Pirate Congress 2011 is nearly over, all we need to do is vote!

A big thank you to those that attended or participated remotely in the debate on Saturday and Sunday, in Sydney. We hope that many more will attend in Melbourne, July 2012.

We have emailed out voting links to all our registered members to vote on the motions and National Council positions. There are thirteen (13) motions that need to go to a vote by all members and there are three (3) positions that are contested and require a vote. Voting will be open for seven (7) days.

The voting system we are using has been developed in house to use a blind signature scheme whereby we can’t determine who made a particular vote only that it is a valid vote.

In order to ensure the legitimacy of this election we are posting the public key for this election – only votes signed with this key are valid. We have posted the hash of a file that contains information that will ensure that in the event that the votes are disputed the election results can be validated. We are working towards a system where you can see for your self that the election is sound and when finished the information below will be used to prove this.

Poll public keys:
X: 9e4c0442226957f92f58b18ee490e3d8b77b3dcf635931db64cf843eb8993bd7
Y: 1b9ef4861cac86856b2fab9bbdb6d4204985eb678f611868f0a268ff4429c1f3

SHA256 of proof file:
77f02363c06599690f73c085418be9594efb097a8cd808171b69462da9490329

Pirate Party Australia has recently made a submission to the Advisory Council on Intellectual Property (ACIP) in its review of the Innovation Patent System[1]. The submission calls for a complete overhaul of the patent system to reflect the needs of contemporary society, and the rapid advances in technology[2].

There are significant issues with the patent system. The loudest and most consistent voice of opposition to patents on software for instance are those most effected by them, software programmers. Pirate Party Australia continues to demand that software is completely excluded from any type of patentability. Software patents are a huge impediment to innovation. The only people benefiting from the current situation are patent lawyers as they ply their trade exploiting the boom in unproductive and innovation stifling litigation.

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Pirate Party Australia once again reiterates and echoes the calls of Geoffery Robertson QC, that the Attorney-General and Prime Minister must move to ensure that Julian Assange, as an Australian citizen is afforded the full protection and support of the Australian government in his ongoing legal battle, in order to ensure that due process is observed.

Both the Attorney-General and the Prime Minister have previously made statements, later grudgingly qualified, regarding the legality of both Assange and Wikileaks, that have been extremely prejudicial to the Australian citizen and any future judicial process he, or Wikileaks volunteers may face. Investigations by Australian Federal Police have subsequently cleared Assange’s activities as completely legitimate — there has been no violation of Australian law.

The ongoing and arbitrary financial blockade of the whistleblowing organisation is nothing more than financial terrorism. Whilst Pirate Party Australia has no direct affiliation with the organisation, we have consistently supported strong whistleblower protection and transparency laws.

Ongoing calls by prominent US politicians inciting violence, proclaiming that an Australian citizen should be extrajudicially murdered or brought to trial by an administration that shamefully continues to hold an alleged whistleblower in degrading and inhumane conditions is simply another reason why the Australian Government must afford every available protection to Assange.

Pirate Party Australia applauds media organisations and unions for their rejection of the recent attempt by the Attorney-General to impose a regime of self-censorship on the press[1]. This is a great victory for freedom of speech and information over an increasingly autocratic government, and highlights unnoticed ways in which new media is empowering old media in our democracy.

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Since Pirate Party Australia highlighted[1] major flaws in the recently released discussion paper by the Attorney-General’s Department, it has come to our attention that the paper has been quietly changed to a very redacted version with no public notification. This is an unacceptably opaque attack on our civil liberties, and only further highlights the Government’s continual attempts to limit the public’s involvement in any governmental decision making.

There are significant changes to the redacted version. The title of the original paper is “Revising the Scope of the Copyright ‘Safe Harbour Scheme’ & The Process of Seeking ISP Subscriber Details in Copyright Infringement Matters” while the suddenly redacted version is entitled simply “Revising the Scope of the Copyright ‘Safe Harbour Scheme’”

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