US ‘the enemy’ says Dotcom judge
Key context within article:
“Under TPP and the American Digital Millennium copyright provisions you will not be able to do that, that will be prohibited… if you do you will be a criminal – that’s what will happen. Even before the 2008 amendments it wasn’t criminalised. There are all sorts of ways this whole thing is being ramped up and if I could use Russell [Brown’s] tweet from earlier on: we have met the enemy and he is [the] U.S.”
Judge Harvey’s remark is a play on the line “we have met the enemy and he is us” by American cartoonist Walt Kelly.
Communication analysis:
The judge is witty and has a sense of humor. Manipulators and partisans have manufactured outrage by taking the judge’s statement out of context. The judge withdrew from the Dotcom case. Perhaps he judged that reasoning about such matters is impossible. That’s a highly unfortunate communications industry development. Ease of manufacturing outrage points to a future of insipid, soporific communication.