[LINK] Australia: US Copyright Colony or Just a Good Friend?

[Richard Chirgwin]

On 22/01/12 9:04 AM, Kim Holburn wrote:
> https://torrentfreak.com/australia-us-copyright-colony-or-just-a-good-friend-120121/
>
>
I dislike SOPA and AFACT-vs-iiNet and all the rest, but this is a 
conspiracy-ridden piece of tosh. Unpicking...

> For [Assange's] bravery Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, a 
> trained lawyer, prejudiced any future legal action by prematurely 
> labelling Assange’s actions “illegal.” She has since sacked the 
> Attorney-General whose job it was to give legal advice on the 
> Wikileaks matter, but the damage has been done and the comment has 
> never been retracted.

There's never been any evidence of a link between Assange, Wikileaks, 
and the sacking of Robert McClelland. Nobody ever suggested that 
McClelland was the author of Gillard's comments about Assange.

> While the Gillard Government was quick to shoot the messenger, it has 
> remained eerily silent on the message – one of potential interference 
> in domestic legal affairs by a foreign power and so-called ally.
Lobbying by anybody is always some kind of interference...

> The Canberra Wikileaks cables revealed the US Embassy sanctioned a 
> conspiracy by Hollywood studios to target Australian communications 
> company iiNet through the local court-system ...
AFACT / the MPAA didn't need US embassy sanction to act. I don't dispute 
the cables, or that the MPAA informed the Embassy of its intentions and 
actions; but to imply that some sort of sign-off was necessary is just 
childish.

> Had [Howes and Arbib] been caught spilling secrets to any other 
> national government, with the possible exception of Great Britain, 
> they would have seen their reputations destroyed at best. At worst, 
> been put on trial for treason.
While their status as contacts for the US Embassy is known, nobody has 
ever established that they "spilled secrets". It's worth keeping in mind 
that Howes' / Arbibs' status, while not know to the public, may not have 
been a secret in Canberra.

And so on.

RC