Thursday, 19 May 2011

On June 13th, a fifty-four-year-old former government employee named Thomas Drake is scheduled to appear in a courtroom in Baltimore, where he will face some of the gravest charges that can be brought against an American citizen. A former senior executive at the National Security Agency, the government’s electronic-espionage service, he is accused, in essence, of being an enemy of the state. According to a ten-count indictment delivered against him in April, 2010, Drake violated the Espionage Act—the 1917 statute that was used to convict Aldrich Ames, the C.I.A. officer who, in the eighties and nineties, sold U.S. intelligence to the K.G.B., enabling the Kremlin to assassinate informants. In 2007, the indictment says, Drake willfully retained top-secret defense documents that he had sworn an oath to protect, sneaking them out of the intelligence agency’s headquarters, at Fort Meade, Maryland, and taking them home, for the purpose of “unauthorized disclosure.” The aim of this scheme, the indictment says, was to leak government secrets to an unnamed newspaper reporter, who is identifiable as Siobhan Gorman, of the Baltimore Sun. Gorman wrote a prize-winning series of articles for the Sun about financial waste, bureaucratic dysfunction, and dubious legal practices in N.S.A. counterterrorism programs. Drake is also charged with obstructing justice and lying to federal law-enforcement agents. If he is convicted on all counts, he could receive a prison term of thirty-five years.
The government argues that Drake recklessly endangered the lives of American servicemen. “This is not an issue of benign documents,” William M. Welch II, the senior litigation counsel who is prosecuting the case, argued at a hearing in March, 2010. The N.S.A., he went on, collects “intelligence for the soldier in the field. So when individuals go out and they harm that ability, our intelligence goes dark and our soldier in the field gets harmed.”
Top officials at the Justice Department describe such leak prosecutions as almost obligatory. Lanny Breuer, the Assistant Attorney General who supervises the department’s criminal division, told me, “You don’t get to break the law and disclose classified information just because you want to.” He added, “Politics should play no role in it whatsoever.”
When President Barack Obama took office, in 2009, he championed the cause of government transparency, and spoke admiringly of whistle-blowers, whom he described as “often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government.” But the Obama Administration has pursued leak prosecutions with a surprising relentlessness. Including the Drake case, it has been using the Espionage Act to press criminal charges in five alleged instances of national-security leaks—more such prosecutions than have occurred in all previous Administrations combined. The Drake case is one of two that Obama’s Justice Department has carried over from the Bush years...

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Jane Mayer @'The New Yorker'

If looks could kill...

HA!

Secret Service Blasts Fox News 'Blathering' In Rogue Tweet

Rare colour photographs of the Great Depression

A young boy in Cinncinnati, Ohio, in 1942 or 1943

Jack Whinery, homesteader, and his family in Pie Town, New Mexico, October 1940

Women workers employed as wipers in the roundhouse having lunch in their rest room at the Chicago and Northwest Railway Company in Clinton, Iowa, April 1943

Sex, Justice, and the American Way

Re-Touching McLuhan – The Medium Is The Massage (Marshall McLuhan Centennial Weekend, Berlin)

Friday May 27 – Sunday May 29, 2011

Conference | Screening | Installation | Performance
Embassy of Canada / Marshall McLuhan Salon
Leipziger Platz 17. 10117 Berlin
http://mcluhan2011.eu/berlin

