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A Sign of The Times- The Vicious Vendettas of Oliver Kamm, cyberstalker
I'm launching a crowd-funded legal action for libel and harassment against Oliver Kamm, The Times newspaper and Rupert Murdoch. Here's why:
A SIGN OF THE TIMES- THE VICIOUS VENDETTAS OF OLIVER KAMM, CYBERSTALKER
Neil Clark
The author of a-pro Iraq war book sees it critically
reviewed in a national newspaper. He then spends over ten years stalking,
attacking, hounding and defaming the anti-war author of the review. He even
tweets the Minutes of the reviewer’s local parish council meetings in an
attempt to discredit his ‘enemy’. He attacks articles written by the wife of
the reviewer on the rare occasions she ventures into print. He boasts about his
efforts in ‘destroying’ the reviewer’s career in a blog post.
He tweets obsessively about the 'obscure' reviewer and when the reviewers’ work is cited or praised by someone with a high profile on Twitter, he intervenes to warn them off with claims that the reviewer is a ‘fake’, a ’fraud’, a ‘crank’ and a ‘genocide denier‘.
He tweets obsessively about the 'obscure' reviewer and when the reviewers’ work is cited or praised by someone with a high profile on Twitter, he intervenes to warn them off with claims that the reviewer is a ‘fake’, a ’fraud’, a ‘crank’ and a ‘genocide denier‘.
Then, after he is finally questioned under caution of arrest
by the police in relation to stalking/harassment activities, the author accuses
the person he has been relentlessly persecuting of harassing him- and falsely claims that his victim has been
ordered by the police not to contact him, his family and his employers!
Sounds like pretty disturbing behaviour, don’t you think? I
certainly would agree, but as I’ve found out over the past decade, waging
vicious vendettas - and telling lies in an attempt to destroy the reputation of
his ‘enemies’ is par for the course for Mr Oliver Kamm, ‘former banker, Leader
Writer and Columnist, The Times’ and author of ‘Anti-Totalitarianism-The Left Wing Case for a NeoConservative Foreign Policy’.
Kamm’s behaviour is a scandal, but even more shocking has
been how powerful individuals in the British neocon Establishment have not only
protected the Internet stalker, but promoted him.
My review of Kamm’s book was published by the Daily
Telegraph on New Years Eve 2005. It was critical, but as reviews go, not
particularly harsh- and certainly nowhere near as harsh as the bile-dripping
book reviews that Kamm himself writes for The Times. What I did not know, when I filed copy, was that
the book’s author was an incredibly malicious and vindictive individual with a
history of cyber-stalking and online persecution of people whose views he
disagreed with.
The day after the review appeared, Kamm attacked me on his
blog- and accused me of not reading his book. The first of over twenty-five
posts devoted to attacking/denigrating me (or my wife) over the next two years,
was no mindless rant, but was clearly designed to discredit me with newspapers
who commissioned my work.
In subsequent blog posts that month Kamm made further allegations against me which I responded to on my own blog. I had said that the source for one of my claims in the review was The Institute of Strategic Studies Organisation. I had meant The International Strategic Studies Association. Kamm attempted to build this up into a heinous offence, writing that ‘a reasonable person might readily take this as a reference to the well known International Institute of Strategic Studies’. I think ‘a reasonable person’ would think Kamm was making a mountain out of a molehill in a deliberate attempt to discredit the reviewer of his book.
In subsequent blog posts that month Kamm made further allegations against me which I responded to on my own blog. I had said that the source for one of my claims in the review was The Institute of Strategic Studies Organisation. I had meant The International Strategic Studies Association. Kamm attempted to build this up into a heinous offence, writing that ‘a reasonable person might readily take this as a reference to the well known International Institute of Strategic Studies’. I think ‘a reasonable person’ would think Kamm was making a mountain out of a molehill in a deliberate attempt to discredit the reviewer of his book.
Kamm’s initial attempts to discredit me didn’t work, but
then there was a more sinister development. A poison-pen style email, from a
‘George Courtenay’ was sent to Tom Switzer, the opinion editor of The
Australian newspaper, who regularly commissioned me. The email read:
‘I see you have published an opinion article by Neil
Clark today. That's all good to print a range of views but you may be
interested that Oliver Kamm of the London Times has been investigating Mr. Clark's
use of sources. Mr.Clark doesn't say the same thing in his new article but as
he's lied to other editors I'm bringing it to your attention'.
G. Courtenay
FW: Neil Clark sources
ST
Switzer, Tom
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Reply|
Tue
21/02/2006, 07:20
You
You
forwarded this message on 06/12/2015 18:47
FYI -- I have no idea who this guy is....
-----Original
Message-----
From: George Courtenay [mailto:georgeco@gawab.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 21 February 2006 12:33
To: switzert@theaustralian.com.au
Cc: neil.clark@otc.ac.uk; oliver.kamm@tiscali.co.uk
Subject: Neil Clark sources
From: George Courtenay [mailto:georgeco@gawab.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 21 February 2006 12:33
To: switzert@theaustralian.com.au
Cc: neil.clark@otc.ac.uk; oliver.kamm@tiscali.co.uk
Subject: Neil Clark sources
I see you have published an opinion article by Neil Clark today.
