13 Oct 2009 | Uncategorized
For Silicon Valley’s high-tech companies, finding the Next Big Thing is what matters most. When a Google executive came to London on 12 October, he delivered a speech at an apt venue: Policy Exchange, the favourite think thank of the party tipped to form Britain’s next government.
David Drummond, the 46-year-old American lawyer who serves as Google’s chief legal advisor, spoke about the ways in which Google has tried to ensure unfettered internet access by users worldwide.
But Google has also complied with requests from China and other countries to block websites, a practice seemingly at odds with its corporate motto, “Do no harm.” Drummond argued that criticism of Google’s policy in these areas has overlooked the larger global issue: increasingly repressive internet legislation in many of the 150 countries where the company operates.
(more…)
13 Oct 2009 | Index Index, minipost, News and features, United Kingdom
The UK’s Asylum and Immigration Tribunal has ruled that then-Home Secretary Jacqui Smith was wrong to ban controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders entry to the United Kingdom.
Read more here
13 Oct 2009 | News and features, United Kingdom
Index on Censorship has learned that law firm Carter-Ruck has backed down in an attempt to stop media from reporting on a parliamentary question concerning a previous injunction. The gag had caused outrage on the Internet, with many Twitter users defying the injunction to post information on the case.
Update: Read the letter Index on Censorship sent to the courts in support of the Guardian here
13 Oct 2009 | Uncategorized
In what seems to have already turned into one of the greatest own goals in the history of the legal profession, solicitors Carter-Ruck won an injunction yesterday, forbidding the reporting of a parliamentary question put by an MP, regarding another injunction.
It cannot be overstated how utterly contrary to democracy this development is. Representative democracy depends on the concept that parliamentarians can speak without fear, and the public can listen to and read what they say, whether sitting in the gallery or through print, broadcast and online media. Democracy, perhaps even more so than justice, must not just be practised: it must be seen to be practised.
That a judge should glibly overturn this concept, even temporarily, puts us truly in GUBU territory. This is, to quote the late Conor Cruise O’Brien, grotesque, unbelievable, bizarre and unprecedented.
The Guardian newspaper goes to court today in an effort to overturn this travesty. Anyone who believes in a free press, free expression and democracy must support their efforts.
Update: it didn’t go to court