transmediale in collaboration with the Embassy of Canada and Marshall McLuhan Salon invite you to a key event celebrating the 100th anniversary of famed Canadian media philosopher Herbert Marshall McLuhan's birth. Having coined expressions such as the global village and the medium is the message in the early days of TV and electronic culture, the Re-Touching McLuhan events explore the many interpretations of McLuhan's play on language and media that shape today's networked society.
The international conference Re-Touching McLuhan: The Medium is the Massage chaired by Dieter Daniels and moderated by Christopher Salter, sees leading international media and digital culture researchers Richard Cavell, Dieter Daniels, Martina Leeker, Claus Pias, Katja Kwastek, Liz Kotz, Janine Marchessault, Graham Larkin and Lorenz Engell explore McLuhan’s unique take on tactile and multi-sensory media expressed by the media philosopher's unintentionally published blurring of the words message and massage.
The opening of the Centennial Weekend features the worldwide (re-)launch of McLuhan's 1968 audio art classic The Medium is the Massage, digitally remastered for the first time, produced and presented by hip-hop musician and conceptual artist Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky.
Legendary McLuhanist Derrick de Kerckhove and Berlin-based McLuhan scholar Steffi Winkler elaborate on rare material from the McLuhan archives in the first session of the McLuminations screening and discussion series, produced by Baruch Gottlieb.
The Centennial Weekend will feature the European première of Through the Vanishing Point, a major new multi-media installation by leading Canadian digital artists David Rokeby and Lewis Kaye, as well as Play_McLuhan, an exhibition by media art students from the Hochschule Darmstadt under the direction of Sabine Breitsameter will be presented.
PROGRAMME HIGHLIGHTS
Friday May 27, 18.00
Re-Touching McLuhan Centennial Weekend
Opening and Reception featuring Richard Cavell and Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky
Saturday May 28, 10.00 – 18.00
Re-Touching McLuhan: The Medium is the Massage
Conference chaired by Dieter Daniels
Sunday May 29, 14.30
McLuminations #1
Screening & Discussion featuring Derrick de Kerckhove and Steffi Winkler
Sunday May 29, 17.00
Through The Vanishing Point
Installation by David Rokeby and Lewis Kaye - Vernissage

Full event schedule: http://mcluhan2011.eu/schedule

Download the flier : http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8734628/McLuhan%20Leporello.pdf

SPECIAL PRE-EVENTS
Friday, May 27, 12.00 – 17.00
Global Village: Calamity or Chance? 2nd German-Canadian Professionals Conference feat. keynotes by Brian Lee Crowley, Linus Neumann and Gundolf S. Freyermuth, moderated by Ariane de Hoog, Deutsche Welle.
http://gcp-conference.de/2011
Friday, May 27th, 17.00
PLAY_McLUHAN Exhibition presentation by Sabine Breitsameter and students of the Hochschule Darmstadt

FURTHER INFORMATION
All events are free and open to the public but spaces are limited so please RSVP at rsvp@mcluhan2011.eu, and arrive early to ensure enough time for embassy security.

All RE-TOUCHING McLUHAN conference presentations will also be streamed live at http://mcluhan2011.eu/berlin and there will be opportunities to participate in a moderated online forum. To register interest in our streaming programme, please contact Lalitha Rajan on lr@mcluhan2011.eu.
Address:
Embassy of Canada / Marshall McLuhan Salon
Leipziger Platz 17. 10117 Berlin
U-Bahn / S-Bahn Potsdamer Platz
(Please arrive early to alow time for Embassy Security)

http://mcluhan2011.eu
http://facebook.com/mcluhan2011eu
http://twitter.com/mcluhan2011eu
#mcluhan2011eu
Contact: Michelle O'Brien +49 30 24749 762

mo@mcluhan2011.eu

McLUHAN IN EUROPE 2011
The RE-TOUCHING McLUHAN Berlin Centennial Weekend is a project of the McLuhan in Europe 2011 network, initiated and directed by Stephen Kovats in collaboration with Michelle Kasprzak, celebrating the centenary of visionary Canadian media philosopher Herbert Marshall McLuhan, and his impact on European art and media culture.

The event is supported by the Government of Canada, the Deutsch-Kanadische Gesellschaft, RIM / Blackberry and serve-u.

Through The Vanishing Point was commissioned in 2010 by the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival (Bonnie Rubenstein, curator) and the Faculty of Information McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology (Dominique Scheffel-Dunand, director) University of Toronto, Canada.

(Thanx Lalitha)

IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn Resigns

Press Release No. 11/187
May 18, 2011
Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn today informed the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of his intention to resign as Managing Director with immediate effect. Mr. Strauss-Kahn made the following statement in a formal letter of resignation to the Board:
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Board:
It is with infinite sadness that I feel compelled today to present to the Executive Board my resignation from my post of Managing Director of the IMF.
I think at this time first of my wife—whom I love more than anything—of my children, of my family, of my friends.
I think also of my colleagues at the Fund; together we have accomplished such great things over the last three years and more.
To all, I want to say that I deny with the greatest possible firmness all of the allegations that have been made against me.
I want to protect this institution which I have served with honor and devotion, and especially—especially—I want to devote all my strength, all my time, and all my energy to proving my innocence.
Dominique Strauss-Kahn
The Fund will communicate in the near future on the Executive Board’s process of selecting a new Managing Director. Meanwhile, Mr. John Lipsky remains Acting Managing Director
@'International Motherfuckers'

Jewish Donors Warn Obama on Israel

Hungry Beast - Upload: Net Neutrality

US Catholic Church study blames 1960s permissiveness for rise in sexual abuse

HA!

