Dear friends,
This is important for everyone who values free communication via the
internet. I hasten to despatch it, so forgive this short introduction. I am
sending this to all my lists and to the SANE Forum, many of whose members
know about GATA's struggle to expose the gold price manipulation of the
leading investment banks of the world, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Deutsche
Bank, etc., working in close alliance with the Treasury, the Fed, the BOE,
etc. Knowing about the struggle, they will also, I trust, want to know about
what is being done via the internet to discredit and impede GATA's work.

Let me add, a visit to www.GoldenSextant.com will convince
you that Reginald Howe, who has written what follows, is highly regarded by
established players in the gold bullion market -- a person of astute
judgement and considerable experience.

With regards,
Boudewijn Wegerif
Monetary Studies Programme
Folkhogskola Vardingeby
S-150 21 Molnby, Sweden


By Reginald H. Howe
www.GoldenSextant.com
September 12,2000

On Saturday evening, Sept. 9, 2000, from approximately 8:15 to 9:15 p.m.,
people trying to access www.GoldenSextant.com received a message stating that
there was no response, the server might be down, and to try later. EarthLink,
which hosts this site, reports no record of any malfunction or outage of the
server that hosts this site, or the related DNS server, during or near this
time period. Accordingly, the problem almost certainly resided at some point
in the Internet between persons trying to reach this site and EarthLink's DNS
server -- that is, in a part of the Internet outside EarthLink's control or
responsibility.

The proprietor of this site is in possession of considerable circumstantial
evidence to indicate that the problem was not some mysterious Internet
gremlin, but a concerted attack directed at this site by persons, including
government officials, unhappy with the content of certain commentaries
appearing here, particularly the commentary dated Sept. 10 (the "Cross
commentary"), posted Sept. 9 at about 9:30 p.m. Some (but not all) of this
circumstantial evidence relates to events in and around the approximately one
hour outage, including email transmissions of drafts of the Cross commentary
for review and comment by others, among them Chris Powell, a newspaper editor
who is secretary/treasurer of GATA, and Bill Murphy, chairman of GATA and Le
Patron at www.LeMetropoleCafe.com, where he posts his "Midas" column.

The outage prevented posting at the time planned. Immediate arrangements were
made for publication as quickly as possible by other means. Before access to
this site was restored, GATA had dispatched the Cross commentary by email and
steps to publish it forthwith at Le Metropole Cafe were under way. Thus the
attempt to prevent publication last Saturday evening failed, thanks to help
from Chris and Bill. No doubt other Internet press organizations that have
previously published articles from this site would have helped too, if
requested or needed.

The Cross commentary is rather critical of a study by Jessica Cross published
by the World Gold Council on Sept. 4. On that very day, in connection with
its story about the Cross study, Le Metropole Cafe experienced an episode of
Internet vandalism. Someone hacked into the site, stole the email list, and
sent a fake email notice of the story after it had been posted (for editing)
but before the legitimate email notice went out. The fake email was an
obvious effort to embarrass and defame Bill Murphy. What is more, certain
parts of the fake email give every indication that whoever sent it had access
to Bill's telephone conversations during that day.

On Aug. 25, 2000, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, regarded by many as
Germany's leading newspaper, published a quite favorable article about GATA,
followed by another favorable article on Aug. 30. Both articles were prepared
by a freelance journalist and appeared under the dateline "AH, Frankfurt."
Their possible significance is discussed in a prior commentary, "Buba:
Blowing the Whistle on Big Bubba's Gold Manipulators?" Since its publication,
some have questioned whether the Bundesbank played any role in connection
with these two FAZ articles, pointing out that many of GATA's German friends
had urged the FAZ for months to give more coverage to the gold market and
GATA's allegations with respect thereto.

Of course, these explanations are not mutually exclusive. It is still unclear
why these articles where published when they were, and why there was no
mention of Deutsche Bank. By sending readers to GATA's Gold Derivative
Banking Crisis report, the articles almost ensured that Deutsche Bank's role
would become known.

In any event, the FAZ articles marked the first extensive and favorable
coverage of GATA in a world class newspaper in a G-7 country.

On Sept. 5, 2000, under the dateline "BES, London," the FAZ published an
article about the Cross study. Two days later, under the same BES, London,
dateline, it published another article highly critical of GATA.

Prior to becoming a journalist, BES is reported to have worked for Deutsche
Bank. Sourced largely on information received from the Gold Field Minerals
Services, the World Gold Council and the bullion banks, the Sept. 7 article
contained several comments apparently aimed at reinforcing certain false
insinuations in the fake email. GATA has since formally replied by letter to
this FAZ article.

Few international cabals have the power or organization to coordinate
Internet vandalism and the tapping of email and telephone communications in
the fashion indicated by all these events, not to mention buttressing the
effort with publication of an article in the FAZ originating from a London
correspondent. And there is only one band of conspirators that could have any
conceivable motive to target this site and Le Metropole Cafe at the same time
over the same subject: the cabal of government officials and big bullion
banks engaged in an ongoing conspiracy to control world gold prices, and who
are thereby endangering the entire world financial system for personal and
political gain.

The good news is that the cabal is clearly desperate -- so desperate that
they have exposed more of their game. Only if the basic thrust of the
information presented at this site and in GATA's Gold Derivative Banking
Crisis report is correct would they risk, or need to risk, or dare to risk,
striking at the First Amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech and of the
press. The U.S. civil rights Laws provide heavy criminal and civil penalties
for this sort of activity, far more severe in general than those for mere
market manipulation on however vast a scale.

This site may be but a small piece of the national and world press. Its
proprietor is a lone journalist, yet over the past year he has received from
good people all over the world an astonishing amount of support and
encouragement for which he will be forever grateful. 

The idea that he and other Internet gold bugs can be silenced by
surreptitious raids targeted at their websites would be laughable except that
sadly so many in such high offices seem to hold it. As Ghandi said: "First
they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win."
So, cabal, from this site to you: Welcome to the fight, losers!

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