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aardvark (ard'-vark) a controversial animal with
a long probing nose used for sniffing out the facts and stimulating thought
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Net beats court orders (once again)
11 April 2006 NZ Police defy court suppression order The court has ordered pictures of the man charged with the murder of German Backpacker Birgit Brauer are not to be published until the hearing of depositions is complete -- that's why his face has been fuzzed out on recent TV footage. Unfortunately, the power of the court has once again been challenged by a number of internet websites, including search giant Google. Of course Google isn't bound by NZ laws so, strictly speaking it's not breaching the court order -- but this situation does show just how futile any kind of suppression orders are in this modern electronic age. Anyone searching Google Images for the term "Birgit Brauer" will soon find a number of pictures of the accused. The most prominent one was previously displayed on the TVNZ website but has since been removed -- although Google continues to cache a copy. The foreign blog site doblog.com continues to carry a 155x220 pixel image which is freely accessible by all NZ Net users. But the biggest offenders appear to be the NZ Police themselves who still have Wallace's picture published on this page. This latest castration of the courts comes hot on the tail of the blatant flouting of a suppression order issued in respect to details surrounding the prosecution of three former police officers for a rape alleged to have occurred in the 1980s. |