Norman N.
@oldmansearchMy dad is 81 years old. I'm teaching him how to use the internet. I told him twitter was how to search things on Google. These tweets are what he's searching.

HERE

Scotland's hate crime figures rise to highest in five years

One of Scotland's most senior prosecutors has said there will be "zero tolerance" of religious and racist bigots after the latest hate crime figures showed a 10% increase in charges for sectarianism.
Frank Mulholland QC, the solicitor general, said religious bigotry was being tackled by an "extremely robust" prosecution policy after the number of cases reported to prosecutors increased to nearly 700 last year, the highest level in five years.
The latest statistics, which also showed that charges of racism reported to prosecutors fell by 3.6% to 4,165, follows the dramatic escalation in sectarian attacks and disputes in recent months centred on Glasgow's Celtic and Rangers football clubs.
Two men were arrested last week for explosives offences after allegedly being involved in a parcel bombing campaign against Celtic manager Neil Lennon and other prominent Catholics, including Lennon's lawyer, and an Irish republican group.
Rangers and Celtic fans are being prosecuted for alleged bigotry and racist offences on the internet and at football matches.
Earlier this week it emerged that the former Rangers' director and prominent lawyer Donald Findlay QC was sent a knife in the post.
Alex Salmond, speaking in the Scottish parliament as he was confirmed as first minister of Scotland, said the country should be proud of its reputation for hospitality and religious and racial tolerance, not for bigotry.
Clearly shaken by the damage caused to his party's message that Scotland is inclusive and multi-ethnic, he told the parliament that being Scottish included those Catholics who fled famines in Ireland.
"Modern Scotland is also built on equality. We will not tolerate sectarianism as a parasite in our national game of football or anywhere else in this society," he said.
Salmond's government has been accused of neglecting anti-sectarianism. Until a series of violent on- and off-the-field disputes involving Celtic and Rangers earlier this year, anti-bigotry charities faced closure due to funding cuts.
The first minister has since promised a renewed crackdown on sectarianism, including tougher legal sanctions and policing of online bigotry.
The last five years of figures show no decline in sectarianism offences; the highest annual number of prosecutions hit 704 in 2005/06, dropping slightly to 699 in 2006/07.
The figures also included the first full year for reporting of a new offence of homophobic and anti-disabled bigotry: there were 448 charges reported aggravated by sexual orientation, 50 charges aggravated by attacks on a person's disability, and 14 with an aggravation of transgender identity.
Mulholland said that last year 94% of sectarian offences detected by police were prosecuted.
"I hope this sends a strong message to anybody who still feels that such behaviour is acceptable – there is no place for them in a modern Scotland," he said. "They can expect to be met with a zero-tolerance prosecution policy."
The Crown Office, Scotland's prosecution agency, is carrying out a study into the religious content of bigotry offences after the Catholic church insisted that Catholics were bearing the brunt of sectarianism in Scotland.
The last study, in 2006, found two-thirds of reported offences were anti-Catholic in nature and a third were football related.
The church said those findings showed that, based on overall population, Catholics were six times more likely than Protestants to be a victim of bigotry.
That figure is contested by Professor Steve Bruce, an expert on loyalism and sectarianism at Aberdeen University.
He argues the figures are much less clear since there was no evidence about the identity of the victims, and many offences took place in areas with large Catholic populations.
Severin Carrell @'The Guardian'

This BBC Panorama programme aired in Feb 2005 was actually made by my brother-in-law over in Glasgow and is just frightening to read. Nothing's changed for the better obviously...
Scotland's Secret Shame

Denmark to lay claim to North Pole

The Kingdom of Denmark is preparing to claim ownership of the North Pole, according to a Danish media report.

