Press release archive for May 2012

The Supreme Court in London has upheld earlier rulings that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange should be extradited to Sweden, although the judgement will not be implemented for another two weeks.

The case has repeatedly raised issues with the European Arrest Warrant system, and it seems many of the more problematic aspects will remain unresolved.  It's absurd that the Swedish Authorities have not been able to deal with this case outside of the court room, something that would have saved court time and taxpayers' money.  

On the 9th of June 2012 the Pirate Party will be supporting protests against ACTA, with Pirate Party Leader, Loz Kaye joining the London Protests.

We have been following ACTA's progress with great interest and the European Parliament will be voting on ACTA in the coming weeks. Whilst many have been saying that ACTA is now dead in the water, there is a very real danger that rather than dropping it outright, they will ask for it to be 'reconsidered' or amended. With something as toxic as ACTA it will be difficult to do anything to fix it without still causing unintended damage.

Despite the ineffectiveness of web blocking, big media groups continue to chip away at internet freedom by demanding that search engines, like google, censor their search results.

To date 1782 search results for tpb.pirateparty.org.uk have been removed from Google's search in response to demands from BPI, Sony Music, EMI, Universal, Warner Music, Columbia Records and others. These are all links that have been indexed by Google via our proxy service rather than links on our site.

Science not Scythes - Evidence is vital for sound public policy

I am alarmed that the site of an experimental study will be targeted by anti-GM activists intent on destroying important research into genetically-modified wheat, and that this criminal destruction is being promoted by the Green Party using the euphemism "mass decontamination".

The Pirate Party UK has hosted a proxy (https://tpb.pirateparty.org.uk), allowing people to connect to the Pirate Bay via Pirate Party servers, since the 19th of April 2012. We provided the proxy as a tool for users on networks where the Pirate Bay is blocked through filtering, and in support of our sister party in the Netherlands. It continues to be a legitimate route for those affected by court orders issued to some (but not all) UK ISP's requiring the site to be blocked. Whilst some providers continue to allow access to the web in an unfiltered manner, others are limiting access to specific parts of the internet.

To date our proxy has seen in excess of 10 million hits, with almost 2 million additional visitors making use of the proxy each day, more than 5 GigaBytes of (non-content related) data have been transferred in the ...

The Pirate Party UK hosts a proxy through which internet users can access the Pirate Bay if their country's government or ISP have decided to censor it. We have been hosting this proxy for some time and will continue to do so for as long as we are able.

[...]

We believe a free and open Internet is a cornerstone of modern society, democracy, artistic expression, education and innovation, and we are deeply worried when we see unaccountable corporate interests being put in charge of censoring it. It's a slippery slope: we have already seen India blocking Vimeo [2] at the same time as The Pirate Bay. And today, in Holland, the Pirate Party Netherlands has been forbidden from even discussing the means to circumvent state censorship.

We believe that this kind of censorship is totally unacceptable, and will defend ourselves to the full extent of the law against ...

A 'Snooper's Charter'

Secret Trials

Freedom of Speech

The Queen announced the coalition's legislative agenda for this parliamentary session, including plans to radically expand the government's surveillance of everyone in Britain, the expansion of secret trials and changes to Defamation law.

Loz Kaye beats Lib Dem in Bradford ward.

Maria Aretoulaki recieved more than double the votes of her UKIP rival

The Pirate Party UK stood three candidates in Manchester on Thursday, Tim Dobson in Ancoats and Clayton, Maria Aretoulaki in City Centre and Loz Kaye in Bradford ward. Our candidates and activists have been working hard to make contact with those in their wards with a positive result for the Pirate Party and for the people in the wards where they stood.

Loz Kaye beat the Lib Dems to 4th place in Bradford ward, picking up 5% of the vote - the best result the UK Pirate Party has had in any election in the UK. In the City Centre Ward Maria Aretoulaki recieved more than double the votes of her UKIP rival, obtaining 3% of the vote. This was the first time the Pirate Party has stood candidates in local ...

Pirate Party Scotland - Local Election Results.

Best ever result for the Pirate Party in Scotland

Pirates beat UKIP in Edinburgh Meadows/Morningside.

The Pirate Party stood three candidates in Scotland on Thursday, Rob Harris in Anderston, Glasgow, Finlay Archibald in Govan, Glasgow and Phil Hunt in Meadows/Morningside, Edinburgh. Our candidates and activists have been working hard getting their message out to voters, with Phil Hunt in Edinburgh getting the best result that the Party has seen in Scotland and both Rob and Finlay seeing a positive progression in their results.