There was an interesting article in New Scientist this week about open publishing and copyleft, in the course of the article it mentioned a group in america called Open Law which publish their court arguements on the net so that lawyers and the such, can interact with the public in cases like this one, so that the system can be more open, particular ly in cases such as the one u are outlining. Perhaps it would be useful to contact them. U should be able to get in touch via the following e-mail  copyleft@newscientist.com and asking them to give u the details of the OpenLaw. Text from New Scientist regarding the open law experiment:

Another experiment that's proved its worth is the OpenLaw project at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. Berkman lawyers specialise in cyberlaw--hacking, copyright, encryption and so on--and the centre has strong ties with the EFF and the open source software community. In 1998 faculty member Lawrence Lessig, now at Stanford Law School, was asked by online publisher Eldritch Press to mount a legal challenge to US copyright law. Eldritch takes books whose copyright has expired and publishes them on the Web, but new legislation to extend copyright from 50 to 70 years after the author's death was cutting off its supply of new material. Lessig invited law students at Harvard and elsewhere to help craft legal arguments challenging the new law on an online forum, which evolved into OpenLaw.
Normal law firms write arguments the way commercial software companies write code. Lawyers discuss a case behind closed doors, and although their final product is released in court, the discussions or "source code" that produced it remain secret. In contrast, OpenLaw crafts its arguments in public and releases them under a copyleft. "We deliberately used free software as a model," says Wendy Selzer, who took over OpenLaw when Lessig moved to Stanford. Around 50 legal scholars now work on Eldritch's case, and OpenLaw has taken other cases, too.
"The gains are much the same as for software," Selzer says. "Hundreds of people scrutinise the 'code' for bugs, and make suggestions how to fix it. And people will take underdeveloped parts of the argument, work on them, then patch them in." Armed with arguments crafted in this way, OpenLaw has taken Eldritch's case--deemed unwinnable at the outset--right through the system and is now seeking a hearing in the Supreme Court.
There are drawbacks, though. The arguments are in the public domain right from the start, so OpenLaw can't spring a surprise in court. For the same reason, it can't take on cases where confidentiality is important. But where there's a strong public interest element, open sourcing has big advantages. Citizens' rights groups, for example, have taken parts of OpenLaw's legal arguments and used them elsewhere. "People use them on letters to Congress, or put them on flyers," Selzer says.

Anyway the full article is available at www.newscientist.com/hottopics/copyleft

It sounds pretty good, and it has the advantage of remaining in the public domain, accessable and transparent.

It had to be a bunch of Jews!

Switzerland Indymedia SHUT OFF!!! (english)
2:18pm Sun Feb 17 '02


All began with publishing of a cartoon by Latuff where a jewish kid in Warsaw ghetto says "i'm a palestinian". Fascist jewish AKDH association attacked indymedia switzerland saying it is an antisemit cartoon.
Switzerland.indymedia.org is now shut off.

Full article here:  http://indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=136575&group=webcast

please join irc.indymedia.org to get involved in the debate.

All who believe in freedom of speach must accept that it cuts both ways, we should be judged not on the freedom we give to those we agree with but to those we don't. i abhore rasism, but only by an open debate can we hope to triumph. if we ban the views we disagree with we become no better than than those very people we deplore. if we believe in the validity of our arguements we should not be afraid of our adversaries... only by letting them air there views can we hope to show them to be the rubish they are. by banning and censoring them we can only add weight to their claims. let us have the strenghth to opely contest them, not slip into the reactionary possition of the right wing! keep up the fight.

Hasta la vietoria siempre!

Alexander.

The attack against Latuff is designed stop growing criticism of the Israeli state's brutal treatment of the Palestinians.

Apparently those apologists for Israeli human rights violations are outraged that Latuff would draw a comparison between the Jewish children of the Warsaw Ghetto and Palestinian kids who live under Israeli occupation, ..a occupation propped up by US aid, and weapons. And it was precisely the effectiveness ..and the truth of Latuff's image that prompted the suit in Switzerland, and the campaign to spam IMC's all over the world. ( incidentally, much harsher images are currently available on the IMC-Israel site)

Allegations of anti-semitism against this artist is absurd, and such attacks have been routinely used by Zionist propagandists to try and stifle criticism in the past. It won't work this time.

The fact is that the Jewish resistance fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto had more in common with those Palestinians firing back at Israeli tanks than with war criminals like Ariel Sharon. And Israeli government defenders know it.