In a document leaked to the Danish newspaper Information, Denmark will ask the United Nations to recognize the North Pole as a geologic extension of Greenland, the vast Arctic island that is a Danish territory. Danish Foreign Minister Lene Espersen confirmed the annexation attempt, Information reported.
According to The Copenhagen Post, "The kingdom is expected to make a demand for the continental shelf in five areas around the Faroe Islands and Greenland, including the North Pole itself."
Denmark has set its sights on the geographic North Pole, a fixed point in the Arctic Ocean at 90 degrees north latitude and 0 degrees longitude. The magnetic north pole, the one your Cub Scout compass points to, is near there but moves around all the time as Earth's magnetic field shifts, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
Five countries - Canada, Denmark (via Greenland), Norway, Russia and the United States (via Alaska) - have coasts on the Arctic Ocean, but none has ever claimed ownership of the pole. Working under a United Nations mandate, high-ranking diplomats have met several times to work out a plan for mutually acceptable boundaries.
"We are in the middle of an important and civilized process of how to usefully manage the last area in the world not owned by anyone," Greenland President Kuupik Kleist told Information. "... If we did not, we would leave it to those who have already filed claims, or who will do it. It is therefore a must that Denmark is preparing claims."
It's unclear how the claim will go over with the other Arctic countries, but initial reactions have been mild.
Despite longstanding Russian interest in the region, at least one Russian media outlet was sanguine about Denmark's approach.
"This fits in well into the contemporary international law regime of the Arctic," Vassily Gutsulyak, an expert with the Institute of State and Law in the Russian Academy of Sciences, said in an interview with The Voice of Russia.
Although the Danish document downplays the economic potential of its proposed claim, the Voice of Russia said the region holds vast reserves of gas and oil, as well as such minerals as coal, gold, copper, nickel, tin and platinum. Climate change also promises to open useful shipping routes across the Arctic, it said.
A Canadian expert greeted the news with enthusiasm.
"This is a positive development because Denmark ... is working in a framework of international law," University of British Columbia (Canada) professor Michael Byers told Postmedia News. "It is exactly how these matters are supposed to be resolved."
However, not all Canadians are willing to let the pole go without a fight. A tongue-in-cheek editorial on the online forum The Mark said:
"We'll be damned if we let those no-good, well-dressed, soft-spoken, architecturally inclined, generally peaceable Danes get away with it."
@'CNN'

HA!

ballardian Simon Sellars

RT @TheProfRog: Prog rock tweets: limited to 140 000 characters

Rockers Style

Via

Kenneth Clarke forced to apologise for rape comments

Cartoon by the mighty Steve Bell

‘Cynics might call the perp walk the crime reporter’s red carpet’: How we justify images of accused IMF chief in handcuffs

Galaxie Junction

Anger, Politics and the Wisdom of Uncertainty

We will be moving house sometime in the near future...

http://www.exileonmoanstreet.com/

On the Passage of a few People through a Rather Brief Moment in Time: The Situationist International 1956-1972

A video documentary combining exhibition footage of the Situationist International exhibitions with film footage of the 1968 Paris student uprising, and graffiti and slogans based on the ideas of Guy Debord. Also includes commentary by leading art critics Greil Marcus, Thomas Levine, and artists Malcolm Mac Laren and Jamie Reid. Director and producer - Branka Bogdanov.
This really should have been SO much better...I still do have the Boston @ London expo catalogues though

Feel the rainbow Newt!

Kuwaiti MPs fight in parliament over Guantanamo detainees

A Call for Revolution? Probably a Typo

King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia

Human rights issues in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia Defies Mideast Upheaval

Adrian Sherwood interviewed @DJhistory

Adrian Sherwood’s music, although nominally regarded as dub reggae – or sacrilege, if you’re a purist – crosses so many boundaries it’s little wonder that he’s regarded as a primary influence on industrial music. These days, the echoes between his best work in the 1980s and drum and bass and, especially, dubstep are extant. This interview coincides with a wide-ranging and long-overdue reissue programme for the On-U-Sound catalogue. He’s still making music, still following his own path, still uniquely British. He’s also a disillusioned West Ham United fan. We love him.

