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Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.

offsite link Army Sergeant Travis Decker Murdered His Three Children After Being Denied Mental Health Care at JBL... Sat Jun 07, 2025 04:52 | JBLM Whistleblowers
A corrupt military police force and incompetent Commander who denied emergency mental health care and crisis counseling to an American service member resulted in the murder of the sergeant's three young daughters

offsite link Gaza doctor grieves her nine children killed in Israeli strike Sun May 25, 2025 20:00 | imc
Israeli regime continues it's slaughter
'The children were completely charred'

Paediatrician Alaa al-Najjar was treating victims of Israeli attacks when her children were killed by an Israeli strike on their home

offsite link British doctors working in Gaza describe territory as a ?slaughterhouse? Sat May 24, 2025 00:23 | imc
There?s no food getting in so people are starving,? surgeon Tom Potokar says
British doctors working in Gaza have described the territory as a ?slaughterhouse,? where the patients they are treating are severely malnourished.

Plastic surgeons and orthopedic specialists from the UK are based at the Amal and Nasser hospitals in Khan Younis in the south of the territory.

Dr. Tom Potokar, a plastic surgeon specializing in burn injuries, has worked in Gaza 16 times but said this mission had revealed a level of destruction far greater than his last visit in 2023,

offsite link It is time to talk about the Out of Control Immigration. Mon Mar 31, 2025 22:12 | imc
For the last few years since the CV19 scamdemic undocumented immigration into Ireland has surged. No one is allowed discuss it because they do not want any rational debate about it. If you do you are labelled an extremist. However this out of control immigration is fully facilitated by the Irish government and the EU and the shady figure behind the Neo Con movement pushing for endless war, wokeism and globalist agenda.

offsite link [Dublin] National Demonstration for Palestine: End Israeli Apartheid & Genocide Thu Mar 06, 2025 22:35 | ipsc
Sat, 22 March 2025, 13:00 Assemble at the Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square, Dublin 1
The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, supported by over 150 Irish civil society organisations, has called another National Demonstration for Palestine on Saturday 22nd March.

The march will begin at the Garden of Remembrance at 1pm and finish outside the D?il on Molesworth Street/Kildare Street to bring our demands to the Irish government?s doorstep.

The Saker >>

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link Rotherham Police Sexually Abused Us Too, Say Five Grooming Victims Wed Jul 30, 2025 15:00 | Richard Eldred
Just when you think the rape gang scandal can't get worse, five Rotherham victims say police officers abused them too ? claims currently being investigated by South Yorkshire Police itself, sparking fears of a whitewash.
The post Rotherham Police Sexually Abused Us Too, Say Five Grooming Victims appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link The Online Safety Act is a Censor?s Charter Wed Jul 30, 2025 13:00 | Andrew Doyle
We were assured by Conservative and Labour politicians that the Online Safety Act was designed to protect children. In the last few days, its real, more sinister purpose has become, writes Andrew Doyle.
The post The Online Safety Act is a Censor?s Charter appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Political Censors Have Cynically Hijacked Vital Child Protections Wed Jul 30, 2025 11:00 | Toby Young
Andrew Orlinski in the Telegraph says the Online Safety Act has less to do with protecting children than suppressing populist political sentiment.
The post Political Censors Have Cynically Hijacked Vital Child Protections appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Edinburgh University?s Decolonisation Report is Pure Left-Wing Politics Wed Jul 30, 2025 09:00 | James Alexander
Edinburgh University's 'Decolonised Transformations: Confronting the University of Edinburgh?s History and Legacies of Enslavement and Colonialism,' is Left-wing politics of the worst kind, says Professor James Alexander.
The post Edinburgh University’s Decolonisation Report is Pure Left-Wing Politics appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Trump Was Right to Skewer Starmer Over Britain?s ?Windmills Scam? Wed Jul 30, 2025 07:00 | Ben Pile
Trump was right to skewer Starmer over Britain's "windmills scam" when he met him in Scotland this week, says Ben Pile. It was a cringefest worthy of The Office, but Starmer can't afford to ignore the President?s warning.
The post Trump Was Right to Skewer Starmer Over Britain’s “Windmills Scam” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Pirate Party Speaks Out Against Government Filtering Plans

category national | sci-tech | press release author Tuesday April 20, 2010 11:08author by Pirate Party Ireland - Pirate Party Ireland Report this post to the editors

The Pirate Party of Ireland was disheartened to learn that the government is currently in the planning stages of establishing arbitrary internet censorship. What form this censorship will take when it is finally rolled out is quite opaque, but it would most certainly result in the blocking of many websites. Such a system will be ineffective in its goals, produce perverse effects, impose substantial costs, and reduce freedom of speech.

