is to turn the island nation of 350,000 people into the world's first "offshore publishing centre." According to Mother Jones, the proposals could turn Iceland into the Cayman Islands of journalism. It says the proposal is based on the business model of offshore financial centres like Switzerland, which attracts investors with an enticing combination of low taxes and strict bank secrecy laws. Iceland could be the equivalent for investigative journalists if, as expected, it passes what would be the strongest source protection and freedom of speech laws in the world.

The proposal is the brainchild of the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative which addresses the key issues for freedom of expression in the digital age. The IMMI say Iceland is “at a unique crossroads”. The IMMI is feeding of the sense of change in the electorate as a result of the economic meltdown in the banking sector, in order to prevent it from taking place again. It also quotes Reporters Sans Frontiers who say Iceland dropped from first in the world for freedom of expression in 2007) to 9th last year. “It is time,” say IMMI’s founders, “this trend was rectified”.

The IMMI was drafted with help from Julian Assange and Daniel Schmitt, two of the founders of Wikileaks. WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange has been in Iceland for the past two months, consulting parliamentarians on the project. Assange says Wikileaks has fought off more than 100 legal attacks over the past three years by spreading assets assets, encrypting everything, and moving telecommunications and people around the world. He says the Iceland will adopt the strongest press and source protection laws from around the world.

Assange said the move was driven by Icelandic people who have just suffered the largest economic meltdown of any country per capita in the GFC. He said Icelanders believe fundamental change was needed in order to prevent such events from taking place again including better bank regulation and better media oversight of dirty deals between banks and politicians. He quotes the “libel tourism” of Iceland’s largest bank Kaupthing which brought a successful suit against a Danish tabloid, Ekstra Bladet, in London where the costs of fighting libel is prohibitive. Iceland’s second largest bank Landsbanki also sued a Danish media outlet over its Russian mafia connections. http://icelandtalks.net/?p=471

Icelandic writer and blogger Alda Sigmundsdottir says the aim of the proposed legislation is not to allow people to publish freely any old rubbish and get away with it. “The point is not to make Iceland a haven for tabloids, paedophiles or similar low-level activities,” she said. Sigmundsdottir said the idea was to create a framework wherein investigative journalism and free speech can flourish. “Anything that is illegal will still be illegal,” she said. “The amendments will not change that.

However the Citizen Media Law Project says that while the laws are well-intentioned, they probably won’t achieve much because of the principle that publication happens at the point of download, not the point of upload. It quotes the famous (or more correctly infamous) case of Dow Jones v Gutnick where Melbourne tycoon Joe Gutnick sued Barron's Online for publishing a supposedly defamatory article about him. Gutnick applied the writ in Victoria where only a handful of people read the article but the Australian High Court ruled this was where Gutnick’s reputation was and ruled against Barron’s.

For better or worse, says the CMLP, the poorly thought-out Australian ruling has set the precedent in similar cases around the world since. So while Iceland’s protections will suit Wikileaks they will not be useful for multi-national media companies. Harvard law professor Jonathan Zittrain believes it was unclear how broadly the laws could be applied should they pass. "Unless the executives behind a particular media company are themselves prepared to move to Iceland, I'm not sure how substantial the protections can be," he said. "A state can still demand that someone on its territory answer questions or turn over information on pain of fines or imprisonment."

Centre-left victory in Icelandic election

Interim Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir has claimed victory overnight in Iceland’s election ending the long-term rule of a conservative alliance. Sigurdardottir’s centre-left Social Democratic Alliance won 20 seats with 30 percent of the vote and will govern with the aid of coalition partner the Left-Green Movement who won 14 seats. Together that gives them a five seat majority in the 63 member Althing (one of the world’s oldest parliaments).

Conservative Independence Party leader Bjarni Benediktsson conceded defeat in the worst election result in the party's history. His party took only 22.9 per cent of votes, well below the previous all-time low of 27 per cent in 1987. The Independence Party has ruled Iceland with its coalition partners the Progressive Party for nearly all of the last 64 years. But they were forced out of office earlier this year when then Prime Minister Geir Haarde stepped down due to health reasons.

But it wasn’t just Haarde’s health that was suffering. It was the country’s economic collapse that claimed the conservative administration and the left-wing parties formed a caretaker government in February with a view to holding elections in spring. In the process Sigurdardottir became the country’s first female prime minister. Her rise to the top was also notable for the fact that she was the world’s first openly gay premier.

However Sigurdardottir’s sexuality was the last thing on the minds of voters in this weekend’s election. Opinion surveys and interviews with voters showed a clear inclination to punish the pro-business leaders who brought the country to ruin. In the good times banks offered 100 percent lending. Now many Icelanders are now trapped with skyrocketing loan repayments while inflation hovers at 15 percent and unemployment has shot up from barely one percent to ten percent.

The country’s banking sector collapse late last year and left the country swamped with debts. Inflation is spiralling out of control and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has predicted that the economy will shrink by about 10 percent in 2009, which represents the Atlantic island’s biggest slump since it won independence from Denmark in 1944. In October the IMF gave Iceland a stimulus package worth $2.1 billion to stabilise the freefalling currency (the krona lost almost half its value to the euro in the last 12 months) and also prop out the country’s stock market.

Icelandic financiers are now delicately trying to untangle the mess left by the global financial crisis. Its banking system significantly outstripped the authorities' ability to act as a lender of last resort when the toxic debts began to emerge. The new government was forced to implement budget austerity measures of upwards of $400 million and hopes this plan will end capital flow curbs. This would allow foreign investors to take their money out of the country without destroying the currency. Investors (including many English councils) had been locked into crown assets when the previous government imposed capital controls to stop the domestic currency going into freefall after Iceland’s top three banks collapsed.

In the past Iceland deliberately stayed out of the EU to protect its rich fishing grounds from European boats. But now Icelanders are now looking to the European body to bail them out. Their application to join is being expedited and a process that normally takes ten years or more could be over by 2011. The EU is looking favourably on Iceland’s application. Olli Rehn, the European commissioner in charge of enlargement gave it a glowing endorsement despite the financial crisis. “It is one of the oldest democracies in the world and its strategic and economic positions would be an asset to the EU,” he said. Sigurdardottir has pledged to fast track membership application and says she wants Iceland to join the euro zone within four years.