maelorin: (fable)
posted by [personal profile] maelorin at 08:24pm on 31/05/2006 under , , , , , ,

Monday, May 29, 2006
Gonzales pressing data retention in fight against child porn
Tom Henry at 7:55 AM ET

[JURIST] US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile] and FBI Director Robert Mueller [official profile] held a private meeting with representatives from major internet service providers late last week urging them to retain customer internet activities to combat child pornography. The meeting, reported by CNET, follows a speech [text; JURIST report] by Gonzales last month at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, during which he called on ISPs to retain records for a "reasonable amount of time". At Friday's meeting he advocated a more concrete period of two years.

Although the US Department of Justice is currently framing the data retention issue in terms of its fight against child porn, data retention is also potentially important to counter-terrorism efforts. Earlier this year European Union justice and interior ministers meeting in Brussels
approved [European Council proceedings, PDF; JURIST report] a controversial data retention directive [DOC] passed by the European Parliament [JURIST report] in December 2005 designed to track down terrorists, paedophiles, and criminal gangs and calling for EU member states to store citizens' phone call and internet service data for 6 to 24 months without stipulating a maximum time period.

CNET has
more.

If you work for a company that sells large hard drives and/or blu-ray or HD-DVD drives, you have job security now.
Mood:: 'predatory' predatory
Music:: The Daily Show
location: Adelaide, Australia
maelorin: (fable)
posted by [personal profile] maelorin at 08:24pm on 31/05/2006 under , , , , , ,

Monday, May 29, 2006
Gonzales pressing data retention in fight against child porn
Tom Henry at 7:55 AM ET

[JURIST] US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile] and FBI Director Robert Mueller [official profile] held a private meeting with representatives from major internet service providers late last week urging them to retain customer internet activities to combat child pornography. The meeting, reported by CNET, follows a speech [text; JURIST report] by Gonzales last month at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, during which he called on ISPs to retain records for a "reasonable amount of time". At Friday's meeting he advocated a more concrete period of two years.

Although the US Department of Justice is currently framing the data retention issue in terms of its fight against child porn, data retention is also potentially important to counter-terrorism efforts. Earlier this year European Union justice and interior ministers meeting in Brussels
approved [European Council proceedings, PDF; JURIST report] a controversial data retention directive [DOC] passed by the European Parliament [JURIST report] in December 2005 designed to track down terrorists, paedophiles, and criminal gangs and calling for EU member states to store citizens' phone call and internet service data for 6 to 24 months without stipulating a maximum time period.

CNET has
more.

If you work for a company that sells large hard drives and/or blu-ray or HD-DVD drives, you have job security now.
Mood:: 'predatory' predatory
Music:: The Daily Show
location: Adelaide, Australia
maelorin: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] maelorin at 08:27pm on 31/05/2006
location: Adelaide, Australia
maelorin: (Default)
posted by [personal profile] maelorin at 08:27pm on 31/05/2006
location: Adelaide, Australia
maelorin: (inevitable)

Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Australia AG considering sedition laws revision
Jaime Jansen at 12:10 PM ET

[JURIST] Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock [official website] said Tuesday that he is willing to revise [ABC World Today transcript] Australia's new sedition laws [summary], particularly the use of the word "sedition," after the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) [official website] released a discussion paper [text] Monday arguing that "sedition" implies a threat to free speech [press release; ALRC sedition materials]. He indicated, however, that he will not act on the ALRC's recommendation until it submits a final report.

The ALRC, the independent federal statutory agency charged with conducting official inquiries into areas for possible legal reform, rejected an argument put forth by Australia's three major news organizations that the sedition laws dealing with the incitement of terrorism are excessive and
should not be applied to major media outlets [JURIST report]. The ALRC nonetheless suggested changing the term "sedition" to "offenses against political liberty and public order," while also recommending 24 other changes to clearly state that the sedition laws only target people seeking to overthrow the government through violence, and not members of the arts community using political satire. Australia's sedition laws were enacted late last year as part of sweeping anti-terrorism legislation [JURIST report].

The Australian has
more.

Sedition is an ancient offence (and a reasonably consistent one until very recently) that consisted of covert behaviour aimed at inciting others to overthrow of the public good order or disruption of good governance. So encouraging others to do something.

Treason consisted of acts directed to undermining your lawful government's capacity to wage war on the enemy. That is, you directly assist the enemy in some way.

Australia's new sedition laws seem to conflate the two in ugly ways. No only that, but the language is very broad - potentially capturing a huge range of normally acceptable democratic activities.

What has been more difficult to understand - as a lawyer - is why the law was brought into effect in the first place while intending to have the efficacy and even appropriateness of the law [and the offence of sedition itself] examined by the ALRC only a few months later. The ALRC did not take long to pencil in it's immediate concerns (as much of the legal profession generally across Australia had done back when the law was first leaked out of the secret process it was originally floated within and we got our first look at it).

Music:: ride of the valkyries
location: Adelaide, Australia
Mood:: unsurprised
maelorin: (inevitable)

Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Australia AG considering sedition laws revision
Jaime Jansen at 12:10 PM ET

[JURIST] Australian Attorney-General Philip Ruddock [official website] said Tuesday that he is willing to revise [ABC World Today transcript] Australia's new sedition laws [summary], particularly the use of the word "sedition," after the Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) [official website] released a discussion paper [text] Monday arguing that "sedition" implies a threat to free speech [press release; ALRC sedition materials]. He indicated, however, that he will not act on the ALRC's recommendation until it submits a final report.

The ALRC, the independent federal statutory agency charged with conducting official inquiries into areas for possible legal reform, rejected an argument put forth by Australia's three major news organizations that the sedition laws dealing with the incitement of terrorism are excessive and
should not be applied to major media outlets [JURIST report]. The ALRC nonetheless suggested changing the term "sedition" to "offenses against political liberty and public order," while also recommending 24 other changes to clearly state that the sedition laws only target people seeking to overthrow the government through violence, and not members of the arts community using political satire. Australia's sedition laws were enacted late last year as part of sweeping anti-terrorism legislation [JURIST report].

The Australian has
more.

Sedition is an ancient offence (and a reasonably consistent one until very recently) that consisted of covert behaviour aimed at inciting others to overthrow of the public good order or disruption of good governance. So encouraging others to do something.

Treason consisted of acts directed to undermining your lawful government's capacity to wage war on the enemy. That is, you directly assist the enemy in some way.

Australia's new sedition laws seem to conflate the two in ugly ways. No only that, but the language is very broad - potentially capturing a huge range of normally acceptable democratic activities.

What has been more difficult to understand - as a lawyer - is why the law was brought into effect in the first place while intending to have the efficacy and even appropriateness of the law [and the offence of sedition itself] examined by the ALRC only a few months later. The ALRC did not take long to pencil in it's immediate concerns (as much of the legal profession generally across Australia had done back when the law was first leaked out of the secret process it was originally floated within and we got our first look at it).

Mood:: unsurprised
Music:: ride of the valkyries
location: Adelaide, Australia

May

SunMonTueWedThuFriSat
          1
 
2
 
3
 
4 5
 
6
 
7
 
8
 
9
 
10
 
11
 
12
 
13
 
14
 
15
 
16
 
17
 
18
 
19
 
20
 
21
 
22
 
23
 
24
 
25
 
26
 
27
 
28
 
29
 
30
 
31