This week, I will be the first person to be prosecuted for protesting against Woodside’s Burrup project. This is the story of the raid on my home and the six-month wait for a hearing.
I’m sympathetic to her cause, but I’m not surprised that her methods have landed her in trouble with the law. Her idea of “peaceful protest” is a bit skewed. She’s trying to maximize exposure, but she’s crossing lines into unlawful territory to do so. You can’t just break the law and say it’s to ‘save the planet’ and then do a surprised Pikachu when the police get involved.
If I go into the art gallery and spray paint a piece of art, I’m going to be called a vandal. It’s not going to matter why I did this thing. If I go online and start to coordinate threatening someone at home and damaging their property, I’m going to get on the radar of law enforcement. Again, my motives are not going to matter.
She’s not going on trial for protesting Woodside. She’s going on trial, because she is accused of breaking the law.
If the article (and other sources online) are to be believed, the law she is accused of breaking is failing to provide passwords to her devices following a raid on February 24th.
She was convicted, sentenced to pay a fine, and paid a fine for the vandalism of the plexiglass on February 10. So that matter was settled before any of this went down.
The question then is, what is the justification for this raid by ‘counter-terrorist’ police - and subsequent orders such as not to talk about Woodside? There is no publicly disclosed evidence she (or her group) have ever done anything violent - so the optics of this are certainly that it is attempting to suppress them for their activism (and it is very reasonable to ask the government to prove otherwise).
Charging someone with something that arises from law enforcement actions without justifying the original action is a classic smokescreen. It’s similar to charging someone with resisting arrest without explaining what they were under arrest for in the first place. Now it is possible they had a legitimate reason for the search warrant in the first place (after all, it would have needed judicial approval) - in which case, it is time for that to be provided. That said, I don’t think powers requiring handing over information like passwords that are held in the mind, to be used against the person handing the password over, should exist. At the very least, if the ciphertext can be safely backed up, the law should allow both parties to get legal advice and argue in court about whether the credential needs to be given up before it becomes a legal requirement.
She herself raised the issue of the art gallery and complained she was being called a vandal. I was saying that yes: she literally vandalised a piece of art. She’s a vandal by definition.
As to the raid itself, it’s clearly in response to the attack on the Woodside CEOs private residence. Showing up at someone’s home, inviting the media to film you as you allegedly damage the house, scare a family inside at 6:30 in the morning and attempt to lock yourself to the house are acts that take you into unlawful territory if found guilty. That’s what she is on trial for.
Nobody had a problem when they were standing out the front of the Woodside building holding signs. That’s peaceful protest.
And that achieved nothing.
This is only more signs that peaceful protests are simply a tool for government to ignore.
Direct action is needed, and hero’s like this are starting to lead that change.
The criminals are those killing us all under the protection of a system they designed to shield them from repercussions.
So, now we’re acknowledging that she wasn’t protesting peacefully like she claims? That indeed she crossed the line into unlawful territory?
I agree.
That’s why the police are involved. Not because she protested Woodside.
Nah, we’re acknowledging they “lawful” is a bullshit metric.
It’s lawful to kill the planet and us along with it, it’s illegal to bring attention to those who are doing it.
Clearly one cannot operate under such a deeply flawed system.
As I said at the outset: I’m sympathetic to the cause. I have grave concerns about the planet and how as a species, we are causing immeasurable damage with our reckless treatment of resources. Nobody is defending the company nor denying she has a worthy goal at heart.
But all of that is beside the point. The point is her central premise is deeply flawed: she is simply not on trial for protesting Woodside.