That's all good to print a range of views but you may be interested that Oliver
Kamm of the London Times has been investigating Mr. Clark's use of sources.
Mr.Clark doesn't say the
same thing in his new article but as he's lied to other editors I'm bringing it
to your attention. G. Courtenay
________________________________
Free POP3 Email from www.gawab.com
Sign up NOW and get your
account @gawab.com!!
‘George Courtenay’ included links to two of Kamm’s recent
blog posts about me. He cced his email to Kamm.
Courtenay was asked to provide an address and telephone number-
but he never responded. Suspicious about his identity, I google-searched the
name and found that the only traces of the mysterious ‘GC’ was to write comments in praise of Oliver Kamm when Kamm had been criticised on a website.
After publicizing my findings about him on my blog, ‘Courtenay’
disappeared into the ether, but Tom Switzer continued to receive very similar
poison emails, this time sent by ‘anonymous’, urging him to replace me.
Later on IP addresses for ‘George Courtenay’ were
identified. On 24th December 2005 Courtenay - with the same email address as
the person who had contacted The Australian-was posting from Denmark (IP address of
83.91.105. 126
(to see, scroll
down to the Tom Watson MP blog post of 12/22/05 entitled ‘Oliver Kamm vs Noam
Chomsky’ http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2006/11/big1
Oliver Kamm’s wife was/is Danish.
Did Kamm go to Denmark that Christmas with his
wife?
On 23rd December, Kamm had announced to his blog readers
that there would be ‘no posts for the next few days’- indicating
that he was not expecting to post over Christmas. But he did publish a blog entry on 25th December -so clearly had access to a computer that day.
On New Years Day 2006,
Kamm posted his first attack on me. We know that on 13th
January 2006, ‘George Courtenay’ was definitely back in the UK and posting on the same blog thread on TomWatson’s website from an IP address 81.155.147.174- (which was traced to
Bexhill-On-Sea, East Sussex .) A further clue
is that Courtenay/ ‘anonymous’,( in emails to Tom Switzer 3rd May 2007 and 17th
October 2007 following publication of my articles), used words/phrases such as
‘erudition’, ‘doctrinaire’ , ‘perfervid’ ‘zealotry’ historical literacy’
‘bounds of decency’-hardly everyday words or phrases- but all used by Kamm on
his blog and elsewhere- and in some cases on many occasions. In addition Kamm‘s
middle name is George.
The leader writer of the Times could easily have cleared up
the George Courtenay mystery by publicly stating that he was not in Denmark at
any time on Christmas Eve 2005, but
he has refused to answer the question when asked.
How should I respond to these extremely malicious attempts to
destroy my career as a journalist? I decided I had no other option but to sue
Kamm for defamation to prevent links to his attacks from being emailed to more
of my employers. For financial reasons, I brought the case in my local County
Court. But to have a libel case heard there requires the consent of the other
party and Kamm did not give his consent. Instead he portrayed my putative
action as an attempt to infringe his freedom of speech to criticise my work,
and cast himself- not for the last time- as the innocent victim.
The attacks on me by Kamm and his mysterious trolls
intensified throughout 2006 and 2007. Anonymous or pseudonymous comments,
linking to Kamm’s blog posts on me, were left on websites where my articles
appeared. Inquiries with one newspaper (The Guardian) revealed the
sender, although he used different aliases, was posting from just one computer.
Kamm regularly popped up early in the comments section of my pieces to put the
boot in. Here are just a few examples:
Whenever someone praised my work online, ‘Anonymous’ would
arrive on the scene very quickly. A typical example was when Derek Wall, a
Green Party spokesperson, described an article I had written as ‘great’ and
quoted from it on his blog. ‘Anonymous’ duly arrived to warn Wall to be
‘careful’ of me, saying that I had been ‘exposed’ and copy and pasted an attack
on me by- guess who? Oliver Kamm!
Kamm also regularly wrote in to publications where my work
appeared claiming there were significant mistakes in my articles and asking for
corrections to be published. Each time his complaint was rejected. No
corrections to Kamm’s alleged significant mistakes were published.
Another
disturbing development was the repeated sending of threatening/bullying
comments to my blog. They often included an implied threat to ‘expose’ me for
some ‘serious’ offence- asking me if such and such a newspaper which I wrote
for ‘knew about this/that’- ‘offences’ which only one person in the world-
Oliver Kamm- had accused me of.
The comments were clearly designed to cause me maximum
distress. I identified regularly recurring IP addresses for these malicious
communications. There was a large number coming from Sussex
and the City of London .
The Sussex ones tended to
come in late at night, the London ones usually
during the day time, indicating that the person was someone who commuted from
Sussex
to the capital and who was totally obsessed with Neil Clark.
Kamm fitted the bill, as he lived (until 2013), in Hove , Sussex ,
and worked in London .
