Letter: Press regulation: a Bill killed, tragic revelations, the global village, sellers of sleaze

Sir: The Government and others can agitate for laws to muzzle the press but they have been overtaken by technology. Any laws promulgated in Britain could be bypassed easily. There is, for instance, nothing to stop someone - say, Rupert Murdoch - from broadcasting into Britain via satellite from New York. He could then carry what he liked on that channel subject only to the constraints of American law - which, as we all know, has a liberal approach to press freedom, thanks to the First Amendment to that nation's written constitution.

How would the British government try to stop it? Jam broadcasts? Ban possession of satellite dishes? Or would it simply bow to the inevitable and realise, finally, that Marshall McLuhan's global village makes a nonsense of repressive media laws?

Yours sincerely,

NOEL CASHMORE

Bexhill, East Sussex

14 January