Featured, Opinion - Thursday, July 28, 2011 13:31 - 53 Comments

Orgies of self-interest leave no room for sober justice

opinion As the saga surrounding the alleged hacker known as ‘Evil’ has gathered steam over the past 24 hours, I have become increasingly embarassed for Australia.

Embarassed for the ineptness and over the top vaudeville style of our police when tracking even mid-level Internet rogues. Embarassed at the appalling lack of technical understanding which our politicians have displayed when it comes to discussing cyber-crime, and the speed at which corporate interests have jumped on the bandwagon. And, of course, embarassed about how my colleagues in the media have reported events.

But most of all, I have become increasingly embarassed at the incredible callousness with which our society has seized upon an unproven crime to further its own diverse naked self-interest, with scant regard for apparent defunct concepts such as ‘truth’, ‘justice’ and that archaic concept which was once labelled ‘the presumption of innocence’.

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