Many of the London
malicious comments sent to my blog in 2009 came an IP address which I traced to the
Royal Society of Arts. I contacted the RSA to report what was going on. Then
the posts from the RSA dried up. Was there anything to link Kamm and the RSA?
Well, we know Kamm was at a meeting at the RSA in early 2009 and also wrote for the RSA blog.
While admittedly this is not conclusive proof that my RSA harasser was
Kamm, once again there was a link between a location from where my stalker was
operating and Kamm.
In early 2008, I decided to go the police, on grounds of
criminal harassment. After reading through all the material I gave them, the
police phoned Kamm at his London
hedge fund office, and by his own admission, he gave the police an undertaking
that he would cease commenting on my work.
Once again, my persecutor tried to portray himself as the
victim. After the police intervention, the attacks did die down for a while.
But not long afterwards, it was business as usual for my cyber-stalker.
In May 2008, Kamm boasted on his blog,(in the comments
section to this post
“I can reasonably claim to have done more than anyone in
destroying (Neil) Clark 's career as a
political commentator“, adding menacingly: “I am not a commentator whose work
will last, but I'm effective in my own way.”
But despite his barrage of attacks, Kamm had not succeeded
in destroying my career. His attacks therefore became ever more
desperate.
After
I had complained to senior wikipedia editors over the repeated malicious
editing of my page by an editor called ‘Philip Cross (of whom we’ll hear more
in Part Two) Kamm popped up on the discussion page to argue for the page’s
deletion on the grounds that I was ‘non-notable’. Yet despite his haughty
dismissal of me as a ‘highly obscure figure’, Kamm never explained why, if that
was indeed the case, he devoted so much time attacking me. In an article
chronicling Kamm’s obsessive Internet smear campaigns entitled ‘The Oliver KammSchool of Falsification’ the US writers David Peterson and Edward Herman wrote “A
glance at a number of (Neil) Clark's writings online shows that Kamm seeks out
websites where Clark's writings appear, and then posts the same allegations
against Clark over and over again, no matter how off-topic these allegations
are“.
I’m not the only person to have been pursued by Kamm in such
a creepy way. Peterson and Hermann have documented Kamm‘s ‘pathologically
obsessive’ attacks on the US anti-war academic Noam Chomsky. “One feature of
the Kamm pathology is the vendetta, and in pursuit of his vendettas, Kamm
displays few constraints”, they added.
I knew the truth of that only too well.
PART TWO
In Part Two-
how the mysterious wikipedia editor ‘Philip Cross’ assists Kamm in his
campaigns- Kamm’s Twitter policeman routine and his war against ‘fake news
channel’ RT.
The advent of Twitter gave Obsessive Oliver a new forum in
which to carry out his persecution campaigns.
In addition to regular tweeting about his enemies, he also
monitors very closely who retweets them, and if it’s someone he deems important
enough, he intervenes to warn them off. Kamm’s smears are tailor-made to the
tweeter- he writes whatever he thinks will best put them off the person he is
targeting.
So when people on the Left cite with me with approval-
Kamm’s strategy is to smear me as an ‘obscure far-right blogger’ and falsely
claim that I’m opposed to immigration and gay rights. When someone on the centre or
centre-right retweets me- I’m a hardline communist.
Kamm also monitors very closely who his targets retweet too-
to find them ’guilty by association’- a classic McCarthyite technique. In April
2016, I retweeted someone called Patrick Harrington, who had praised an article
I had written for the Morning Star newspaper. Unbeknown to me Harrington,
had been involved many years earlier in the far-right National Front party. My
stalker Kamm used my retweet to try and discredit both me - and RT.
The anti-war media monitoring organisation Media Lens is
also a regular target of Kamm‘s obsessive stalking. The Times leader writer is a usually
very quick off the blocks when they get cited with approval - or if someone
with a following clashes with them.
Media Lens wrote about Kamm’s relentless smearing of them
here- in a post in which they also discussed their attacker’s own journalistic
record. Media Lens believe that Kamm was probably behind the threat of legal and police action made against them by News International in 2008- that was clearly meant to stop them once and for all.
Kamm works tirelessly to make sure that positive mentions of his ‘enemies’ by people of high profile on Twitter are corrected. Here is he is intervening when I was cited by Mehdi Hasan, who has over 230K twitter followers.
Kamm works tirelessly to make sure that positive mentions of his ‘enemies’ by people of high profile on Twitter are corrected. Here is he is intervening when I was cited by Mehdi Hasan, who has over 230K twitter followers.
I have tried to ignore Kamm’s obsessive tweeting about me.
But sometimes that’s not possible.
On the afternoon of Saturday November 7th 2015,
I received a ‘DM’ from a Twitter follower, which said : ‘Have you got a
stalker? I mentioned your name in a tweet and a certain Times ‘journalist’
crawled out of nowhere to comment. He must follow mentions of your name because
there’s no way he would have seen that comment otherwise’. Yes, on a Saturday
afternoon in early November, when many people in the UK would have been out
Christmas shopping with the family, attending a football match or sports
fixture, or watching tv, Kamm was obsessing about a journalist he calls
‘obscure’ and seeing who was citing him on Twitter. The word ‘Pathetic’ goes
nowhere near to describing this behaviour, as I’m sure you’d agree.
