Flying The Flag, Faking The News

In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger traces the history of propaganda to Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, who invented the term “public relations”. Bernays believed in “engineering public consent” and creating “false realties” as news — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Sneaky Senate Trying To Slip Internet Kill Switch Past Us

Sensing Senators don’t have the stomach to try and pass a stand-alone bill in broad daylight that would give the President the power to shut down the Internet in a national emergency, the Senate is considering attaching the Internet Kill Switch bill as a rider to other legislation that would have bi-partisan support — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Australian Government Twitter Accounts

This is a list of Twitter accounts that appear to be maintained by the agencies of Australian governments. The list is not actively screened for whether these accounts are still live or how actively they Tweet. I also cannot verify that all of these accounts are official. If you are aware of any additional government twitter accounts, or that any on the current list that are not official, please provide feedback via this page — via eGov AU

Rudd Retreats on Web Filter Legislation

Kevin Rudd has put another election promise on the backburner with his controversial internet filtering legislation set to be shelved until after the next election. A spokeswoman for Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said yesterday the legislation would not be introduced next month’s or the June sittings of parliament. With parliament not sitting again until the last week of August, the laws are unlikely to be passed before the election

IIA to Ask Members to Sign ACTA Petition

Internet Industry Association (IIA) chief executive officer Peter Coroneos has said he plans to ask his members to sign a declaration calling for more transparency in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) talks being held this week in Wellington, New Zealand. Unfortunately, The US Trade Representative issued a release just prior to the launch of the New Zealand round of ACTA negotiations that has left no doubt that the US is the biggest barrier to official release of the ACTA text. The full text of the release is couched in terms of improving transparency, but is really a thinly-veiled shot at the European Union’s public demands for release of the text