Australian Govt Censors Notes From Secret Anti-Piracy Talks 177
An anonymous reader writes "It looks as if the Australian Government really doesn't want the public to know what's going on in its closed-door talks with ISPs and the content industry. The Attorney-General's Department has applied the black marker to almost all of the information contained in documents about the meetings released under Freedom of Information laws. The reason? It wouldn't be in the 'public interest' to release the information. Strange how the public seems to have a high degree of interest in finding out what's being talked about."
Internet Villain of the Year (Score:5, Funny)
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Conroy needs to die by having a rack of telecoms equipment fall on him.
--
BMO
Re:Internet Villain of the Year (Score:5, Informative)
It's strange how they know what we shouldn't know. Bunch of UN communist stooges. Bring back Guy Fawkes.
Guy Fawkes was just the fall guy.
The leader of the group was actually Robert Catesby who was a Jesuit who wanted to replace King James and the English government with the 9 year old daughter of King James. Catesby was a bit of a religious extremist himself, described as a crusader by his friends and relatives. Guy Fawkes was a soldier who had fought in the Spanish Netherlands, hence he was tasked with guarding the gunpoweder the rebellion kept in a storehouse under the House of Lords, he was not the core of the Jesuit rebellion. Fawkes may have been historically the most famous, but it was Catesby's head that was put on a pike in front of the House of Lords.
To be frank, I dont like the likes of Conroy, I like the idea of giving control of the internet to a bunch of religious rebels even less. OK, Conroy is a religious twat as well, but he'll never get his way, the Labor backbench would have a little rebellion of their own, his filter has failed twice before in the house.
Re:Internet Villain of the Year (Score:5, Informative)
Catesby might have been a religious extremist, but then, so was James I. His persecution of Catholics is what drove the Gunpowder Plot. The distinction between the Gunpowder Plotters and James I wasn't that one was religious and the other isn't - it's that one was Authority and the other was Rebellion. You might as well say you don't like Conroy, but don't like the idea of putting a bunch of dead Englishmen in charge either - it's a strawman. That's not what the OP was saying.
Re:Internet Villain of the Year (Score:4, Interesting)
The OP was making a false equivalency to the fall guy for a religious rebellion to freedom.
I challenged that pointing out that Fawkes is not a symbol for freedom at all, he wasn't even the guy in charge, he was the guy who was caught (Catesby and Percy weren't). As a result, my point is not a strawman but rather, the expression of the old saying "better the devil you know". We know Conroy will be controlled.
BTW, pointing out James I was religious is a bit of a strawman, pretty much it's trying to say "It's OK to do something bad because Janey is also bad". That whole period of English history went from Christian Tyranny to Protestant authoritarianism to reformation years ahead of mainland Europe.
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You may be historically correct, but culturally, Guy Fawkes has come to symbolize rebellion against authority in any form.
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Unless you believe he was advocating actual resurrection, he was speaking symbolically.
It's an outrageous outrage (Score:5, Insightful)
Protesting against greed while wearing hollywood masks and shitting in the town square is going to be about as effective as flower power was at "solving" the same issues 40yrs ago. One of the largest internal migrations in the US was in the early 70's when the hippies left the cities in droves to establish communes that shunned political hierarchies and political alliances between members. Virtually none of the communes lasted more that a couple of years. Most people assume it was because of jelousy brought on by the "love thy neighbour" attitute to sex, but it was nothing of the sort. They failed because the lack of political structure created a power vacumn allowing the one slightly more agressive member of the group to rise to the top by brow beating individuals into submission one at a time, when that stopped working things got physical. Coincidently this was all around the same time that the Stanford prision experiments demonstrated that we all have an evil dictator lurking in our phyche just waiting for the opportunity to fill a political power vacum and we also all have a cowering slave in our phyche that given the right conditions will emerge and chose security over liberty.
In other words, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
The mayor hides the crime rate
council woman hesitates
Public gets irate, but forgets the vote date
Weatherman complaining, predicted sun, it's raining
Everyone's protesting, boyfriend keeps suggesting
you're not like all of the rest.