Kamm’s regular libelling of me as a ‘Srebrenica
denier/genocide denier’ is typical of his dishonesty. He bases the claim on one article I wrote for The Guardian in 2004 in
which I wrote of the ‘massacre of between 2,000 and 4,000 men and boys in
Srebrenica in 1995 ‘
I used these figures as I- and the Guardian editorial/comment team, believed they were probably the most accurate ones at the time. But in every
subsequent published piece which I have mentioned Srebrenica I have used the
higher, now widely accepted 8,000 figure- and fully accept that a genocide
took place. Here I am in The Week in 2008, and in RT
last summer, on the 20th anniversary of Srebrenica.
Kamm monitors everything I write, so he would know of the
later pieces ( and I’ve also linked to them when he’s libelled me). Only
someone with very clear malicious intent could read my articles and then label
me a ‘Srebrenica denier/genocide denier’.
Accusing people he doesn’t like of ‘genocide denial‘-
usually in connection with Srebrenica, is a favoured smear of Kamm‘s. His
robotic ’genocide denier’ smearing of his ‘enemies’ even led to a parody @Oliver KammBot twitter account being set up.
On the subject of Kamm’s libelling antiwar writers as
‘Srebrenica deniers’: there’s been
a dramatic new development. The US website Mondoweiss has published
an article on the neocon smear campaign against the left-wing anti-war academic
Noam Chomsky.
Internal memos from the first meeting of the Henry Jackson
Society outlined the group’s main agenda. ‘One of the items on the minutes, listed
prominently in fourth place, was to discredit Chomsky,‘ writes Theodore Sayeed.
‘Their tack was to allege that he is a “denier” of the Srebrenica massacre in Bosnia . In the
art of controversy, slapping the label “denier” on someone is meant to evoke
the Holocaust. Chomsky, the furtive charge proceeds, is a kind of Nazi.’
‘The task of getting this slur into circulation was delegated to Marko
Attila Hoare and Oliver Kamm’
When Kamm was first attacking me in early 2006, and trying
to destroy my career as a political commentator, the Balkans historian he
enlisted to help his cause was- you’ve guessed it- Marko Attila Hoare
Kamm has recently tried to distance himself from the Henry Jackson Society. But although his name no longer appears on the group’s website, he was a signatory to the statement of principles in 2005
The Times leader writer has received enormous help in his
internet smear campaigns from one ‘Andrew Philip Cross’- a mysterious
individual to whom we must now turn our attention.
Cross- like Kamm- follows very closely who retweets Neil
Clark and Media Lens and obviously has our names on Google Alert. When I was
asked via Twitter by a Sky News producer if I’d like to come on and be
interviewed on Royal Mail privatisation- I found that before I had the time to
reply, ‘PhilipCross63’ had already suggested that the producer got a female
pundit instead.
Cross shares Kamm’s obsession with me, even publishing a
blog entitled ‘Anti-Illiberal’- largely aimed at attacking my wife and I and
regurgitating Kamm‘s smears.
While Cross assists Kamm’s campaigns on Twitter, his main
focus is on editing Wikipedia.
Kamm wrote a piece in 2009 criticising Wikipedia, saying
that ‘The loudest voices and most obsessive contributors become the arbiters of
truth.’ How true. He should have addressed these remarks to ‘Philip Cross’.
Now if you make a list of all the public figures that Oliver
Kamm can’t abide, you‘ll find- lo and behold- their pages have been edited-to
show the subject in the worst possible light- by Philip Cross.
Media Lens are a case in point. Criticism by Kamm of
Media Lens- put up there by Cross, is prominent in their wikipedia page-
When Kamm mentions Media Lens in an ‘approved source’, Cross
posts links to the criticism with great alacrity. On Saturday 27th February 2016,
Kamm called ML a ‘far-left’ group in his Times column on grammar- and at 15.47
that same day Kamm’s comment had been put, by Cross, on the Media Lens
page.
You can read a full history of Cross editing of the Media
Lens page here.
Media Lens posted Kamm’s February attack on the group on
their Facebook page noting:
‘In the 'mainstream' press, nobody writes or Tweets about us
more than a certain Times propagandist. Impressive that he should devote so
much attention to an 'obscure far-left pressure group'
Others figures who have clashed publicly with Kamm or who
don’t meet with his approval and who have had their pages edited by Philip
Cross
include investigative journalist Dr Nafeez Ahmed (see the talk page here here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Nafeez_Mosaddeq_Ahmed
antiwar journalist Seumas Milne, (who is now Press Officer
for Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn)
award-winning anti-war journalist and broadcaster John Pilger and the anti-war politician George Galloway
See the talk page of Galloway also.
On Milne’s page, Cross worked to keep off a link to my piece
written for Sputnik International defending Milne when he had come in for
attack. On the talk page Cross gave his reason: ’The Putin-backed Sputnik
website is not a reliable source.’
But he also kept another article defending Milne, by my
fellow RT OpEdger John Wight, written for the Huffington Post, off the page.