Recently our neighbours in the UK have passed the hugely controversial Digital Economy Act which bears striking similarities to the apparent train of thought of our own government. The DE Act drew fire from every side. Of the Act, Andrew Heaney, senior executive of TalkTalk - one of the UK's largest ISPs - said ""This is the kind of snooping you'd expect in China, not a modern western democracy. It raises huge questions over privacy invasion and freedom of expression."" This Act was eventually forced through during their "wash up" period. Whether our own government is to push through similar plans is yet to be seen, but the secrecy surrounding the government's talks on this issue to date, and what has emerged in the FOI documents reported on by the Irish Times and other news outlets, has not been encouraging.

As noted by Paul Durrant of the Internet Service Providers' Association of Ireland (ISPAI), such censorship regimes impose prohibitive costs to be levied upon the countries ISPs as they try to cope with having to follow the letter of the law. In the current economic climate, the measures discussed here, along with other financial burdens that may be put on data providers by Noel Dempsey's similarly controversial proposed Retention of Data Bill, will not bode well for the viability of such enterprise.

Other costs of such a surveillance and censorship regime include significant lowering of both the ability to do business online privately, and also in internet speeds resulting in higher data transfer costs for Irish enterprises. Electronic Frontier Australia (EFA) Chair, Dale Clapperton, said, of Australia's filtering systems, that ""Leaving aside the serious privacy and free speech implications of mandatory ISP-based Internet filtering, the government's own trial shows that ISP-based filtering can cause serious performance degradation and is not accurate enough to be forced upon people who don't want to use them. On average, these filters wrongly blocked access to 4% of the websites tested"".

Another major issue is that the offenders being targeted by such measures are almost always far more informed and well equipped to bypass such blocking measures - leaving law-abiding consumers as majority affected by the censorship. If enforced, users will be disconnected due to unsubstantiated accusations and without due process, for actions they may not have committed. Access to the internet has become a basic utility, without which the capacity for participation in our economy and society becomes greatly reduced. The disproportionate response of disconnection would constitute a policy of systematic disenfranchisement of citizens.

Some may be of the opinion that such occurrences will not come to pass, but last Fridays High Court decision is further evidence of the trend towards arbitrary censorship and control. Bowing to pressure from the Irish Recorded Music Industry (IRMA) to have internet users suspected of copyright infringement cut off completely from all internet usage by their ISP, Mr Justice Charleton ruled on Friday that Eircom should begin with this thoroughly disproportionate measure - without any consideration for the fact that many people today depend on the internet daily for their work and livelihood.

With all due respect, Justice Charleton erred both factually and in interpretation when he quoted Colmcille as having said '""le gach bó a buinín agus le gach leabhar a chóip (to each cow its calf and to every book its copy)"". This aphorism, ironically enough, was made in a judgement against Colmcille, who had copied, illicitly and in secret, Finians Book of Psalms. The freedom to access and transmit information is at the heart of open societies, and always has been, whereas its restriction has been the preserve of illiberal regimes. Ireland must decide which of these paths we wish to follow.

We the members of the Pirate Party will vigorously oppose the implementation of any form of arbitrary internet censorship and would ask that others would join us in opposing such measures.

----------------------------------------------------------

ABOUT THE PIRATE PARTY:
The first Pirate Party (Piratpartiet) was formed in Sweden in 2006,and has inspired the growth of Pirate Parties all over Europe and
then the rest of the world. The international Pirate Party movement made great advances in 2009 when the Swedish Piratpartiet gained
a seat in the European Parliament with a second seat on the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon. The Irish Pirate Party is aiming to be registered to contest the next General Election.

For more information check out our website at http://pirateparty.ie or email info@piratepartyireland.com

Related Link: http://pirateparty.ie/
author by blackbeardpublication date Tue Apr 20, 2010 17:26author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Dempsey would have cctv in our toilets if he could!! They keep all our emails for at least 3 years and any pc plod with a grudge can access them without your knowledge. They keep all your text messages too and they can also be accessed similarly easily. How this is all supposed to be related to fighting crime I can't see because it looks much the same to me. The only thing that seemed to make an impact on crime profits was the head shops. And they are now closing those. Hmmm.... ( brown envelopes anyone? )

Funny the double standard when you try to get information about what our politicians or bankers are up to. Not much surveillance going on there!! And the costs of FOI requests are ridiculous. And half the interesting stuff is not even covered. Bertie Ahearn had a lot to say about privacy when the tribunal asked him about his personal affairs though.

One rule for them, another for the serfs. Bah!

 
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