Australian Government Must Protect Its’ Citizens

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The Australian government, and governments generally, have a duty to protect its citizens and represent them abroad — irrespective of their race, religion or political persuasion. Statements by representatives of the Australian Government run counter to these responsibilities towards Julian Assange, an Australian citizen.

Mr. Assange has faced calls from the United States for his arrest, with Mike Huckabee, a former Republican presidential hopeful, reportedly saying that those responsible for the leaks were guilty of treason and should face execution.1

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ACTA Release Anything But Benign

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Early this morning, the final draft of the Informal Predecisional/Deliberative Draft of the dubiously named Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was released by Knowledge Ecology International (KEI).[1]

“The text has shifted dramatically from the initial documents revealed by Wikileaks when this secretive treaty was first exposed. In some respects it is a slightly better document than previous leaked drafts, with some sections being watered down — however at first glance we don’t perceive this draft as being any more benign” Rodney Serkowski, President of the Pirate Party Australia said.

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Pirate Party Hoists Parody

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Pirate Party Australia today fired its latest salvo in the copyright war by endorsing the spoof video Deliberate Pirate made by party member and activist, Simon Frew, in response to the Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation’s latest campaign ‘Accidental Pirate’. The video squarely takes aim at those behind the campaign, emploring big media to get with the times and stop the confrontational approach with ISPs and music fans.

Pirate Party activist and artist behind the film, Simon Frew said “we were mocking the accidental pirate campaign for its amatuer production values and patronising tone. It was such a joke that the video quite literally wrote itself. The view that file sharing is harming the entertainment industry is not borne out by statistics, and big media conglomerates crying poor is quite frankly laughable.”

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Government Assaults Software Developers In Last Minute Bid To Lose Election

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[PDF Version]

According to the Australian1 the Australian Labor Party have announced that they plan to force app developers to submit games and apps to the censors. The Pirate Party condemns this move as completely unworkable and a direct assault on the software industry.

“With the announcement that the government plans to force app developers to submit their works to the Australian censors, any credibility the ALP have in dealing with the digital environment has been torn to shreds. Apps are globally developed and available. Many developers work from home as a hobby and cannot afford the cost of classification, especially if they need clearance with each country separately as would occur if other countries followed Australia’s lead,” said Pirate Party Australia spokesperson, Simon Frew.

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Pirate Party Australia Defends Wikileaks

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[PDF Version]

The Obama Administration is calling for its allies, including our own government, to investigate and charge Australian Wikileaks founder Julian Assange for leaking the Afghan War Diaries.[1] Pirate Party Australia calls for the Federal government to reject this attempt to silence one of the greatest defenders of freedom and democracy this country has produced.

Pirate Party activist Simon Frew said “It is unfortunate that a nation such as the United States, with such a pretense for defending freedom has fallen so far as to be calling for a global man-hunt of Mr Assange for leaking information about the conduct of the war in Afghanistan. The leak shows a systematic attempt to cover up every bad turn in the war and to keep the citizens of the countries involved in the dark about what is happening.”

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