Garbage ain't collected, women ain't protected
Politicians using, people they're abusing
The mafia's getting bigger, like pollution in the river
And you tell me that this is where it's at.
Woke up this moming with an ache in my head
Splashed on my clothes as I spilled out of bed
Opened the window to listen to the news
But all I heard was the Establishment's Blues.
Gun sales are soaring, housewives find life boring
Divorce the only answer, smoking causes cancer
This system's gonna fall soon, to an angry young tune
And that's a concrete cold fact.
The pope digs population, freedom from taxation
Teeny Bops are up tight, drinking at a stoplight
Miniskirt is flirting I can't stop so I'm hurting.
Spinster sells her hopeless chest.
Adultery plays the kitchen, bigot cops non-fiction
The little man gets shafted, sons and monies drafted
Living by a time piece, new war in the far east.
Can you pass the Rorschach test?
It's a hassle is an educated guess.
Well, frankly I couldn't care less.
- This Is Not A Song, Its An Outburst (AKA The Establishment Blues ); Rodriguez - 1970
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Your wasting your breath, at least half the people here know for certain that whenever government meets with anyone behind a closed door they are plotting against we the people.
Your sarcasm is noted, but what facts have you to support the point you appear to be trying to make? ...I see.
Protesting against greed while wearing hollywood masks and shitting in the town square is going to be about as effective as flower power was at "solving" the same issues 40yrs ago. One of the largest internal migrations in the US was in the early 70's when the hippies left the cities in droves to establish communes
Again, citation needed.
Virtually none of the communes lasted more that a couple of years. On the other hand, many have survived to this day. Black Bear Ranch is a shining example of how like-minded people can make such things work. So your implied conclusion that such things are "virtually" impossible is flawed. The fact of the matter is that most of the communes that started in the 60's and 70's never had a chance. Drugs were the reason that most communes fell apart. A close second was ignorance. A band of city kids heading into the sticks to "live off the land" is almost laughably naive.
Most people assume it was because of jelousy brought on by the "love thy neighbour" attitute to sex
Really? Please cite your source for this "most people" claim.
They failed because the lack of political structure created a power vacumn allowing the one slightly more agressive member of the group to rise to the top by brow beating individuals into submission one at a time, when that stopped working things got physical.
You seem to be suggesting that only "normal" political structure's will work to keep a society from degenerating into chaos. Again, the many still thriving communes would put the lie to this suggestion. To be sure, they all have a political structure, but
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I dunno about the "half the people" part, but the part about secred deals being against public interest is simple logic: if the rumours were worse than the truth, the politician would simply leak the deal - it's in his best interests to look as good as possible, after all. Thus, as long as the deal remains unknown, we know for certain that the people who know it consider it worse than whatever spec
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How can we hold our leaders accountable, if we don't know what they're up to?
What's wrong with the traditional method of taking their words with a grain of salt and holding them to account for their actions? Is this not the treatment you would expect for yourself?
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the part about secred deals being against public interest is simple logic
Mate, if you consider that logic simple I suggest you seek professional help (and not from a logician)!
Let's challenge the assumption that the minister is concerned about "look[ing] as good as possible" in front of a largely unattentive voting public and is instead concerned about how good he looks in front of the interested (in both senses) parties with whom he is in direct negotiation. Will a leak prove beneficial?
You give the imp
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Stargate SG-1 had a race called the Tollans [wikia.com] with a very interesting concept on government.
There was no such thing as a "closed hearing". All council sessions were recorded in their entirety and available to all of the public instantly. In fact, &;ltspoilers> when it did inevitably happen (as they were conspiring with the Goa'uld</spoilers>, it was viewed as an aberration. A horrible crime that could never happen, like the Vice President walking up to the President and shooting him in the head.
Re:It's an outrageous outrage (Score:5, Funny)
I skipped straight to the song. From now on I propose all argument be null and void unless articulated in the form of a song.
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Please tell me this is a joke...
Seem's like one.
