Naturally the police are not best pleased with this website -- considering it to be "a cynical act of a opportunistic nature by someone looking for self promotion" to use the words of Superintendent Mark Lammas.

7amNews Sci/Tech

At present there's nothing the police can legally do about the existence of this site because it appears to break no laws. But stop and think for a moment -- would the police still be taking a "frustrated but powerless" stand if the new Crimes Amendment Bill (CAB) was in force? Or would they have sought a warrant and, using the powers granted by government, hacked the site so as to remove access to the offending information?

Of course they wouldn't (would they?) -- but I think it should make us all stop and think about just how much our right to free speech could be affected by the proposed new anti-(public)-hacking, pro-(police)-hacking bill.

What would happen if you, I or anyone else uncovered a tasty snippet of sensitive information about the government, SIS, GCSB or police and decided to publish it on our website? What about when I published a link to an overseas story carrying information about a the prosecution of a US millionaire on a drugs charges that was supressed by the courts?

Would, under this proposed new legislation, the relevant authority be granted permission to hack offending site and bring it down?

And what if the site were hosted off-shore where the CAB didn't apply? Wouldn't such an act be an illegal act in that country?

What I find even more interesting about the reports published by INL, The NZ Herald, TV3 and TVNZ on this story is that, as far as I can tell, none of them actually published the URL of the site.

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What's going on here?

After doing everything they could to stir up public concern over the shooting incident itself, why are they now playing unofficial public censor by not publishing the single most important piece of information in the whole story -- this URL.

Is this the low-standard to which our news reporting has fallen -- or has some "unofficial" pressure been brought to bear on the news media in this case?

Perhaps it really is time that we all stopped and had a very long think about exactly what the powers-that-be are planning to do to the Net in New Zealand.

<PARANOIA>
Could it be that those who wield power over us "mere citizens and taxpayers" are worried by the freedoms and control that the Net no gives us?

Perhaps it's time we considered very carefully which of the proposed legislative moves are really designed to protect us and which are designed solely to reign in our new-found Net-freedoms, so as to return control to the power-freaks.

For example -- should we be concerned that, having failed in attempts to introduce a universal ID card, government looks set instead to issue us all with a digital certificate on the premise that it will allow the creation of "e-government"? There are other, cheaper, more secure alternatives to using individual digital certificates -- but the government seems to be very carefully ignoring them -- one can only wonder why.
</PARANOIA>

If you really want to take a stand -- you can start by getting a secure webmail address such as those offered by ziplip.com -- effectively putting the power of privacy back in the hands of those who can't even spell PGP.

Why not send at least some of your email through a service like this -- after all, unless you're a drug trafficker or terrorist, the police, SIS and GCSB won't care at all -- will they?

Hang on a moment -- there are some black helicopters landing outside, I'll just go and see what they want.... :-)

As always, your feedback is welcomed.

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