Radical Muslims Told to Leave Australia

Filed under:War on Terror — posted by 3wire on 10/12/2005 @ 8:54 pm

From Iran-Daily.com

SYDNEY, Australia, Aug. 24–Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told Wednesday to get out of Australia as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks, AFP reported.

A day after a group of mainstream Muslim leaders pledged loyalty to Australia at a special meeting with Prime Minister John Howard, he and his ministers made it clear that extremists would face a crackdown. Treasurer Peter Costello, seen as heir apparent to Howard, hinted that some radical clerics could be asked to leave the country if they did not accept that Australia was a secular state and its laws were made by parliament.

“If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you,“ he said on national television.
“I’d be saying to clerics who are teaching that there are two laws governing people in Australia, one the Australian law and another the Islamic law, that that is false.
“If you can’t agree with parliamentary law, independent courts, democracy, and would prefer Sharia law and have the opportunity to go to another country which practices it, perhaps, then, that’s a better option,“ Costello said.

Asked whether he meant radical clerics would be forced to leave, he said those with dual citizenship could possibly be asked move to the other country. Education Minister Brendan Nelson later told reporters that Muslims who did not want to accept local values should “clear off“.

“Basically, people who don’t want to be Australians, and they don’t want to live by Australian values and understand them, well then they can basically clear off,“ he said. Muslim schools will have to denounce terrorism as part of an effort to stamp out home-grown extremism under measures announced after Howard’s meeting with 14 Islamic leaders Tuesday.

The prime minister called the meeting in the wake of last month’s London bombings by British-born Muslims, amid fears that Australia could be the target of a similar attack by disaffected members of its small Muslim community.

Grokster Ruling Could Effect Apple

Filed under:Bill of Rights,Technology — posted by 3wire on @ 2:47 pm

Wired 13.09: A Rotten Ruling

“…The Grokster ruling in June was just the latest example. The Court decided that “one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright … is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.” Pundits bathed the Court in praise for its “sensible balance” between the demands of Hollywood and the pleas of technologists. The pundits are idiots. The Grokster case revealed the worst in Supreme Court ivory towerism. Astonishingly, hardly anyone noticed…

…Apple has sold about 15 million iPods, each capable of holding between 1,000 and 15,000 songs. Its iTunes music store has sold about 500 million songs for 99 cents each. That works out to only 30 songs or so per device. Does this surprise Apple? Did it really expect that people would buy a 60-gig iPod for $400 and then put $14,850 of music in it? No. Apple expected precisely what it advertised – that people would “Rip. Mix. Burn.” music from CDs to iTunes and, in turn, to their iPods. After all, as the ads say, “It’s your music.”

Well, is it? That’s still unclear. Congress passed a law to give consumers the right to copy music to analog devices – cassette tapes. But courts have held that that law does not extend to digital devices – iPods.And if it took a law (rather than the principle of fair use) to give you the right to make a mix tape, then, as many have argued, it takes a law to authorize transferring songs to an iPod…”

Lawrence Lessig’s Supreme Showdown

Filed under:Bill of Rights,Technology — posted by 3wire on @ 2:38 pm

Wired 10.10: Lawrence Lessig’s Supreme Showdown
Lawrence Lessig helped mount the case against Microsoft. He wrote the book on creative rights in the digital age. Now the cyberlaw star is about to tell the Supreme Court to smash apart the copyright machine.

Once a “right-wing lunatic,” he’s become a fire-breathing defender of Net values.