The Zero Room

I can hardly hear myself think for the sound of champagne corks popping along the Coffs Coast. It's fitting that such a diligent recorder of "prestigious" industry awards should finally receive one of their own. The Advocate's strong editorial integration with its advertisers has long been a distinguishing feature of this publication, and it's gratifying that it finally feels able to indulge in brazen celebration, now that editorial independence has been shot, stuffed, and mounted in the trophy cabinet. I look forward to many more years of the fruits of advertising and editorial working closely together, if only because "no junk mail" signs appear not to apply in this instance.

I'm inclined to agree that most modern racism isn't of the good old fashioned eugenicist kind directed at inferior breeds, but uses race as a signifier of class. That said, for a white person to appear to the police as lower class means wearing a hoodie and a belligerant attitude. For a black person to appear to the police as anything but lower class, they have to be wearing a bow tie. And maybe a monocle. While driving a BMW. With two or three white friends in the car. I suspect this rule is universal, despite local variations in who qualifies as "white" or "black".

But the problem with saying "hang on - this is about race" is that you're inviting hollow solutions. "Let's get some more black people in the 1%, and OMG! Did you notice who's the president? We're already making progress!"

In a philosophy unit I'm currently studying we've been looking at the various types of fallacious arguments, which made this article leap out at me. The author normally appears as reasonable as the next commentator at the Conversation, so I'm at a loss to explain why he's willing to stand behind such a hatchet job. He appears to just really have it in for Julian Assange, and doesn't care who knows it. As an academic exercise I attempted to spot all the fallacies in this piece, though I'm sure I've missed a few. Feel free to try for yourself. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, but the older I get, the more I look like Leo McKern, which should count for something.)

I'll give him a pass on the introductory paragraph, on the assumption that any assertions here are meant to be supported elsewhere in the article, which takes us to…

Para. 2 "charismatic individuals do not get to take the law into their own hands."

Charismatic? If you're going to start off ad hominem, at least be plausible about it. Charisma is hardly the word that comes to mind in the case of Assange. If anything he's positively soporific. I've not met him in person; at least I assume not. For a time in the pre-Wikileaks age I occasionally skirted round Australian techno-anarchist circles, so I may have done, but if so he left no lasting impression - which would itself be consistent with his level of charisma in any public interviews or addresses I've seen.

Para. 4 "The Australians who are on trial remain innocent until proven guilty. So do any people overseas."

Red herring, unless the author is arguing that the presumption of innocence requires the routine suppresion of the names of the defendants in all, or even just most, legal cases.

Para. 5 "From a justice perspective any claims in cyberspace have no value. We do not engage in trial by journalists, Twitter or WikiLeaks."

"Cyberspace" is a metaphor, not a real place, any more than there is a "television-space" or "newspaper-space". So irrelevant again, unless the author is asserting that a claim by the same party carries different weight dependant on the medium.

Para. 6 "Suppression orders restrict reporting of some or all information that appears in a trial. Such orders are traditional."

Appeal to tradition, and a dubious one at that. On matters of fact, I must defer to Bosland and Bagnall (2013), who say that suppression orders are issued in Victoria at a rate that is "high and appears to be increasing". They also note that in defense of the practice, the Victorian judiciary characterise it as "wholly exceptional", rather than routine, much less traditional.

Para. 7 "Courts typically use suppression orders to protect the victims of serious offences or to underpin the administration of justice – for example, legitimate action by law enforcement and national security personnel."

False equivalence. We know, even if we're not supposed to, that the case in question is about alleged corruption in the awarding of government contracts, not typically a matter for the police paddy wagon or the military. Whoops, am I allowed to say that? I did say "alleged".

Para. 7 "The order published by WikiLeaks needs to be read carefully and in context, rather than through the lens of Julian Assange."

Ad hominem appeal to motive.

Para. 8 "Super-suppression is problematic but can be seen as a response to irresponsibility on the part of some media organisations."

I can't imagine to whom you might be referring… Still, let us consider whether the fact that people break suppression orders proves we need super-suppresion orders, and maybe super-super-suppression orders. Circular reasoning?

Para. 10 "Journalists and activists have no authority to ignore an order. That was demonstrated in the prosecution of shock jock Derryn Hinch, whose reporting breached an order prohibiting the identification of a sex offender."

More false equivalence. The illegitimate and irresponsible naming of an alleged sex offender hardly constitutes a sound argument that government officials have the right to conduct commercial business in secrecy, sans public accountability.

