According to this aptly named blog, Wikileaks, the website that leaked the ACMA blacklist (notice the lack of links), is prepared to launch legal action against ACMA and Senator Conroy if they attempt to discover the source of the leak. According to Sunshine Press legal adviser Jay Lim, they are able to do so under Swedish law:
Under the Swedish Constitution’s Press Freedom Act, the right of a confidential press source to anonymity is protected, and criminal penalties apply to anyone acting to breach that right.
Wikileaks source documents are received in Sweden and published from Sweden so as to derive maximum benefit from this legal protection. Should the Senator or anyone else attempt to discover our source we will refer the matter to the Constitutional Police for prosecution, and, if necessary, ask that the Senator and anyone else involved be extradited to face justice for breaching fundamental rights.
The Wikileaks press release continues on to say:
Senator Conroy may wish to consider the position of the South African Competition Commission, which decided to cancel its own high profile leak investigation in January after being advised of the legal ramifications of interfering with Sunshine Press sources.
So, it appears that Conroy may manage to turn a matter of Australian domestic policy into a diplomatic incident.
Wikileaks have further advised, via Twitter, that
Wikileaks to release full March 18 Australian “ACMA” secret censorship list in 4-8 hours.
So, starting from now.
Update: According to Twitter, Wikileaks has now released a second, more recent version, of the blacklist.
A further update: Reports indicate that the leaked list has undergone a considerable cleanup:
Between the 11th and yesterday, the company did an enormous cleanup of the list. No doubt as a result of the list appearing on Wikileaks.
Where the list previously contained over 2000 URLs, and Conroy and the ACMA claimed “See! Our ‘current list’ never contained that many URLs”, this new list is about the size the ACMA claimed it to be. ACMA/Conroy in a media release stated that there were 1061 URLs for August 6, 2008. The 18 Mar 2009 list, having apparently being cleaned up, now contains 1172.
According to Somebody Think of the Children, links to The Peaceful Pill Handbook by Australian Dr. Phillip Nitschke, Redtube, AbbyWinters, IShotMyself, The Hun, and xTube are present on the list. I’m led to believe that most of these websites, including that for the Peacful Pill Handbook (whose publication on the Internet bypasses Australia censorship laws), operate within the law – particularly the Australian website AbbyWinters that ensures all of its models are over the age of 18 years and complies with (United States) Title 18 USC § 2257 record keeping requirements. Presumably AbbyWinters films/photographs on Australian soil and therefore complies with all local laws. Surely this should not be blocked!
[...] 16, 2009 by stormcentre In many ways, it was only a matter of time. Earlier in the year, I posted that the leaked ACMA blacklist allegedly contained a number of innocuous websites, including the [...]