https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-48537374
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/05/worl ... raids.html
https://newrepublic.com/article/154091/ ... -worldwide
well ladies and gentlemen, it looks like Australian democracy is dead. The government has decided that the news is not free to report on any information they find and exposing the government for wrong doing or crimes against humanity will earn you a trip to the gulag, I mean correction facilitity. Hopefully this doesn't happen here in America but you never can be too careful. Your thoughts on this incident? Opinions on freedom of the press in general?Americans with insomnia and a Twitter account may have seen a disturbing sight on Tuesday night. Half a world away, the Australian Federal Police, the country’s equivalent of the FBI, raided the offices of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the country’s equivalent of the BBC. John Lyons, the executive editor of ABC, published a blow-by-blow account on Twitter as AFP agents executed a search warrant against the media organization. It’s not unusual for journalists to face such treatment in more authoritarian countries, which makes it especially disturbing to see them subjected to it in a free nation like Australia. It shows that even liberal-democratic governments will use their power to suppress legitimate journalism, a lesson that America is learning in more subtle ways.
The ABC raid wasn’t an isolated incident. One day earlier, Australian police raided the home of News Corp Australia editor Annika Smethurst as part of a leak investigation. In an article published in the Sydney-based Daily Telegraph last year, Smethurst had reported that Australian ministers were crafting proposals to give an Australian spy agency sweeping new powers to surveil Australian citizens. Police spent hours at Smethurst’s home while searching her computer and cell phone. They had the support of Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, whose center-right Liberal Party won an upset election victory last month. “It never troubles me that our laws are being upheld,” he told reporters. In theory, Australia is a democratic country. It has free elections, an independent judiciary, and civilian control of the military. When it comes to press freedom, however, Australia is a dismal backwater. It’s a country where, for example, journalists face substantial fines for covering the verdict of a major criminal trial: More than 30 reporters and news outlets are facing contempt hearings for allegedly reporting on Cardinal George Pell’s conviction on child sexual-abuse charges last December. Pell was the highest-ranking Catholic prelate to ever face charges for abusing children. His trial was a matter of immense public interest. But the presiding judge ordered journalists not to report his conviction out of fear of tainting the jury pool for a future Pell trial, even though every Aussie with Internet access knew the outcome. The journalists stand accused of helping foreign news outlets publish the verdict.
Beware them that justify oppression with whataboutism.