How did you get into music?
The first record I heard that I liked was ‘Walking To New Orleans’ by Fats Domino when I was about seven. The school I went to in High Wycombe had lots of Pakistani, Indian and West Indian kids and I used to hang around my friend Gilbert Barker’s house. He was Vincentian and his sister Jean used to play all the 7-inches, reggae and calypso; but mainly reggae. I got into it instantly. But I was into funk and we used to go over to Dunstable, to the California Ballrooms and underneath the Ballroom there was the Devil’s Den which is where they used to have all the funk. We used to stay at my mate’s family, the Redison family, in Luton and there it was pure reggae. We were waking up to John Holt’s A Thousand Volts Of Holt playing!
So you must have been into those crossover records like ‘Monkey Spanner’ and ‘Double Barrel’.
Well what happened, I was DJing at school for fun at lunchtimes in the science lab to raise money for the old people’s Christmas fund. It was really crap but good fun. Eventually we went down to the Newlands Club and the DJs were Judge Kilroy and Chalky White. My friend, Joe Farquharson, ran the Newlands. He was Jamaican and he was like a father figure to me. Judge Kilroy and Chalky White were playing slamming dance music of the time, stuff from the States, interspersed with ska, rocksteady, bluebeat and modern reggae (but not much). The main emphasis was on the black American stuff. They’d play Adriano Celentano’s ‘International Language Of Love’, and then it would be into ‘Lottery Spin’ by Zap Pow, then loads of funk; two or three ska tunes you could shuffle to, maybe a few tunes for a smooch and then back on to the funk. That’s how it used to run in them days. They were good DJs and eventually we got to DJ there in the afternoons and then in the evenings and that’s how I started with my love for the music.
Were you collecting then, too?
I used to go from High Wycombe very early on a Saturday and get to Record Corner in Bedford Hill in Balham for 9.30am. This is from 15 or 16 years old. They used to import soul and they were more of a soul shop than reggae but I bought reggae there too. I remember buying ‘Rastaman Chant’ by the Wailers on a black Tuff Gong import. After Record Corner I’d go to Shepherd’s Bush market to Caesar’s and I’d end up in Harlesden, where I got free copies off the Palmers – the guys that ran Pama – because Joe had previously worked for them at Soundville. Then I’d go from there back to High Wycombe and drop a few of the new tunes that afternoon at Newlands. I’d be back there by 1.30pm.
How did you get involved in the industry?
Through the Newlands. That club was brilliant. In the afternoons we used to have Emperor Rosko, Johnnie Walker, Dave Lee Travis, Noel Edmonds, Judge Dread, all doing PAs in the afternoon at our thing for the kids. I started doing that in 1971 when I was 13 or 14. The opening thing Joe put on there was his mate Johnny Nash. There was a roadblock, about 2000 people. The club could only hold about 600 legally but they managed to get a 1000 in. It was only a little place. I had some mad nights down there. In 1975 or ’76 we had a really hot summer. It was so hot no one wanted to go in the club. So that was the end of the Newlands...

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@'DJhistory'

Al Jazeera, what is it up to?

