[-empyre-] Re: empyre Digest, Vol 15, Issue 1

[severn@acay.com.au]

> Message: 1
> Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2006 08:02:46 +1100
> From: traceyb@byte-time.net
> Subject: [-empyre-] February 2006 on -empyre- soft-skinned space
> To: empyre@lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au
> Message-ID: <20060203080246.hjtv7qykmio08w4w@byte-time.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> February 2006 on -empyre- soft-skinned space
>
>
> Australia's rcently enacted Sedition Act undermines the right of free
> speech,
> which has "ever been justly
> deemed the only effectual guardian of any other right"  --James Madison
> (Fourth
> President of the United States and an author of the US Constitution)

Why are you quoting american constitutional issues in relation to a
discussion of Australian law?




>
> This month on -empyre- , the discussion will focus on the legal term
> sedition,
> and its political impact on global media and culture.

So we need a legal definition of "sedition" as defined in Australian law,
dont we?


> Our guests this month:  Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) members Lucia Sommer
> and
> Claire Pentecost (US), Nicholas Ruiz (US), and Ben Saul (AU)

see my earlier comments re guests.


>
> Please join our guests for conversation on 'sedition'  at
> http://www.subtle.net/empyre
>
>
> On an international scale,  the prosecution of Steve Kurtz from Critical
> Art
> Ensemble is a case in point. The ongoing court case with the US Justice
> Department has demonstrated the effect that the "war on terror "has had on
> limiting free speech, particularly in the arts.


Not relevent to this discussion. The incompetancies of the american legal
system have no bearing on issues in Australian art practices.

>
> Is this where we are headed? -empyre- in February asks the question. as
> artists
> and cultural producers are we losing our right to express ourselves and
> comment
> on the state of our society?

We apparently only have the right to be lectured on the american situation
by overseas "authorities" who have no expert knowledge of Australia.