Cross’s obsessive hatred of me even extended to him taking
down links to my articles in other people’s wikipedia pages, as he did in
relation to a Guardian article I wrote about philosopher Erich Fromm.
When it comes to Oliver Kamm’s own wikipedia page however,
Cross edits in a very different way. He is The Grand Protector of Kamm‘s online
reputation, making sure his wikipedia page is maintained as a puff page (with
handy links to his agent’s Janklow and Nesbit’s page)
and that criticism
is kept to a minimum, even if it comes from legitimate sources. It goes without
saying that Cross worked to keep mention of the recent Mondoweiss article cited
above off Kamm’s page, as well as the earlier piece on Kamm by Messrs Peterson
and Herman. Yes, you’ve guessed it. They’re not reliable sources….
Read Cross here in the Talk section of Kamm’s page.
Media Lens noted earlier this year::
Philip Cross' is putting up a valiant fight to fend off
criticism of Oliver Kamm on Wikipedia. He seems particularly unhappy that a new
section has appeared, titled:
'Kamm, Noam Chomsky and The Guardian controversy' noted
Media Lens on Facebook on 23rd February.
Cross, when challenged about his identity responded:
‘Sorry David, I have never met Oliver Kamm, nor am I Charles Mingus
(above and left)’. He then predicted; ‘ I am certain the extended largely
off-topic section in Kamm's Wikipedia article about your (sorry, Chomsky's)
pyrrhic victory against the Guardian a decade ago will be removed soon enough.’
Cross, who says he edits wikipedia in his ‘real name’,
has refused to post proof of his identity, and tried
to make out that if he did so, he’d be some kind of a ‘victim’
Interestingly, ‘Philip Cross’ hasn’t just edited Kamm’s
page, but also the pages of Kamm’s parents, a translator called AntheaBell, and one Anthony Kamm, described as a ‘publisher, author,
historian and cricketer‘..
Once again, its only good stuff that gets posted there. On
Anthony Kamm’s page, Cross edited to include a mention that the subject's son, Oliver, was ‘now a journalist on the Times‘ and to add a link to Kamm’s ownwikipedia page, of which
he has been the main editor.
Another shared obsession of Kamm and Philip Cross is the television news channel RT (Russia Today)..
On the one hand, Kamm denigrates RT as a channel that noone, or hardly anyone watches, misrepresenting viewing figures.
But if no one was bothering to watch RT- why does Kamm spend
so much time attacking it? It's very similar to the way Kamm loves to label his
‘enemies’ (like me) as, ‘obscure‘- again if we really are so ‘obscure’, why
spend so much time attacking?
When RTUK launched in October 2014, Kamm went into
overdrive.
He penned a ferocious opinion piece for the Times calling
for Ofcom, the UK
media regulator, to act against ‘this den of deceivers’.
Kamm’s fierce criticism of RT figures prominently on the RTUK wikipedia page, in the third paragraph.
And the editor who’s made four of the last eight edits to the RTUK wikipedia page? Why.. It‘s none other than Philip Cross!
Kamm tweets obsessively about RT-routinely labelling it a
‘fake news channel’
It‘s contributors and pundits are- you’ve guessed it are
‘fakes/frauds/fantasists‘ and of course, ‘genocide deniers‘
He likes to pompously declare that he refuses to go on the
channel.
Yet, despite his hatred for RT- or rather because of it- he
seems to spend an awful lot of time monitoring its output. Again, if no one was
watching RT- as Kamm claims- and it was obvious that RT experts were ‘cranks,
fantasists and fabulists‘- then why does he devote so much time and energy to
attacking it?
In March 2015, the American writer Glenn Greenwald wrote about the anti-RT campaign.
‘The most vocal among the anti-RT crowd - on the ground that
it spreads lies and propaganda — such as Nick Cohen and Oliver Kamm — were also
the most aggressive peddlers of the pro-U.K.-government conspiracy theories and
lies that led to the Iraq War.
That people like this, with their histories of
pro-government propaganda, are the ones demanding punishment of RT for “bias”
tells you all you need to know about what is really at play here".
In the summer of 2015, Kamm’s attacks on me
intensified still further.
On Saturday 1st August, my new biography of Edgar Wallace,
the crime writer, received a very positive review in The Guardian.
Kamm acolyte Max Dunbar (and fellow ’Euston Manifesto’
signatory) wasn’t too pleased..
Shortly afterwards, both Oliver Kamm and ‘PhilipCross63‘
turned up on the thread. I said to my wife that it wouldn’t be long before an
attempt was made to post a ‘George Courtenay’-esque comment underneath the
Guardian review. Sure enough, at 23.56 on Monday 3rd August, ‘Peter Tarlan’
arrived.
There’s no prize for guessing what the first sentence
was.
‘Neil Clark has denied the massacre of 8,000 men and boys at
Srebrenica.’ ‘Peter Tarlan’ went on ’ I draw this to the reader’s attention as
it says something profound about his contempt for the canons of evidence and
scholarship. Something readers may want to consider before deciding whether or
not to spend their hard-earned money on a work of non-fiction by this man’.