Netanyahu is preparing for battle

Stephen Lawrence murder suspects to stand trial

Two men are to stand trial accused of being part of a racist white gang that "targeted and killed" the black teenager Stephen Lawrence because of the colour of his skin, the appeal court has said.
The killing in 1993 in Eltham, south-east London, is one of the most high-profile unsolved murders in Britain.
The men charged are David Norris, who has never before been charged over the stabbing, and Gary Dobson, who stood trial previously and was found not guilty.
Dobson was acquitted of killing Lawrence, 18, after a private murder prosecution brought in 1996 by the parents of the talented youngster who dreamed of being an architect.
A new law established in 2003 abolished the longstanding ban on people being retried for the same crime after being found not guilty, if "compelling" new evidence came to light.
The appeal court agreed on Wednesday that new evidence was compelling enough to allow Dobson's acquittal to be quashed.
In effect, the appeal court, in a ruling by the lord chief justice of England and Wales, wiped the legal slate clean. This means Dobson and Norris will stand trial for the murder of Lawrence, in November at the Old Bailey in central London.
The Crown Prosecution Service and police charged Dobson and Norris in September 2010, but some of the toughest reporting restrictions on the media meant the dramatic development in the long-running case could not be reported until now.
In March, a hearing was held at the appeal court to decide if the acquittal of Dobson could be set aside, watched by Lawrence's parents, Doreen and Neville. The media was also banned from reporting that hearing.
The judgment says the murder of Stephen Lawrence was a "calamitous crime" and declares he was "a young black man of great promise, targeted and killed by a group of white youths just because of the colour of his skin".
The new evidence that convinced the appeal court to quash Dobson's acquittal is based on forensics.
The media is restricted in its reporting to Wednesday's judgment from the court of appeal.
According to a summary of its judgment: "The present application depends on the reliability of new scientific evidence which by reference to the grey bomber jacket (LH/5) and the multi-coloured cardigan (ASR/2) closely links Dobson with the fatal attack on Stephen Lawrence.
"It does not and could not demonstrate that Dobson wielded the knife which caused the fatal wound, but given the circumstances of the attack on Stephen Lawrence – that is, a group of youths in a violent enterprise converging on a young man, and attacking him as a group – it would be open to a jury to conclude that any one of those who participated in the attack was party to the killing and guilty of murder, or alternatively manslaughter (a verdict which would, if there had been sufficient evidence, also have been available at the first trial).
"If reliable, the new scientific evidence would place Dobson in very close proximity indeed to Stephen Lawrence at the moment of and in the immediate aftermath of the attack; proximity, moreover, for which no innocent explanation can be discerned."
Counsel for Dobson, Timothy Roberts QC, argued the new forensics were unreliable because they "are likely to be the product of contamination over the years, that is, by contact with Stephen Lawrence's blood and his clothing". This was "the result of outdated or incompetent storage or packaging or transporting arrangements".
Furthermore, Roberts said Dobson's acquittal should stand because "the huge wave of constant publicity over the years, directly identifying some of those suspected of the murder with involvement in the crime" meant there could not be a fair trial.
In the judgment by the lord chief justice, the appeal court decided there was enough new evidence for Dobson to stand trial for Lawrence's murder for a second time: "There is sufficient reliable and substantial new evidence to justify the quashing of the acquittal and to order a new trial.
"This decision means – and we emphasise that it means no more than that – the question whether Dobson had any criminal involvement in Stephen Lawrence's death must be considered afresh by a new jury, which will examine the evidence and decide whether the allegation against him is proved. The presumption of innocence continues to apply."
The judgment states that its ruling does not mean that Dobson is guilty and stresses that the court of appeal "is certainly not required to usurp the function of the jury, or … indicate to the jury what the verdict should be".
Lawrence was murdered just after 10.35 pm on 22 April 1993. He was waiting at a bus stop in south-east London with a friend, Duwayne Brooks.
According to the judgment: "As they waited peacefully for the bus, a group of white youths crossed the road towards them. One of the youths used abusive racist language. This was followed by a sudden and immediate attack, as the group converged on or charged at them.
"Duwayne Brooks managed to make his escape, but Stephen Lawrence was felled.
"He was stabbed twice to the upper torso … Major blood vessels were severed. The injuries were fatal.
"Mortally wounded, Stephen Lawrence managed to get to his feet. He ran after Duwayne Brooks, but after a little while, he collapsed on the pavement. He died shortly afterwards in hospital."
Vikram Dodd @'The Guardian'

Justin Vernon on 'Bon Iver, Bon Iver' (Interview w/ Triple J's Zan Rowe)

Justin Vernon & Zan Rowe

Via

Kanye West & Justin Vernon - Lost In The World (Live @ Coachella 2011)

The Fight Goes On

Bill Callahan - Riding For The Feeling

Something rotten in the state of Arizona

Australian journalist arrested for technology conference report

An Australian journalist was arrested after writing an article about vulnerabilities of Facebook's privacy controls.
Ben Grubb, deputy technology editor of the Sydney Morning Herald was later released without charge. But police retained his iPad.
His article, Security experts go to war: wife targeted, was a report from an IT security conference at a Queensland resort.
It was addressed by a security expert, Christian Heinrich, who demonstrated how he had gained access to a woman's privacy-protected Facebook photos.
He was demonstrating that people who use social networking sites should not trust their privacy settings.
When police arrested Grubb they told him they were acting on a complaint from a person whose Facebook photo had been accessed without a password.
Darren Burden, an executive with the paper's publisher, Fairfax, said: "Ben was reporting on something actually said and presented at that conference. It's fundamental for journalists to be able to report these events."
Though Queensland police denied arresting Grubb, he recorded his conversation with the detective who questioned him - it's hilarious, by the way, a genuine Plod classic - he was formally arrested in order for police to confiscate his iPad.
Grubb refused to hand it over voluntarily because he explained it was a tool of his trade.
A police spokeswoman later said it would "be returned as soon as possible."
Source: Sydney Morning Herald
Roy Greenslade @'The Guardian'

Even more 'ploddier' is the fact that the Queensland Police tweeted that Ben had not been arrested after he tweeted that he had...