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| National's attack blogger Cameron Slater |
Whinging all the way to the high court, Cameron Slater, the right wing attack blogger who's disgusting communications have been made public, has employed the services of high powered QC John Billington in a bid to stop people talking, tweeting, blogging and publishing articles concerning his Dirty Politics.
The highly expensive lawyer will no doubt argue that our main media agencies cannot use information that was allegedly illegally obtained, even though much of it is already within the public domain.
Yesterday, Josh Fagan for Stuff reported:
Blogger Cameron Slater has launched injunction proceedings in a bid to gag three of New Zealand's largest media companies.
Slater served papers on Fairfax, APN and MediaWorks today to try to prevent them from running further stories using emails that were allegedly hacked from his accounts.
A fourth defendant is listed as ‘‘unknown person’’, referring to the person alleged to be in possession of the hacked emails and behind the “Whaledump” Twitter accounts.
Here's the High Court business (PDF) document that sets the hearing down for 2:15 PM today, with Justice John Fogarty presiding.
The problem for Slater and those who are funding his bid to shut down the press is that the courts will have no control over the person who's been leaking the Slater et al communications online, Rawshark.
Even if an injunction was to be granted against the press, there's little doubt that the information will continue to be released, giving rise to a strange situation where bloggers will be reporting the news with the mainstream media playing second fiddle.
The court will also have little ability to stop people reading Nicky Hager's book that was based on Slater's disgusting communications with various other reprehensible right wingers including many National party Ministers and their employees.
The widespread availability of Dirty Politics, a book that shows immoral if not illegal activity by those in power, ensures that the right wings dirty political secrets will continue to see the light for the foreseeable future.
Slater's emails feature in Nicky Hager's book Dirty Politics and were part of the sequence that resulted in Justice Minister Judith Collins' resignation from Cabinet on Saturday.
The three media companies have been served the notice and will appear in court for an initial hearing in Auckland tomorrow.
The move, if successful, would block any further stories using the leaked emails.
The similarities to another case concerning Matthew Blomfield, a relatively unknown businessman, couldn't be greater. In that case the disgusting Cameron Slater received private information about Blomfield from a hard drive that was illegally obtained.
After the police became involved, Slater refused to say who gave him the information, which he used extensively to defame Blomfield, mercilessly and publicly attacking the private businessman over an extended period of time.
It is likely that National's attack blogger was being employed by somebody that didn't like or had a personal or business conflict with Blomfield, and judging by the amount and extent of the personal attacks on the businessman, Slater appears to have been paid handsomely for his underhanded smear campaign.
Court documents served on behalf of Slater claim the emails, hacked from his personal email accounts and Facebook account, represent a breach of confidence and breach of privacy.
The hypocritical Cameron Slater didn't just publish Blomfield's private information, he embellished upon it and used every small detail to ensure that the businessman's professional and personal life was damaged.
The claim seeks an injunction preventing any publication or dissemination of the emails or Facebook messages, as well as any copies of stored material.
It also asks for all electronic copies to be returned to Slater's possession, and for costs to be awarded to him.
Like most bullies, Cameron Slater can't handle it when people do to him what he's done to others. The main difference here is that there's no public benefit from Whale Oil's propaganda, whereas there's huge public benefit and interest in releasing certain parts of the Cameron Slater communications with National party officials and other reprehensible trolls!
The attack blogger's smear campaigns have in fact been detrimental to public interests, with his taxpayer and private business funded disinformation campaigns specifically designed to damage our social structures and undermine New Zealand's international standing as one of the least corrupt countries on earth.
That's why Slater and those that back him must not be allowed to stop the truth coming out. We must make sure that the good people of New Zealand become aware of what has been occurring, not because of some sort of misguided attempt at retribution, but because fixing our democracy is the only way to ensure a better and brighter future for all of us.
