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Unbelievable and Embarrassing

[CYFSWATCH] exposes some fundamental issues that the department needs to address, and the responsible thing to do would be to take some action to improve their services, and the way they do them. Well they have taken action all right, not to try and improve themselves, but by devoting all their (tax-payer funded) resources to shutting down the blog instead! This would be fairly normal for North Korea, China or the US or somewhere, but for a New Zealand government to try and do this is unbelievable and embarrassing.

Read it again:

North Korea

Unbelievable

Embarrassing

Such is the (freely expressed) opinion of Kurt Hausler, reacting to the news that the New Zealand government has badgered Blogger into removing some posts from the CYFSWATCH site (which promptly reposted them).

Yet here at Pacific Empire, we find such blatant violations of free speech from the government of our wonderful country completely believable. Let’s review other recent violations of the freedom of expression:

As Bernard Darnton, freespeech.org.nz blogger and leader of the Libertarianz party says,

“Sedition law makes it illegal to bring into ‘hatred or contempt [...] the Government of New Zealand’. Yet with its lack of concern for freedom of expression, this government is worthy only of hatred and contempt.”

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Posted by Luke H on Tuesday, February 6th, 2007 at 1:36 am.

6 Responses to “Unbelievable and Embarrassing”

drawing a long bow on ‘government’ aren’t we?

two of the proposed bans are the suggestions of city councils, one from the Smokefree Coalition, and the potato chips ‘censoring’ the result of a decision of the Advertising Standards Authority (and the call for further action on this front coming from the Obesity Action Coalition).

And, other than Selwyn going to prison (and it’s not like he’s being censored now, even behind bars), none of those bans have actually been put into place, have they?

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Left by noizy on February 7th, 2007

I certainly am aiming at government Noizy!

Councils are local government and operate with the permission and backing of central government. Libertarianz believes that local government may sometimes be a larger threat to our freedom than central government because it is less accountable and the use of ‘bylaws’ give them considerable clout.

The Advertising Standards Authority is a government department.

Putting Selwyn in jail is a pretty good example of what current government officials will do when they feel threatened.

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Left by Luke on February 7th, 2007

well, yes, local councils are government, but bylaws come and go, and are hardly indicative of the general level of ‘censorship’ in a society. And, as pointed out, neither of the proposed bans mooted by either council has been put in place, or is likely to be.

And the Advertising Standards Authority is not a government department. It is a self-regulatory body made up of members of the advertising industry. http://www.asa.co.nz/asainc.htm

Putting Selwyn in jail is also a pretty good example of what happens when you commit benefit fraud.

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Left by noizy on February 8th, 2007

“well, yes, local councils are government, but bylaws come and go, and are hardly indicative of the general level of ‘censorship’ in a society.”

I’d say they were a damn good indicator. And though bylaws certainly come, they very rarely seem to “go”

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Left by kg on February 14th, 2007

[...]  Unbelievable and Embarrassing [CYFSWATCH] exposes some fundamental issues that the department needs to address, and the responsible thing to do would be to take some action to improve their services, and the way they do them. Well they have taken action all right, not to try and improve themselves, but by devoting all their (tax-payer funded) resources to shutting down the blog instead! This would be fairly normal for North Korea, China or the US or somewhere, but for a New Zealand government to try and do this is unbelievable and embarrassing. [...]

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Left by IT SURE IS Unbelievable and Embarrassing « WATCHING CYFSWATCH NEW ZEALAND on February 28th, 2007

Dear Pacific Empire bloggers, would you care to look at ‘Sarah’s story (name changed)on the above website. CYFS have managed to breach the Crimes Act as far as I can understand.You can contact me at the above e-mail address if you wish to discuss it. S.Libeau.

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Left by S.Libeau on September 3rd, 2007

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