Friday, June 03, 2005

Technical Difficulties: Please Stand By

The Liberals think they've caught a break in the Gurmant Grewal tape scandal because of a break in Gurmant Grewal's scandalous tapes. CBC and CP's hired gun audio experts seems to think so, too:

The Tories are defending the authenticity of the tapes in the wake of two audio experts who independently concluded that the secret recordings made by Grewal were edited.

John Dooher, a forensic audio engineer hired by CBC News, said Thursday there is a "crude" edit and something "amiss" about a section of recordings made by Grewal.

"Right here, we hear what sounds like an edit. We have a change in the frequency spectrum so something has changed there," said Dooher, demonstrating the difference while at a sound board.

Dooher said that more sophisticated testing could offer more certainty, but he believes his original conclusion.

"This sounds to me, not only that this is an edit, but an edit done with something very crude," he said.

His conclusions are supported by Stevan Pausak, one of Canada's leading forensic-sound analysts. Pausak was asked by the Canadian Press to carry out a similar examination. He said one of the recordings has an abnormal break, indicating a section may have been cut out.

"I'm talking about alteration. I am trying to avoid the word tampering," Pausak told the Canadian Press.

"When you are using the word tampering, that means intent, right? Most of the time there is no way to show intent through the examination of the recording. You just see that it's altered."


Unfortunately for the Liberals and the MSM, these two experts' opinions and $1.50 will buy you a cup of coffee.

Neither of these experts worked with Grewal's original tapes, which are currently in the RCMP's possession. They worked off what they heard from a transfer to CD. Their testimony is about the same as proving a forgery of an original document from a photocopy.

And even if the tapes had been edited, what difference would it make? The portions released, for all of the cryptic double-talk, quite clearly show Tim Murphy and Ujjal Dosanjh discussing what it would take to bring Gurmant Grewal across the floor. It is extremely unlikely that any missing portions, whether two seconds or two hours long, would exculpate either of them.

When Grewal approached them, they could have said no in two seconds flat.

If they had discussed the matter with him and then decided to say no, they could have said no just as quickly then.

It doesn't take 23 phone calls and 2 1/2 hours to go through all the reasons behind saying no.

No means no means no.

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