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The leader of the group was actually Robert Catesby who was a Jesuit
So wait, Jews did 11/5? 4chan was a bit off on the date but I'm sure they'll be ecstatic nonetheless.
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The leader of the group was actually Robert Catesby who was a Jesuit
So wait, Jews did 11/5?
I think you need a little education [lmgtfy.com]
The Public Interest (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:The Public Interest (Score:4, Insightful)
Uh, no. If revealing what they're discussing is likely to cause protests and riots - then perhaps they shouldn't be discussing it in the first place. It'll have to be revealed at some point so the riots and protests will still happen. The only reason they want to keep it secret is to hopefully ram it through ASAP against the public's wishes.
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Revealed? Whatever for [wikipedia.org]?
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Re:Internet Villain of the Year (Score:5, Funny)
He should literally be tried for treason
and if that doesn't work we can always figuratively try him for treason
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Crap, stupid instant mod system. That Overrated was supposed to be Funny.
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Crap, stupid instant mod system. That Overrated was supposed to be Funny.
Doesn't matter, you've accomplished the same thing by undoing your moderation. No moderation and "Funny" both give the poster zero karma.
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I have an avatar that says we should virtually try him for treason.
Sickening (Score:1)
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Sickening, (Score:5, Insightful)
Conroy is not the biggest - he is one of many. Only 30% of the population support Labor (an organisation that can't even spell its own name correctly). A large percentage of the population dispise and detest them. However, short of civil inssurection, how the hell do you get rid of them? The people can't call an election and they have taken away our guns.
This person doesn't live in Oz.
We can call an election, it's just that no-one wants to. We dont need guns to do that, I suspect the GP is not Australian and doesn't realise Aussies can sort out their problems without violence. To get an election called, all we need to do is prove to the Governor-General that the current government is unfit, then she dissolves parliament. The thing is, no-one wants to, elections are a pain in the arse, a waste of a good Saturday and the Liberals are even worse then Labor.
The Labor party is actually preferred over the Coalition in the two party preferred poll, add the popularity of the Greens and they will retain control next election (ALP with the help of the Greens). If anything, I expect more votes to go to Green and independent candidates. The Coalition will never get in because Abbott's just a patsy for the Liberal power brokers and their economic policies are insane ($70 Billion dollar black hole the shadow treasurer cant account for).
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Re:Sickening, (Score:4)
Australia, which is clearly very far from your location.
They said that in the last two elections. As long as it's Anyone v Abbott, Labor is practically guaranteed to win. The liberal policy is to say "No" to everything that Labor does, this will lose them a lot of votes. Its far more likely Abbot would be massacred in any election as Julia Gillard is preferred PM, but as I said before it would just end up like 2010 with the balance of power being held by Greens and/or Independents because Australians are simply sick of the two major parties ruling by fiat for four years.
BTW. look up how polls are done and how inaccurate they are at election time. They go out and ask random people to answer a questionnaire, this is easily biased by going to specific areas. This is why Morgan polls look different to Nielson polls. The only semi-reliable polls are exit polls (basically the same thing, they ask people who they voted for on their way out, hence they are called "exit" polls).
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A lie said enough times (Score:4, Interesting)
The liberal policy is to say "No" to everything that Labor does, this will lose them a lot of votes.
Seems to have worked pretty well for the Republicans. Congresses approval is around 10%, yet half the population still supports this now reactionary political philosophy. Who's to say that Abbott cannot make ground out of contrarian hatred. After-all, plenty of people hate the Labor and the Greens, and Abbot has a large media complex that will back him all the way. A lie said enough times... just saying.
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> You mean that same governer general who is appointed by the GOVERNMENT!
November 11, 1975.
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I doubt that the GP does. I think that he means the same Governor-General that is appointed by The Queen.
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As an Aussie, I wish what you said is true, but it is not. You are ignoring the recent small elections, where there was a huge shift to the Libs. You are kidding if you think Labor will stay in, despite Abbott being a complete loser and religious zealot.