.’Tarlan‘ then went on to ridicule a piece I had written in
2010 for the Sunday Express on the beauty of winter landscapes. The only person
who had passed such comment on the piece before was- yes, you’ve guessed it-
Oliver Kamm (see entry of 7th January 2010)
To try and make sure that readers had got the Kammite
message about Neil Clark, ‘Peter Tarlan’ finished his attack with ‘I suggest no
sane person should accept either historical claims or literary judgments from
this man’.
I discovered that ‘Peter Tarlan’ had set up his Guardian
account on 26th January 2011 (here is his Guardian profile page , just five days after my piece on the Socialist Austrian
Chancellor Bruno Kreisky, which Kamm commented on ( and didn‘t much like),
appeared on the Guardian website. Shortly after a comment appeared which said ‘A very special
article. One of the very few that are unashamedly dedicated to intellectual
honesty‘, Kamm, no doubt fuming at the gills, arrived to accuse Kreisky - a
Jew- of anti-Semitism- and to add: ‘Mr Clark describes himself in his CiF
biography as a regular contributor to The Times, and this ought perhaps to be
corrected‘.
At the same time he set up a Guardian profile, ‘Peter
Tarlan’ set up a protected Twitter account.
In an attempt to share the workload, Kamm also tries to
‘subcontract’ his vendettas. He’s begun tweets about with me with the
words ’One for’ such and such a person- hoping that they’ll join in his
persecutory campaign. He tweeted Eliot Higgins of Bellingcat to inform him that
I was a’ plagiarist and fraud‘.
In addition, other pro-war journalists and ‘Euston Manifesto’
supporters have joined in from time to time in Kamm’s campaigns. I won’t name
and shame them here-(at least not for now); they know who they are.
Kamm has repeatedly lied that ‘only RT’ publishes me
and that ‘no serious British newspaper will touch him’- my articles are carried
by a wide number of publications (in fact a far wider range than Kamm‘s) and
includes the Guardian, Sunday and Daily Express, the Mail on Sunday, and the
Morning Star. But of course saying no serious British newspaper will touch me
is part of the campaign to destroy my career as editors who follow him on
Twitter might just believe it if they read it enough times.
In the summer of 2015, Kamm positioned himself at the
forefront of the Blairite campaign against Jeremy Corbyn becoming Labour
leader. He complained that Corbyn had refused to be interviewed by
him for the Jewish Chronicle newspaper. Kamm has also- as Simon Wood notes
here- been at the forefront of the campaign to portray Corbyn supporters as
‘anti-Semitic‘.
He’s also been prominent in the neocon campaign against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.
The former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, accused Kamm of lying after he was aggressively attacked by Kamm in a radio
interview about the Wikileaks founder earlier this year.
‘On 7 February I published an article calling out Kamm for
publishing a blatant and deliberate lie about me. The very next day, 8
February, my Wikipedia page came under obsessive attack from somebody called
Philip Cross who made an astonishing 107 changes over the course of the next
three days. Many were very minor, but the overall effect was undoubtedly
derogatory. He even removed my photo on the extraordinary grounds that it was
“not typical” of me‘.
Last year, with Kamm’s attacks on me becoming even more
unhinged, I felt I had no option but to go to the police for the FOURTH time.
When I had gone to the police in 2009, I had been told by an officer that a
Crown Prosecution Service action against Kamm might not be in my best
interests- a strong hint that the person persecuting me had elite protection.
On 24th November 2015 the leader writer of the Times
newspaper was questioned, under caution of arrest at Stoke Newington Police
station. But, against my wishes, he was questioned before I had been able to
send all the evidence of Kamm’s stalking and harassment through and it seems
the key question ‘Were you in Denmark
on 24th December 2005- the day George Courtenay was posting from there)? was
not asked.
Failure to arrest or even caution Kamm, unfortunately
emboldened him still further.
I have an complaint against the Metropolitan Police for the
way they have handled the case, which is ongoing.
By now my policy was to forcefully respond to Kamm’s attacks
on Twitter- to put the record straight.
Whether it was the advice given to him by lawyers, or his
own decision, he has decided to accuse the person he has been stalking and
harassing for years- of doing the same things to him. It seems Kamm believes he
has every right to attack people, but the people he targets have absolutely no
right to respond.
Kamm sent me five emails between 23rd December 2015 and 26th February 2016 (and another in early July 2016), which I did not open as I knew from past experience they were sent in order
to cause me distress. But a Twitter follower of mine informed me that Kamm had
been tweeting these emails- which included the wholly false claim that I had
been ordered by the Met Police to stop harassing him.(italics)
Accusing people of doing thing that you’ve been doing
yourself is of course classic sociopathic behaviour. As is pathological lying
and never recognising the rights of others.
When I went public about going to the police, I urged others
who had been targeted by Kamm to come forward. I thought nothing I could ever
learn about Kamm would shock me, but I was mistaken.
