Is
The New York Times Web site published in Britain? Dan Kennedy reports that the newspaper's lawyers worry that U.K. officials will try to argue just that as it decides to hold back from
running "what is apparently a blockbuster story about the evidence against the bombing-plot suspects" in its online edition. Under British law, newsies are barred from publishing many kinds of
information on criminal defendants. But Kennedy says that for
Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. to give in so quickly to the notion that the
Times site is covered by the law is
"overcautious in the extreme." This is, after all, a paper where top editors risked jail time for publishing the Pentagon Papers and who are "at least theoretically risking prison now" for reporting
on a Bush Administration domestic spying program of questionable legality. Because the newspaper is published and its Web site is available worldwide should not, in his view, stop it from including
stories that might run afoul of local laws. Or, Kennedy wonders, will it be dropping its coverage of human-rights violations in China?
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