There are plenty of people who want an election called, the opposition, and the opposition supporters. The opposition and their supporters ALWAYS want an election called, since they can only lose again, and might win. It is very ignorant to ever pretend othe
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I suspect the GP is not Australian and doesn't realise Aussies can sort out their problems without violence.
Then do it.
The thing is, no-one wants to
Sounds like you can't fix anything at all then.
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Um, pretty much the only growing economy in the western world. An actual plan to deal with deficit.
I suggest you check your facts instead of relying on things like News Limited.
Re:Sickening, (Score:5, Informative)
Be careful with your suggestions, someone might actually do it ;-)
A visit to Wikipedia (with recent numbers from the CIA World Factbook) learns that Argentina, Panama, Turkey, Estonia, Paraguay, Peru, Lithuania, Uruguay, Ecuador, Kosovo, Suriname, Colombia, Israel, Sweden, Costa Rica, Guinea, Latvia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Poland, Luxembourg, Honduras, South Africa, Austria, Slovakia, Macedonia, Brazil, Guatemala, Venezuela, Finland, Germany, Albania, Malta, Iceland, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Switzerland, The Bahamas, Belgium, El Salvador and New Zealand all have bigger economic growth than Australia.
Depending on how you define the western world, they might not all be part of it, and I may have forgotten a couple. But the point is, Australia is not by a long shot "pretty much the only growing economy in the western world."
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I suggest you actually read some economic theory.
You too it seems. Paying back debt in good times should be done if you are using a gold or otherwise non-sovereign currency.
When you have a sovereign fiat currency (as in the euro need not apply), the rule is different. In that case you should decrease outstanding currency (calling it debt is a misnomer) by reduce spending when there is no unemployment or when the production capacity of the country is close to maxed out.
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Yes, in November 1975. The Whitlam government was sacked by the GG, John Kerr.
Re:Sickening (Score:5, Insightful)
However, short of civil inssurection, how the hell do you get rid of them? The people can't call an election and they have taken away our guns.
You wait until the next federal election when we all get to vote. That's how we like do it round here.
I thought the conservatives really overreached when they banned almost all guns (even though 85% of my fellow Australians supported Howard on this issue). When I read posts like yours, however, I wonder whether my loss at having my piddly 22 taken away isn't, after all, outweighed by my gain from having any firearm kept out of the hands of folks like yourself.
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there are lots of other bad things out there, but getting rid of a lot of guns was a bloody good start
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Really? How many people were killed by redneck gunfire? And how much of that was accidental vs. malicious? I'm really curious.
In the US, gun control is a big issue. Mostly it's white people who don't want black people to shoot them. The rednecks are sort of caught in the middle of the debate, and generally live in different locales.
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I think most Americans who own guns (I'd estimate 10%) have them for recreation, not defense.
Do you know anybody shot by an American gun enthusiast or redneck? If so, my sincere condolences.
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Believe it or not, many Americans never actually see a gun in person.If guns are banned, the missing gun violence will be quickly and completely replaced by knife violence.
Eventually, we could ban enough to get to board with nail violence, but the violence will remain and be just as bad as ever.
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Nice strawman there. We have little evidence that a prevented rape just becomes some other equally harmful crime.
If you want to launch a program to make people less likely to want to hurt and kill others, that might actually address the problem.
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guns don't kill people, but stupid fucking irresponsible redneck retards kill people, and these people will always be a danger to the community around them as long as they have access to guns
Well, since it's Australia we're talking about, how do you explain this. Queensland would by far be considered the "redneck state" even more so back when gun control came in, yet it was NSW, Victoria and Tasmania (all of which had tighter gun control than Queensland) that had the massacres that prompted the introduction of nation wide (state implemented) gun control.
Since the acquittals of Susan Falls and Claire Margaret MacDonald we have the absurd legal situation where self defense is not a legal reaso
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It is illegal in chicago to carry a handgun (it's almost illegal to own one). In fact, chicago is probably in the top 3 most gun controlled cities in the USA. Yet there were 41 shootings last week. Gun control NEVER works.
Re:Sickening (Score:5, Insightful)
Gun control never works in a country that already has an abundance of guns.
