Should Piers Morgan be deported back to the U.K. for his views on guns? Many NRA diehards want the U.S. government to do just that. Of course, that’s utterly ridiculous, as the Morgan has the absolute right under the 1st Amendment to our constitution to express his views, even if they’re “controversial.” Clearly, this “deport Piers Morgan” effort is just the NRA and its allies trying to distract attention from their own problems in the aftermath of the Newtown (and many other) mass shootings. Anyway, the answer to whether Piers Morgan should be deported for his views on guns, gun control, etc, is “absolutely not.”
On the other hand, I CAN think of an issue where there might actually be some legal ground for deporting Piers Morgan. Namely, this.
Morgan is alleged to have close ties with the Rupert Murdoch family and defended them in the media against suggestions that they were more involved in the News International phone hacking scandal than they claimed.
During Morgan’s tenure as editor, the Daily Mirror was advised by Steven Nott that voicemail interception was possible by means of a standard PIN code. Despite staff initially expressing enthusiasm for the story it did not appear in the paper, although it did subsequently feature in a South Wales Argus article and on BBC Radio 5 Live in October 1999. On 18 July 2011 Nott was visited by officers of Operation Weeting. The Daily Mirror’s publishers Trinity Mirror declined to comment when approached by The Independent for its article of 6 August 2011.
On 13 July 2011 the political blogger Paul Staines alleged that Morgan published a story while knowing it to have been obtained by phone hacking while editor of the Daily Mirror in 2002.
Now THIS is something that perhaps might warrant legal action (although deportation seems a bit harsh). Also see the video about, as well as this article, about Morgan’s continued “apologia” for the heinous Rupert Murdoch. In short, Morgan is absolutely right to call out the NRA and other “any gun/any time” proponent for their extreme views. He certainly shouldn’t be deported for those views, unless tens of millions of Americans who agree with him should also be deported. But on the Murdoch/phone hacking scandal? I’m not so sure.
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