Para. 10 "Having a microphone or a keyboard doesn’t place you above the law."

Straw man. Who says it does?

Para. 11 "Authoritative studies in the UK (for example, the Neuberger report) and Australia debunk myths about a supposed flood of frivolous, long-lasting or otherwise inappropriate orders."

Studies of the UK are arguably another red herring. "Citation needed," as we say in Wikipedia, as far as Australia is concerned. I refer the prosecution to Bosland and Bagnall (2013) again.

Para. 12 "There is variation between jurisdictions but courts, for example Victoria’s Supreme Court in litigation involving one of Australia’s richest men and the NSW Supreme Court regarding our richest woman, are acting responsibly. They are not casually handing legal lollipops to importunate children."

Inductive fallacy. No amount of rejected requests for a suppression order proves that they are never granted without sound justification.

Para. 13 "It’s unlikely that he’ll be prosecuted for contempt of court and even if he did face legal action he’d presumably welcome the notoriety."

Another ad hominem appeal to motive.

Para. 14 "The granting of orders by courts in Victoria in connection with the Underbelly TV series sought to ensure fair trials. The effectiveness of those orders was undermined by ordinary Australians who blogged, emailed, ripped and burned or SMSed."

More false equivalence. Nice inappropriate use of "ripped and burned", grandad. Give my regards to Alan Turing.

Para. 15 "The new media that Assange has exploited in his latest grab for publicity do not respect the borders of liberal democratic states."

Ad hominem appeal to motive again. They're apparently being deployed for rhythmic effect.

Para. 16 "My research argues that people who subverted the Underbelly orders often did so in emulation of peers, as an assertion of agency (important for tech-savvy 16-year-olds) or because they believe that law has no value in cyberspace."

Citation needed. Which research? Where? False equivalence: or are you saying Assange is an attention seeking 16 year old? Wait; you needn't answer that.

Para. 17 "Narcissism aside, Assange’s motivation presumably reflects his interest in subverting the state in favour of an anarchist utopia."

Jolly fair of you to overlook his narcissism to stick to the apparently relevant (not to say real) issue of his plot to overthrow the state. Quite gentlemanly, if still ad hominem.

Para. 18 "By now, many readers of The Conversation and other Australians have visited the WikiLeaks site and drawn conclusions about what’s being alleged in the Victorian court. The conclusions and allegations may be incorrect."

A kind of appeal to authority. You're not qualified to interpret the facts, so the facts are best kept hidden from you.

Para. 19 "More subtly, we face questions about information literacy. In the age of Wikileaks and Edward Snowden, misinformation can go round the world in a second."

I'm not claiming that Assange and Snowden are spreading lies; just that if they were to do so, they could do it very quickly. Yes, very subtle point there.

Para. 19 "It is interesting that readers apparently assume that governments always lie and Snowden and Assange always tell the truth."

Another citation of evidence gets mislaid in the editing process… Apparently.

Para. 20 "If we want to reconstruct the state, let’s do that through parliamentary processes and a respect for the justice system rather than on the basis of an expose by someone who’s a guest of Vladimir Putin or hiding in an Ecuadorean broom cupboard."

What a finish! Appeal to authority, guilt by association, appeal to ridicule, all in a single sentence! Bravo! A bad argument triple-play!

As a rule, this author actually appears to be pretty well-informed and insightful when it comes to technology, where lesser lawyers are too often tripped up by bad analogies, so I really can't understand the thinking behind such an insubstantial tirade. It sounds uncannily like the usual rantings of the unqualified and misinformed unwashed out there in the wilds of cyberspace. Perhaps it's teaching by example. We can but hope.

References

Arnold, B.B. (2014). Not mad, bad or unusual: WikiLeaks and suppression orders. The Conversation. Retrieved 9/8/2014.

Bosland, J. & Bagnall, A. (2013). An Empirical Analysis of Suppression Orders in the Victorian Courts: 2008–12. Sydney Law Review, 35, 671-702.

I don't think this goes far enough. Now that the Great War has been totally decontextualised,  I propose that we also publicly shame all the descendants of conscientious objectors, and force them to wear a white feather in public. They must be made to pay for their ancestors' disloyalty in the face of the terrible threat to Australia's territorial sovereignty that the Ottoman Empire then posed, and that for all we know (in our proud, patriotic ignorance) still hangs over us. Too few people now remember how terribly close we came to peace. It is only through vigorous selective remembrance  that 'Straya remains defiantly barbaric.