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TheCenterLane.com offers opinion, news and commentary on politics, the economy, finance and other random events that either find their way into the news or are ignored by the news reporting business. As the name suggests, our focus will be on what seems to be happening in The Center Lane of American politics and what the view from the Center reveals about the events in the left and right lanes. Your Host, John T. Burke, Jr., earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Boston College with a double major in Speech Communications and Philosophy. He earned his law degree (Juris Doctor) from the Illinois Institute of Technology / Chicago-Kent College of Law.
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BP Buys Silence Of Expert Witnesses
July 22, 2010
You might be familiar with the manner in which British Petroleum has been silencing potential witnesses to the extent of damage caused by the Deepwater Horizon disaster. A typical example was recently discussed by Anne Macquarie of the Nevada Appeal:
Anticipating criminal prosecution and a nearly infinite number of civil lawsuits, BP has begun a campaign of signing-up as many potential expert witnesses as can be found, not only to testify on BP’s behalf in the numerous proceedings – but, more importantly – to buy their silence. Litigation attorneys often refer to this tactic as, “buying experts off the street”. Precious little attention has been focused on this activity. Dylan Ratigan has exposed it and CBS News briefly touched the subject. Other than those instances, the mainstream media have not discussed this ploy – at least as of this writing. Here’s some of what CBS had to say:
The original story for the Alabama Press Register was written by Ben Raines. His article included this interesting aspect of his investigative work on the piece:
Coincidentally, CBS also provided us with the perspective of musician/performance artist Laurie Anderson on this subject. She appeared on David Letterman’s Late Show on July 14 to perform a song entitled, “Only An Expert”.
On July 21, Bloomberg News televised an interview with Matthew Simmons, founder of the Ocean Energy Institute. Among the subjects included in the conversation was the topic of BP’s confidentiality agreements. If what Mr. Simmons said is correct, BP’s legal defense efforts will become futile once the public realizes “we have now killed the Gulf of Mexico”. At least on that one point, the cretins at BP are probably not the only individuals who are hoping that Mr. Simmons is wrong.