Whaleoil starts Name Supression Defence Fund

Prominent blogger Cameron Slater, who blogs under the name Whale Oil (whaleoil.gotcha.co.nz), is calling for radical and rapid reform of the Name Suppression.

Mr Slater says “For too long criminal defence lawyers have been able use judicial process to get prominent clients name suppression for all sorts of crime. Just about anyone with a profile or a profession can get away with crimes like having 300,000 images of child pornography, committing assault or sexual misconduct if they have a competent lawyer. The law is an ass, and needs changing as it has been exposed as an ass”.

Sources around parliament suggest that though changes could be made rapidly, as they were with the provocation defense and case of the three hippies attacking and vandalising Waihopai, Minister of Justice Simon Power is unwilling to move on name suppression because “he doesn’t want to be seen to be reacting to a blogger”.

“I am fully confident that I will not be successfully prosecuted, because the law is poorly drafted and does not take into account new technology”, says Mr Slater. “In many cases I all I have done is linked to media sites that have details online before suppression orders were issued.”

The Whaleoil Defence Fund is online at whaleoil.gotcha.co.nz/2010/08/13/the-defence-fund/

My Kiwibank account number for donations is 38-9010-0764240-01

Any surplus funds raised will be donated equally between the RSA Welfare Fund and the Ex-Vietnam Services Association, in honour of those who fought for our rights to freedom of speech.

"Reasonable men adapt to the world around them; unreasonable men make the world adapt to them. The world is changed by unreasonable men."
Edwin Louis Cole

ENDS

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