Posts by Rich of Observationz
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Maybe rather than conspiring with National behind closed doors to pass amendments (Which ones - we aren't being told?) Labour could table the amendments, argue for them and decide whether the final bill deserves their support.
Their current actions just show that they have almost as much contempt for open parliamentary democracy as National.
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Hard News: A Work of Advocacy, in reply to Matthew Poole,
I guess they'll just have to beat people up outside the car then.
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Hard News: A Work of Advocacy, in reply to George Darroch,
Exactly George. It's all about narrative, and the narrative we get from the state media is around the brave police protecting us from evil anarchists, gang members, foreigners and other criminals. The prime-time cop shows might not actually be staged with actors, but they might as well be.
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Hard News: A Work of Advocacy, in reply to Russell Brown,
I prefer Reno 911.
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Shihad were forced to rename themselves Death to the Infidel Unbelievers, Die! Die! Die! after the attacks on NYC. (OK, they chose the much duller name Pacifier and still didn’t crack the US)
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I see it completely the other way round. The *worse* the law, the more it would discredit the corporate protection/free trade agenda. It would be quite likely that those being fined and having their Internet cut off would be Karori mums with offspring who downloaded a few torrents and left it seeding. That would radicalise people and move the voting mass to the left.
Even with a watered down measure, it's done that. A few hundred people who maybe last time voted National for the tax cuts are going to vote Green in November. So are disgruntled business people who've had their workplace in Christchurch confiscated by an unaccountable bureaucracy.
That won't be enough to make a difference of course. Most voters will just see it as a choice between two parties with similar agendas, one led by a charismatic John Key and the other, barely, by Phil Goff. They'll vote for the real National party, not the fake one.
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Labour's attitude to this bill illustrates what's wrong with their attitude to being in opposition. They almost appear to consider that National are pretty much on the right track, and if they can persuade them to make a few tweaks, they'll enact good policy.
The fact is that any changes made to this bill are symbolic. It's largely ineffective anyway, as previously discussed. Labour would have done better to propose amendments and vote against the bill when they weren't adopted.
With a few exceptions, I didn't see the National party supporting Labour policies when they were in opposition. They opposed, and that helped them create a political distinction.
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Why should academic qualifications correlate with a rational attitude to public policy? Edward Teller.
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to Chris Waugh,
how do they resolve the difference in geographical and virtual location?
The Crimes Act sez:
For the purpose of jurisdiction, where any act or omission forming part of any offence, or any event necessary to the completion of any offence, occurs in New Zealand, the offence shall be deemed to be committed in New Zealand, whether the person charged with the offence was in New Zealand or not at the time of the act, omission, or event
Whether a computer performing processing is an "act" or an "event" is I guess a subject for legal discussion.
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Hard News: The file-sharing bill, in reply to glennd,
I just configured a VPN on an Amazon AWS cloud instance (basically, a virtual server running in the US or elsewhere). It works, after a fashion. About 300kbps (on a 2M circuit from here), so probably needs a few tweaks.
You can watch Youtube on it though. Amazon have a free tier of service (10G of traffic a month) which would probably be workable. Needs a credit card - I'm going to see if a Pressy Card works.
I think it might be worth it to keep the government out of my internet.