The UK has absolute gun control.
All we have are stabbings. Attempts to curb knife ownership have failed. People still get stabbed all the time.
Keeping weapons off the streets is simple. Getting them off the streets once they're there is next to impossible.
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All? Er, no, I think you'll find we do have gun crime. Not at US levels, sure, but I think it's a stretch to say we have absolute gun control.
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I'm sure the people who die from stabbing thank all that is holy that they didn't get shot!
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Or maybe localized gun control doesn't work very well. It's not that difficult to transport guns into the city, but who knows how many shootings there would be if guns were sold openly.
Looking at the shootings from this weekend, the "but if only everyone had guns" excuse doesn't seem to fly:
- A guy called over to a car and shot in the head
- A guy shot while riding in a car
- A bunch of drive-by shootings
- A 6 year old girl shot
In none of those situations would LESS control of guns have prevented them. What
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The people with the biggest guns win, and trust me your poxy little pea shooter is nothing compared to a tooled up marine. You'll hit the dirt before you so much as see the guy piloting the drone that killed you, let alone get to actually shoot the damn thing at a government official.
They didn't take your guns away because they were scared of you, they took them away because too many people were going postal with them.
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but the Australian public are too stupid to realise
at least some of us are smart enough not to give a shit about all this impossible-to-implement and enforce internet censorship garbage, and our pollies are smart enough to have a bit of fun giving the SOPA retards a good butt fucking before sending them home to their mighty "home of the free"
It's All About The Anal Rape (Score:5, Funny)
You'd think people would get tired after being anally raped for so long (Really, you can only rape someone for so long before it's just sex...) and found a "No Anal Rape" party. I think most people would agree that not being anally raped by corporations and politicians is a cause worthy of getting behind.
Re:It's All About The Anal Rape (Score:5, Funny)
I think most people would agree that not being anally raped by corporations and politicians is a cause worthy of getting behind.
I see what you did there.
Re:It's All About The Anal Rape (Score:5, Funny)
I think most people would agree that not being anally raped by corporations and politicians is a cause worthy of getting behind.
I see what you did there.
Well, it's certainly not something you want to get in front of.
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How do you spell korupshun? (Score:5, Funny)
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calling out jews are [sic] unpopular (result of successful mind control) is is [sic] bound to get you ostracized.[sic]
Or it could just be that people are slightly sensitive to the fact that 5 or 6 million Jews were systematically murdered in unprecedented computer administrated death camps for supposedly being the sole cause of all of Germany's problems. But hey I could be barking up the wrong tree..
That'd because it's probably discussing (Score:5, Interesting)
The Australian government has "a special room" in almost every single ISP with a machine capable of taking a full duplication of traffic for almost any customer. This applies to phone networks as well.
I know someone who installs this equipment, he will not even TALK ABOUT it online, he literally won't type it in an email, IM or messaging system of any kind. Offline it's difficult to get info regarding it out of him.
Those boxes, to my knowledge do not require a warrant, the government can just remotely log in and start recording. Obviously they can't use the data in court without some kind of warrant but the equipement is there.
Posting this anonymously I will assume is enough - I don't have much more information than that unfortunately. If anyone else does, please feel free to reply.
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More than a few years ago worked for a company who made this sort of equipment (claimed to be of the two best), the story at the time was that not much sold in Australia (as opposed to the US and Europe). The issue was if there wasnt much deep packet inspection in Aus, or maybe they bought equipment from someone else.
But it doesnt really matter what nation the equipment is in, the internet doesnt respect borders. That means they can capture your data as it goes through the US/Europe, and with their "Intelli
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You're assuming my traffic is going through US / Europe. With equipment at the ISP level they can capture the entirety of my traffic to and from multiple places.
Admitedly my information is anecdotal but a second network engineer who worked for a different company funnily enough reacted when the first one made mention of it, they both kind of had "ooooh" and "ahh" comments and nodded etc, a few things were said which sadly I forget but I'm quite confident one worked for the company manufacturing equipment,
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If you really want privacy use encryption, vpn (to a "safe" country?), tor, whatever, pay for it with bitcoins.
