Don't pirates kidnap people and hold them for ransom, therefore denying
their freedom?
Anyway, I for one don't mind the Gov't filtering out child porn and all
the other crap that tries to get my attention.
There is so much good stuff out there that I can fill my mind with that
rather than the lowest common denominator crud.
Yeah so flame me!
(Also, this should be moved to slug chat)
Ben
Mike wrote:
The no clean feed group have a template for a letter on their site I
think, I'll try to dig it up later.
I think this is very relevant to us as linux/open source/free software
users, if we follow the philosophy "free as in freedom, not fee as in
beer" then that should go not only for the os and programs we use but
for the Internet and our access to data.
I got an email from the president of the PPA with some ideas and advice:
Hi crew,
Pirate Party Australia has been working hard on getting press releases
out and establishing media contacts to spread our message. We are
establishing some working groups to plan a fresh round of national
protests, and we are working on an overhaul of our IT systems. We are
looking at sending members to LAN parties to communicate with the
players, and sticking flyers up in city centres, where legally feasible.
So far, we have not touched a cent of the membership fees or
donations, and some members are using their own funds on essential
services, because we know that every dollar counts.
To those of you who have joined us already, thank you for your
support. I know we haven't gotten back to most of you with
confirmations, but we do plan to once we have started collating the
memberships.
To everyone else, I would like to tell you some hard truths that you
might not like to hear.
To fix the world, you have to do more than click some buttons on a
website.We appreciate that you did sign up as a preliminary member,
but sometimes you have to roll up your sleeves and get a little dirty.
In this case, all we are asking you to do is to go through the process
of actually printing a document and faxing it. I know it's an
old-world effort, but it's really just a few minutes of effort.
For those of you who have not joined because of the money, send me an
email atdavidcra...@pirateparty.org.au and we'll see if we can work
something out. I grew up dirt poor, so I know what it is like to
really not have a few dollars to spare.
For those of you who have not joined due to other issues, just look at
yesterday's release of Senator Conroy's Internet censorship report. We
don't have time to waste. So far, around 140 people, or about 1 in 10
of the preliminary members have signed up. This is not good enough to
affect serious change in Australia. We are trying to protect freedom
of speech, but it looks like many of you don't have much to say. You
need to get angry, and you need to join, and you need to convince
other people to join. You need to do this by painting them a picture
of what the world will be like if we don't put up a fight against the
slide into tyranny that we are now facing. Ask the historians to
imagine what Stalinist Russia would have been like if Stalin had the
computing power of today. Tell them about how fragile democracy is and
how it can be corrupted by just a few influential people over just a
couple of decades. Let the environmentalists know that freedom needs
to be protected, because without freedom, we don't have a world worth
saving. Tell the libertarians that we are trying to keep the
government out of their lives. Inform the concerned parents that we
are fighting for their rights to run their own families. If you're in
the country, speak to some farmers and tell them that we will stop
companies from patenting their seeds. Tell the sick that we'll stop
the drug companies from revelling in their pain. Tell the musicians
that we will work with them to ensure they can earn good money doing
what they love. Tell the trade unionists that we will work to repeal
laws that infringe on their freedom of assembly. Let the gamers know
that we'll rip out Michael Atkinson's spinal column if he doesn't
realise that violent video games don't cause violent behaviour.
OK, maybe not the last one. In fact, I'm not even sure if my freedom
of speech rights protect that statement now-a-days, so let me
explicitly state that it was a joke that referenced Scorpion's
finishing move in Mortal Kombat.
I hope my point is clear. We need you to join Pirate Party Australia,
so we can protect our freedom to make the world a better place. You
signed up as a preliminary member, so you already agree with our
goals, so please make it official.
Regards,
David Crafti,
President
Pirate Party Australia
P.S.: Some people have stated a concern about being on the books as
affiliated with the party, but the AEC treats the applications as
confidential.
______________________________________________________________________
Contact with the Pirate Party Australia
There is an email discussion list that you can participate in here.
You can also participate on our forums or join in the discussion in IRC.
All other enquiries go toenquir...@pirateparty.org.au
On 17/12/2009, at 7:13, Marghanita da Cruz <marghan...@ramin.com.au>
wrote:
meryl wrote:
In addition to getting involved in the EFA's campaign
http://nocleanfeed.com
you can subscribe to their lists to stay informed (there are familiar
SLUG names there too!) http://www.efa.org.au/about/lists/
http://libertus.net/ and http://sites.google.com/site/filtermenot/home
have additional information about the filter on their sites
Also there's the PPA http://www.pirateparty.org.au/
who plan to fight the filter at the next election
<snip>
Google has also blogged on the subject:
<http://google-au.blogspot.com/2009/12/our-views-on-mandatory-isp-filtering.html>
While there is lots of moral outrage on
the subject, I like the way Google has
explained how it is not in their interests.
I think this is a better approach than
the "independent" from the world approach.
jam wrote:
I wrote to Conroy talking about proxies and ssh tunnels and received
back many
pages reminiscent of 'Shirley Valentine' 'Hello wall ...'
Then, older and wiser, I realized *doing something* and being seen
*to do
something* are vastly different and after all it's *your* $100
million ...
and on the 100% accurate filters, see:
<http://mailman.anu.edu.au/pipermail/link/2009-December/085954.html>
It would be useful if we could articulate
our concerns about the impacts on us, as
users of linux, open source, system
administrator, etc.
If we can get a single issue that is
comprehensible by the wider public
then that could clinch it.
Marghanita
--
Marghanita da Cruz
http://ramin.com.au
Tel: 0414-869202
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