... despite the nature of the request, that this is the start of uk.plc having some backbone, and not asking "how high" when the merkins tell us to jump ?

No ? Thought so.

If it was the other way around, the Americans would happily ignore law, treaty and courtesy citing 'national security', 'the war on terror' or 'we feel like it' as sufficient justification for not complying.

With my gov't would occassionally tell them to stuff it...

"We sent them weeks ago" hope there was no sensitive data in there..

The CIA and NSA will have the files required in a New York minute... they will then be mysteriously leaked...

Perhaps we the British government are asking for a fair exchange - they will give the US the SFO files when the US military starts co-operating with British coroners over "friendly fire" incidents.

What goes around comes around

About time we stood up to their double standards and hypocrisy!

Perhaps now they'll get back to torturing and killing foreign civilians in their War of Terror and leave us alone for a bit.

that these documents were being shredded and burnt as we speak.

As much as sandal wearnig hippies like to go lalalalalala BAE is a huge employer and is of critical importance to the UK of course I know the aformentioned sandle wearing hippies wont be happy until we're all living in mud huts but.

To think that other nations don't grease the wheels of foreign governments is to think that the moon is made of cheese.

Infact we should get rid of a few of our crap government departments and replace them with foreign government greasing departments.

So they're not willing to hand over documents that might reveal alleged corruption on the part BAE to the US authorities, yet they were falling over themselves to hand over everything they had on the Nat West three including the guys themselves...?

Princes, Barons, Lords, it must be great to live in the UK.

Our stories from the continent (Siemens, Airbus, etc.) will just never sound this nice, no matter how much money is involved.

Arms manufacturers are widely known to be in pretty much the most corrupt business on earth. They are woven so closely into their various Governments that their Government officials are merely pimps and shills for the arms traders withintheir borders.

Arms trading with the many corrupt oligarchies, tyrannies and despots around the world, including Saudi Arabia is the most seethingly corrupt part of this whole noxious slime-pit.

The UK Government, by shutting down any investigation, made by its actions a public confession to the fact that they are so far up the whazoo of the arms traders that any molecule of truth would destroy them.

You would think that the current US Administration would appreciate the UK Government's position here, being so closely acquainted with utter lies and corruption themselves, and not press the Home Office to the point of embarassment.

I guess there is no honour amongst sleazes.

don't hold your breath. they _really_ don't give a toot:

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/02/13/a-parallel-state/

[you bet your ass i'm posting this anonymously!]

Yes and when the UK was asked for information they gave crap information that got people killed/tortured possibly they should keep this stuff to themselves. As for BAE greasing Saudi's so what thats how most of this business works what difference does it make.

Hmm , given how active the assorted US spy agencies are and how lax most government employees are in regard to computer security I would guesstimate a 99.985% probability they already had the files lifted as fast as the investigation proceeded !

Or as one would say how soon we forget about the infamous Cambridge Graduate Spy Ring and Sir Anthony who? , so the odds on are the US also had/have a current equivalent still operating !

...it is taking so long is they put the files in the internal mail to send to the foreign office but all they received were a couple of CDs.

Arkle v Pressdram, anyone?

"The Home Secretary has not refused this. She is in the process of giving this request the detailed consideration that it requires... "

Isn't the latter part of that diplomatic-speak for "get stuffed" anyway?

/pedant mode

Nowthen, I know this is a well-worn phrase, but Dante’s Inferno states emphatically that the lowest bowge of hell is frozen over – reserved for traitors and El Reg hacks. And as documentary evidence this is as good as any other. So our patriotic govmint can presumably use this to spin their way out of any ensuing kerfuffle.

The stuff is winging its way across the Atlantic as we speak.

Anyone arriving, unannounced, in this country is offered a free translation service and access to free health, accomdation and funds. WTF do we need "defence" for?

Could be just me, but wasn't it Ents that had the ethos of "if its worth saying, its worth taking a long time saying it" so conversely if its worth taking your time over it, its worth taking a very long time over it!! roll on the next millenium

Re from the other side of the fence

Absolutely and completely agree!!

You got that one right.