There are benefits to pervasive surveillance;
- Its hard to have a false identiy if you dont have a real one, try and throw away the false identity, not the real one.
- If you looking for a needle dont put it in a haystack, the more "normal" traffic they capture, the further the target sinks into the noise.
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Posting this anonymously I will assume is enough ...
No sorry mate, it won't help at all. You forgot about the government's "special room." Expect a knock on the door at any moment, there's another kind of "special room" where you are going.
Posting anonymously so the government won't ... oh damn!
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Public interest (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that I disagree with their view here, but the summary makes the mistake of conflating 'the public interest' with what is 'interesting to the public'.
But what could it hold against public interest? (Score:5, Insightful)
I can understand how you can redact portions of documents where release of information might lead to physical harm, like planned locations of troops or identities of informants.
But how on earth can there be ANYTHING not releasable in a talk on copyright? There is nothing that could be talked about that would cause physical harm to others.
This absolutely stinks and I hope the courts can be brought into release the information attempted to be hidden from the public.
So what has been hidden? My best guess is that the document shows a terrifying contempt for the common citizen in regards to rights they have, and they are really worried about how that would come across in the press.
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This absolutely stinks and I hope the courts can be brought into release the information attempted to be hidden from the public.
More likely to be left to whistleblowers/Wikileaks.
Physical harm to corporations (Score:5, Insightful)
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No, corporations ain't people, they are businesses. Entities with people responsible for its running.
There is no such thing as privacy in public negotiations. If such would damage a corporation, they apparantly are aiming for the wrong income.
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Not in Australia, they're not. That's an (almost) uniquely American artefact.
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There is nothing that could be talked about that would cause physical harm to others.
I think they're more concerned about "physical harm to the conspirators."
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> This absolutely stinks
What absolutely stinks is that the electorate is voting in the same people turn after turn after turn. Not only in Australia but in all western "democracies".
After a certain number of cycles, the policians realize that _whatever_ they do, they'll be voted in anyway, so what exactly is stopping them from making a little bit of money by catering to special interests? The electorate doesnt seem to be mentally able to defend themselves anyway, so why not fuck them a little bit?
The roo
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Very interesting, that provides a lot of context I had no idea of.
Populations these days though take over not militarily, but through occupation and then assimilation. There's really not much to be done about that unless you want to close off your country which is not a good idea either. The only thing you can do is try to maintain a strong national identity and not let people set up nations within nations...
"Public interest" (Score:3)
From the brief: "It wouldn't be in the 'public interest' to release the information. Strange how the public seems to have a high degree of interest in finding out what's being talked about."
We get a lot of that disagreement between the citizens and the government here in the States as well. And when tax time comes along, I apply the same reasoning to whether or not paying them would be "in the government interest". Or the public's.
If everyone did that, governments would shape up PDQ out of sheer necessity. Even if the politicians and the courts don't work, the People still have recourse. Which reminds, tax time is almost here in the U.S.. Pay them any non-negative amount you think they're worth.
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Possibly. They are the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, [usa-the-republic.com] and were started offshore because since they're a private corporation, they wouldn't be lawful within the U.S..
"industry-negotiated solution" (Score:5, Insightful)
In a briefing issued to Attorney-General Nicola Roxon regarding the meeting, the department noted that it continued to prefer an industry-negotiated solution to the issue of Internet content piracy.
Industry-negotiated "solutions" are the antithesis of a democratic process.
It's amazing that governments not only allow this to happen, but actively facilitate the process.
If the government had to step in and set up rules, they'd be forced to accept input from those annoying citizens they're supposed to represent.