I have learnt that it wasn’t just me who Kamm has tried to silence through making legal
threats. He had threatened a Twitter follower with less than 150 followers
after he had retweeted a piece critical of Kamm. It seems the Times Leader
writer likes to send his threatening communications at holiday periods- at, or
just before Christmas, or at Bank Holidays.
One blogger (who asked me to keep his name private as his
health was fragile and stress made his condition worse)- informed me that he
was sent an email entitled ‘Libellous Tweet’ from Kamm on a Bank Holiday-
around 18 months after he had tweeted a link to my blog post on Kamm’s
harassment of me.
Kamm did not include a link to the tweet that was supposed
to be ‘libellous’.
Another person who said that Kamm had threatened him with
legal action was the US
web activist Aaron Swartz. Kamm clashed with Swartz over Noam Chomsky and
Chomsky’s claim that Kamm had misquoted him.
Swartz wrote on his blog: ‘On June 11 he (Kamm) threatened
legal action to enforce the challenge and calling my response “evasive,
graceless and puerile”. I informed him I was presently on vacation and intended
to deal with the matter when I got back. He replied on June 12 again insisting
I act quickly.
On June 14 he accused me of “surreptitiously [] alter[ing]”
the challenge (which he called “my suicidal endeavour”) and suggesting mercy if
I act quickly.
…He then pressed the point again in two further emails.’
Kamm responded to Swartz‘s claims with four comments
underneath the blog post and also under an earlier one. 'Disappointingly, Mr Swartz has now disappeared sooner than
meet his financial obligations‘, Kamm noted in his last comment to the second
post. He was still posting on the first post as late as 15th May 2007.
Just over five and half years later, Swartz did indeed
disappear-on 11th January 2013 the young man committed to a free and open
internet was found hanged in his Brooklyn apartment- with claims that he was
hounded to death by the authorities for his hacking activities. He was only
26.
Michael Prescott is another writer who has clashed with
Kamm.
‘He seems to be aboil with rage and indignation almost from
the start. He repeatedly characterizes his opponents as cranks and worse, yet
seems honestly perplexed that anyone could accuse him of using ad hominems‘, Prescott wrote.
Kamm’s strategy when faced by his accusers is indeed to
loftily dismiss them as ‘cranks and worse’. And then, as we’ve seen, write
threatening missives to them to try and intimidate them into keeping schtum. He
has falsely accused me of being a ‘serial correspondent’, but the truth is
excepting my corrective replies to attack tweets of his, I have not
written to him since 2006. By contrast Kamm- or his legal representatives- has
written to me on around ten occasions since then.
As obnoxious as Kamm’s behaviour undoubtedly is, we must not
overlook the role played by those who have enabled and promoted him- and have
continued to support and protect him even when evidence of his activities was
presented to them.
The man who appointed Kamm,
to be a Times leader writer in 2009, despite his never having
worked before on a newspaper (he was an ex-banker and Mayfair
hedge fund manager), was the then Times editor James Harding.
I wrote to Harding about Kamm’s stalking/harassment. My aim
was not to get Kamm the sack, as ‘George Courtenay’ had tried to do with me,
but to get The Times to rein their employee in. Harding never replied to me..
Today, he is the £340,000 a year Head of News and Current Affairs at the
BBC.
I have also written on four occasions to the current Times editor John
Witherow and Rupert and James Murdoch, of News International, with evidence of their
employee’s stalking. Not one of my letters (sent by registered delivery) or emails, received a reply.
When I asked Times deputy editor Emma Tucker on Twitter why
the paper had not responded to me over Kamm’s stalking/harassment campaigns,
her response was to block me.
In February 2016, another of Kamm’s targets, the blogger
David Lindsay, claimed that he had twice come close to suicide on account of
Kamm’s relentless persecution of him- admitting he ‘almost a broken man‘.
(Police traced the IP addresses of attack comments left underneath Lindsay's online articles to two locations: The City of London, and Hove in Sussex.)
But still the Times have failed to take any action against
Kamm- and he carries on with his stalking and smear campaigns as if he is
totally above the law.
I was advised earlier this year by a firm of top London libel lawyers that my most promising
course of action would be against The Times holding them vicariously liable for their employee's actions. In the past, issues of
cost have prevented me from suing Kamm, but now I have decided I have no other
option but to seek to crowd-fund an action for libel and harassment against The
Times, Kamm and the Times owner Rupert Murdoch. I will be seeking substantial damages.
The ex-hedge fund trader has shown just how much you can get
away with if you have the right connections in the Establishment and have the
‘right’ ie pro-war, neocon views on foreign policy.
If roles had been reversed, and I- or indeed any other
anti-war writer- had persecuted Kamm in the way he has persecuted me and
others, I’m sure arrest and the end of a career would have followed. Let’s be
clear: we’re talking about harassment and stalking on a major scale.
If I’ve one regret, it‘s not publishing a full account of
Kamm‘s stalking campaigns earlier. I can’t stay silent while this very unpleasant bully continues
to persecute and smear those whose only ‘crime‘ has been to critically review
his pro-war book, or hold views on foreign policy that he does not agree
with.
