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Down Under
Thought police called in to crush freedom of speech
2010-09-16
Someone dared to leak the budget out so the citizens and the media would know what the Government of South Australia is doing...

The response - call in Forensic investigators to find the leak and a crack team of lawyers so you can ruin their lives and sue them out of their homes once you find them.

And you thought Australia was a country that valued freedom, free speech? Ptah. We will be a third world country soon.

Thousands of public servants bear brunt of SA budget cuts

MARK COLVIN: If public servants in South Australia were disgruntled enough for one of them to leak a confidential budget report, now they're even angrier. Mike Rann's Government is axing nearly 4,000 public sector jobs as part of savings worth $2.5 billion. But the state budget delivered this afternoon falls short of the drastic cutbacks contained in the leaked report.

It's made the Treasurer Kevin Foley look good in comparison, fuelling suspicions about the leak's source.

JASON OM: The source of the leak is still unknown. Government lawyers and a forensic IT specialist have been brought in to track it down. Kevin Foley is convinced the trail leads back to the senior echelons of the public service. But the Public Sector Union thinks it's a government ruse.
Posted by:anon1

#6  Hey Aussies, we'll race ya to the bottom!
Posted by: bigjim-CA   2010-09-16 21:34  

#5  Silly Ptah. :-)
Posted by: trailing wife   2010-09-16 20:58  

#4  And you thought Australia was a country that valued freedom, free speech? Ptah. We will be a third world country soon.

Mmmm. Yes?
Posted by: Ptah   2010-09-16 20:19  

#3  anon1,
I catch your drift – and to a degree it’s legitimate. But should governments demand that some things remain classified? How about legitimate sources and methods? And when Wikileaks dumps a huge cache of raw data are we to expect that Julian Assange would have the background (or integrity) to filter out information that might reveal such matters? Hopefully, we can at least agree the answer to last question is – no.
Posted by: DepotGuy   2010-09-16 10:50  

#2  The leaks can certainly be traced, if the Rann Government had the brains to tweak the individual copies. That is a big "if", I admit.
As for your first point, the Budget's purpose is to tell the citizens what the Government is doing. That would have happened in 24 hours. There are good reasons for Budget secrecy, they contain important and time sensitive information.
And as for WikiLeaks, they reveal my country's allies to it's enemies in wartime. That makes them traitors. So screw Julian Assange with a pineapple, prickles first. And Philip Adams too.
Posted by: Grunter   2010-09-16 10:19  

#1  See everyone? Forensic investigators. Lawyers. This is Australia. And it is why I like Wikileaks.... Wikileaks means the leak cannot be traced.
Posted by: anon1   2010-09-16 09:15  

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