Lawfare Against Freedom of Expression

Using the law to shut down free speech to silence others is called lawfare.

Lefties & Muslims have skilfully exploited our liberal laws against us. Since when is enemy propaganda something that is funded by taxpayers? Since when does the taxpayer have to pick up the tab when wannabe artists who cannot make it on their own demand government support to express their freedom of expression?

Me thinks there are some fundamental misunderstandings here.  If you love free speech, support this cause. Thanks to BCF:

Media bosses fight for free speech –Andrew Bolt

Gillard’s Ostraya: new laws to jail editors and punish “bias”.

It has worried me that media chiefs have not fought hard against the new threats to free speech mounted by a punitive and reckless government. It seemed to me that some, at least, were cowed.

So this attack, apparently led by new News Ltd boss Kim Williams, comes as a great relief. It is just a terrible pity that Fairfax,perhaps feeling vulnerable and in need of mates, has not joined:

MEDIA executives have stepped up their fight against government plans for tighter limits on ownership and news coverage, urging Julia Gillard to dismiss the proposals as a threat to free speech…

The declaration is the industry’s strongest move so far against the Labor proposals, which include a “public interest test” that could give federal regulators powers to vet media proprietors or investors. But the move signalled differences within the sector after Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood declined to sign it, partly out of concern at its tone.

The seven executives to sign the letter were: Nine Entertainment’s David Gyngell; Seven West Media’s Don Voelte; AAP’s Bruce Davidson; APN News & Media’s Brett Chenoweth; News Limited’s Kim Williams; Foxtel’s Richard Freudenstein; and Sky News’s Angelos Frangopolous.,,,

Noting that the press had held governments to account for centuries, the executives implored the political leaders not to allow state intervention by creating a news media council proposed by former judge Ray Finkelstein…

“The risk is that such a body will be subject to political controls and influence is too great to contemplate in a democracy.”

While the Finkelstein report put forward the news media council as a form of self-regulation, the executives rejected this on the grounds that it would be backed by Canberra and that journalists could be fined or jailed in a process without appeal rights to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.

UPDATE
Once Labor and the Left fought like fury against largely imagined threats to free speech – and now they are the danger they warned of:

Australia is descending to the standards of countries like North Korea, Syria and Cuba by insisting on tough new sedition laws, Opposition Leader Kim Beazley says…

Labor, civil libertarians, media organisations and a Senate committee have called for the sedition section of the anti-terror bill to be scrapped.

Under it, anyone convicted of urging a group to use force or violence against another group could be jailed for up to seven years.

Once you couldn’t stop Age writers from imagining threats to free speech from wicked John Howard – even threats they admitted were purely hypothetical:

This afternoon a group of artists will descend on the Arts Centre, in St Kilda Road, and try their hardest to get arrested. Comic Rod Quantock will collect money for an unnamed terrorist organisation, cabaret artist Eddie Perfect will sing his ditty John Howard’s Bitches and satirist Max Gillies will assume a stiff marionette smirk and do his utmost to make Prime Minister John Howard look like a twat…

Under new sedition laws, seditious intent is defined as urging disaffection against the Constitution, the Government of the Commonwealth, or either house of Parliament. Yet, chances are, when Sedition!, the concert, is performed at the Arts Centre this afternoon, nothing will happen…

So why all this fuss about the sedition laws?… Surely, our Federal Government wouldn’t risk political suicide by arresting an artist? Would it?

“The risk is that the laws are drafted so widely and so generally that it’s very difficult to know how they will be applied in any particular circumstance,” says Spencer Zifcak, Professor of Law at La Trobe University, who will speak at today’s concert.

These Age writers now silent as two journalists lose their jobs for criticising Julia Gillard, whose government now even contemplates new laws to jail editors and punish “bias”.

Shameful.