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can you imagine a government entity first coming up with a drm solution and then enforcing that drm solution on people? it would be so obviously the stupidest thing in a century so that government would be finished no matter what.. these two solutions are the only things they're thinking of, a drm solution mandated and dictated either by the government or by the industry. shows how clueless they are trying to put the cat back in the bag. some drm company is going to make a boatload of money for a few years(
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That's kind-of the idea.
you'd need to make recorders, dictating devices etc illegal too or add to them constant online connection and track recognition tech.
it's just not feasible. but the idea can be sold to few companies and a lot of money can be sucked out of few companies and burned on the issue. literally millions have been already spent on this snake oil - millions isn't enough, more like tens of millions of dollars - the money has come from companies such as microsoft, sony, nokia, real etc.
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Industry-negotiated "solutions" are the antithesis of a democratic process.
Doesn't this just hit the nail on the head when it comes to neoliberal philosophy. You can thank von Mises, Hayek, Rand and their legion of followers for "freedom" disguised as an anti-democratic breakdown of sovereignty.
Reason: (Score:4, Insightful)
They are chicken - afraid that people find out what they are up to.
Any public servant doing this kind of stuff should be penalized.
William Binney: ...after he realized that the NSA is now openly trampling the constitution, says as he holds his thumb and forefinger close together. "We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state."
Website not working (Score:1)
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works from finland.. .au if you don't do as they want.
the general jibe of the article is that for some reason, the government considers that it's negotiating(!!!!!) with an industry/foreign power that could withhold something from it!! it's fucking entertertainment industry! they won't stop shipping shows to
the real reason is probably some bullshit drm company not wanting other bullshit drm companies to get a hint that they're trying to push their bullshit drm for some pie in the sky dream. and network insp
Governments represent Corporations not people. (Score:1)
Governments represent Corporations not people.
The government will KILL every human being if it means satisfying a corporate interest.
Corruption (Score:2)
Hiding something means there's something to hide (Score:2)
Why do various governments and government institutions feel it's necessary to hide and keep secret these kinds of talks?
Just think - they have no issues talking about defense spending, health-care and so on in public, but when it comes to anti-piracy at all of a sudden has to be secret.
It's obvious that they're hiding things because they have to. They're doing things that violates both basic democratic rules and their mandate, maybe even taking bribes in the process. They gotta be stopped! - and fast!
Re: (Score:1)
I neither a lawyer, nor Australian, but it's surprising that it's possible to redact because something relates to the "deliberative or consultative processes of the government", or for a right-to-privacy is invoked by a public servant *conducting business in their capacity as a public servant*. How can their be accountability without information?
Here in the US, there was a flap about Vice President Cheney's secret "Energy Task Force" talks, involving the oil industry he has such close ties to. Not sure wh
Pirates must be terrorists (Score:2)
If they're redacting the information from the talks, they must think "pirates" are terrorists.
Because the only excuse that's even vaguely valid for redacting government information is "national security", and even that gets applied with too broad a brush in most nations.
The decision (Score:3)
As always, an important facet of any informed debate is comprehending all sides to a given issue. With that in mind, you can download the decision, as well as the rest of the documents, here [slashdot.org] (warning: 11.3Mb, pdf wrapped in rar). I'm assuming the following is the controversial bit:
(Copied manually and quickly, so don't take as gospel)
I see her point. As I'm sure we're all aware, there is a very vocal group of people who are against the idea of these talks occurring in the first place. The early stages of the talks could (and most probably do) contain aspects that are unreasonable and will not be present towards the resolution. These points could well be exploited by people who would like to see these talks not go ahead.
Think of it like couple counselling. The couple might start out angry and at each others throats, but that doesn't necessarily reflect how they feel about each other, and the compromises they're willing to make. If someone were to make the initial proceedings public, it would potentially send completely the wrong impression out to everyone. Anyone who is genuinely interested in the outcome of the counselling would prefer to hear about the latter stages.
Anyway, now you have the information, make up your own minds.
The Bane of Democracy (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I suspect the problem is the Western world's reliance on Intellectual Property as a money making mechanism. Already a lot of innovation is being done outside of the big western countries, so our businesses are increasingly relying on IP laws to protect their business interests. Thus the push for draconian legislation to ensure those who obtained patents can milk them for all they are worth and simultaneously stifle research in the same area to ensure they get the most cash from their patents at the same tim