So it’s time to throw light on the darkness in the hope that
full public exposure of what’s been going on will mark the end of Obsessive Oliver’s
vicious vendettas and the wikipedia editing of his equally malicious ally,
’Philip Cross’. And that those who could have reined Kamm in, finally do so.
UPDATE: If you'd like to donate to my legal action to have Oliver Kamm, The Times and Rupert Murdoch properly held to account, you can do so via the 'Donate' buttons on the top- and also at the top right of this blog. All moneys raised will go on legal costs, which are likely to be considerable. All donations are hugely appreciated.
(Details of how to donate by cheque will be posted shortly.)
FURTHER UPDATE: Many, many thanks to those who have donated in the last five days- almost £1,000 has now been raised! My initial target is for £10,000 to be able to properly initiate legal proceedings on a number of fronts (defamation, malicious falsehood & harassment). All donations, large or small, that can help me achieve this target are hugely appreciated.
FURTHER UPDATE: Nov 12th. Again, many, many thanks to those who have donated- over £2,000 has now been raised!
FURTHER UPDATE: 10th December. Many thanks to those who have donated so far. To boost the appeal, I have now launched on Crowdfund site Fundrazr.com- and am attempting to raise a further £7,500 by early January to reach my target of £10K.
My Fundrazr page is here.
FURTHER UPDATE: 10th February. Over £4K now in the kitty. Please help me get up to £10K as soon as possible so I can launch my legal actions. Many thanks to all those who have contributed so far.
FURTHER UPDATE: 5th July 2017. Over £11.6K raised! Many thanks to everyone who has contributed! Legal action has been launched against my stalker/defamer and his employers and we are now in the pre-court protocol stage of exchange of lawyers' letters. If the defendant's don't agree to our requests now- then court action will follow shortly- for which a lot more money will be needed. All contributions, large or small to the fund are greatly appreciated.
FURTHER UPDATE: 13th December 2017: Kamm's solicitor's have acknowledged the writ- and responded by requesting documents- even where links were provided in the writ. The strategy seems to be to drag this out (there was no substantive engagement with my lawyer's most recent letter) for as long as possible & hope I run out of funds.
If you would like to contribute to my AntiStalker Fund by post, donations can now be sent to me at PO Box 922 OXFORD OX1 9RL. Many thanks to all who have donated so far.
UPDATE: If you'd like to donate to my legal action to have Oliver Kamm, The Times and Rupert Murdoch properly held to account, you can do so via the 'Donate' buttons on the top- and also at the top right of this blog. All moneys raised will go on legal costs, which are likely to be considerable. All donations are hugely appreciated.
(Details of how to donate by cheque will be posted shortly.)
FURTHER UPDATE: Many, many thanks to those who have donated in the last five days- almost £1,000 has now been raised! My initial target is for £10,000 to be able to properly initiate legal proceedings on a number of fronts (defamation, malicious falsehood & harassment). All donations, large or small, that can help me achieve this target are hugely appreciated.
FURTHER UPDATE: Nov 12th. Again, many, many thanks to those who have donated- over £2,000 has now been raised!
FURTHER UPDATE: 10th December. Many thanks to those who have donated so far. To boost the appeal, I have now launched on Crowdfund site Fundrazr.com- and am attempting to raise a further £7,500 by early January to reach my target of £10K.
My Fundrazr page is here.
FURTHER UPDATE: 10th February. Over £4K now in the kitty. Please help me get up to £10K as soon as possible so I can launch my legal actions. Many thanks to all those who have contributed so far.
FURTHER UPDATE: 5th July 2017. Over £11.6K raised! Many thanks to everyone who has contributed! Legal action has been launched against my stalker/defamer and his employers and we are now in the pre-court protocol stage of exchange of lawyers' letters. If the defendant's don't agree to our requests now- then court action will follow shortly- for which a lot more money will be needed. All contributions, large or small to the fund are greatly appreciated.
LATEST UPDATE: 4th December 2017: Oliver Kamm has now been
sued for libel and harassment. My counsel has advised me not to serve the writ-
already lodged at the court in the summer- against his employers and
instead focus the action on Kamm. He believes this would have a number of
advantages. It is advice that I have decided very reluctantly to accept- (given
the arrogant way The Times -and News UK- arrogantly ignored all my very
reasonable requests),- but I do not rule out Kamm's employers- including Rupert Murdoch- being brought
into an action at a later date if this matter is not resolved satisfactorily. We
now have over £17K raised but legal costs have been high and I will be stepping
up fundraising to pay for the court costs which could be considerable. All
contributions, large or small, are gratefully accepted and appreciated. Many
thanks again to everyone who has supported me.
FURTHER UPDATE: 13th December 2017: Kamm's solicitor's have acknowledged the writ- and responded by requesting documents- even where links were provided in the writ. The strategy seems to be to drag this out (there was no substantive engagement with my lawyer's most recent letter) for as long as possible & hope I run out of funds.
If you would like to contribute to my AntiStalker Fund by post, donations can now be sent to me at PO Box 922 OXFORD OX1 9RL. Many thanks to all who have donated so far.
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