Slashdot Mirror

Bottom of Electronic Frontiers Australia (can't find more recent links, but then australia's internet blocking was never my specialist subject.)

the Liberal Party, which is sort of like the Republicans except without the Christian Coalition

Heard of The Lyons Forum?

Christian fundamentalism has a fairly powerful place in Australian politics. Just not a public one.

I find this somewhat odd because Slashdot has run quite a few stories referencing EFA media releases and other materials. And if anyone actually went looking for us, we should be pretty easy to find - if you put "censorship Australia" into Google (as of 19 June 2002), the top six results consist of EFA pages and the personal pages of two EFA board members. Heck, even on a search as general as "internet censorship", EFA and EFA board members manage two of the top ten results!

Anyway, if you want to know what we do (and who we are), that's all on our web site.

Danny (EFA board member).

"We do NOT, I repeat DO NOT have any internet censorship in Australia."

I contacted Irene Graham of Electronic Frontiers Australia about this, to see if she had any comment. She did. And she invited me to quote from her email, so I will:

Utter nonsense. Refer: The Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act 1999

Under the above Commonwealth law, "prohibited content" on Australian sites is text and images classified R18+, or X (non violent sexually explicit activity between consenting adults) and RC (refused classification). Content that has been banned/taken down from Australian sites, under that censorship law, in the past two years and half years includes material that is legally available offline - that adults can see at the cinema, rent on video and buy in magazines at the local shop.

Under that law, when the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) finds "prohibited content" hosted in Australia, the ABA issues a take-down notice to the ISP or Internet content host, who has 24 hours to take the content down. If they don't, they are subject to a fine of AU$5500 for individuals or AU$27500 for corporations, for each day during which the failure to take the content down continues. The ABA also notifies police when they consider the content is "sufficiently serious".

When the ABA finds "prohibited content" hosted on sites _outside_ Australia, they notify commercial censorware providers of the material with the intent of it being put on the censorware blacklist. (Use of censorware is *not* mandatory). This is completely different from what happens when "prohibited content" is found on Australian sites. Content on Australian sites is taken down/banned.

In addition, some Australian States and Territories have had Internet censorship laws since 1996 (e.g. Victoria, Western Australia and Northern Territory) that include jail terms or fines under criminal law applicable to Net users for making available online material that is deemed unsuitable for persons under 18 years, etc. The wording of these State/Territory laws varies, as does what is prohibited and in what circumstances. Further, in South Australia a similar Internet censorship law is before the Parliament and likely to be voted on in July.

Regards
Irene
Executive Director, EFA.
http://www.efa.org.au/

That said, I'm disappointed in the quality of responses to this article here on slashdot. Had I known, I'd have posted a link to EFA's press release on this issue earlier:
http://www.efa.org.au/Publish/PR020613.html

Now, the problem here is that EFA attempted to get access to the blocklist being implemented by the ABA by using the Freedom of Information Act. Not the content, just the blocklist. In much the same way that censorware publishers won't allow anyone to view their blocklists, the AAT refused, but cites highly suspects reasons, to wit:

The Administrative Appeals Tribunal yesterday ruled that the Commonwealth Government's Internet censorship regime would be ineffective if it did not operate under a veil of secrecy, unlike offline censorship laws.

[...]

Therefore, the AAT ruled that the information requested by EFA was exempt from disclosure on the ground that "disclosure would, or could reasonably be expected to, have a substantial adverse effect on the proper and efficient conduct" of the ABA's operations (s.40(1)(d) of the FOI Act) and that the public interest in disclosure (s.40(2)) was outweighed by the adverse effect on the ABA's operations they considered would result from disclosure.

So, basically, they were saying that if people were able to see what was being blocked, the system wouldn't work. Excuse me? What sort of dodgy system is that? If it can't work with disclosure of the blocklist, then I would say the system is fundamentally flawed. Indeed, that's what EFA and numerous others were saying when this system was first proposed. Now that those concerns have been borne out, will the system be scrapped? No, it will continue to operate under a veil of secrecy, wasting my tax dollars on something that is inherently broken.

That is the problem the EFA, and I, have with this thing. That is the reason we're unimpressed with this decision.

The "law" in question was passed by parliament, and received the royal assent, but has not yet been proclaimed, and is therefore not yet law, and not enforceable.

Electronic Frontiers Australia's information page about this legislation can be found here and the report reccomending the repeal of the legislation can be found here (PDF file).

The "law" in question was passed by parliament, and received the royal assent, but has not yet been proclaimed, and is therefore not yet law, and not enforceable.

Electronic Frontiers Australia's information page about this legislation can be found here and the report reccomending the repeal of the legislation can be found here (PDF file).

Proposed changes to the Telecommunications Interception Act (C'th) would give government agencies (not only police forces) powers to intercept and read email, voice mail and SMS messages, without an interception warrant (as is presently required). Furthermore, agencies that are not allowed to obtain and use interception warrants (like the Taxation Office, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Immigration Department, etc) would gain the power to intercept and read private communications. Communications made using new technologies would have less privacy protection than a telephone call.

Proposed changes to the Telecommunications Interception Act (C'th) would give government agencies (not only police forces) powers to intercept and read email, voice mail and SMS messages, without an interception warrant (as is presently required). Furthermore, agencies that are not allowed to obtain and use interception warrants (like the Taxation Office, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, the Immigration Department, etc) would gain the power to intercept and read private communications. Communications made using new technologies would have less privacy protection than a telephone call.

One other thing... you say "nothings been regulated here."

Are you sure about that?

As the DCA page linked to points out, the inquiry will be given specific terms of reference to address. Your submission should therefore address what points you think are relevant to those terms of reference. It seems the most relevant to you would be:

* The potential for wireless broadband technologies to provide a 'last mile' broadband solution, particularly in rural and regional areas, and to encourage the development and use of broadband content applications; and

Since there will probably be expert groups and witnesses covering the technological aspects covered in the terms of reference, I suggest you stick to those two (plus any other policy-related terms I haven't mentioned). The economics of bandwidth distribution and the importance of not concentrating supply in a few major players are also important points.

Not having done this before myself, I would suggest you try and find any info about drafting submissions, appearing as a witness, procedure, etc, on the Parliamentary website. You may also wish to talk to a lawyer about any legal issues that you may wish to address (plus, a good lawyer is excellent at drafting arguments in the best way possible). Try and get in touch with various advocacy groups which may be interested and have done this sort of thing before in a related area, like EFA.

Good luck, it's in everybody's interests that wireless broadband be as widely available as possible, IMO, so I wish you all the best.

Okay, so anybody care to list some equivalents? I think Electronic Frontier Canada is about the closest we have up here in the frosty north. There's also Electronic Frontiers Australia, and the Global Internet Liberty Coalition. Anyone know any others?

- This sig for sale or rent...cheap

Agreed that a lot of "geeks" are too lazy to become activists; or simply do not have the time. However, there are already technologically savvy groups lobbying against issues raised by our potential corporate overlords.

In the U.S. there is the Electronic Frontiers Foundation.
I myself donate to our own similar organisation Electronic Freedom Australia

Anyone wanting to, can easily make a difference by supporting these and similar institutions.

Just being aware of the issues at hand is a good start.

Note that Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) is not the same as, or even associated with, the US's very own well-known Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

And, sigh, my sig is so poignant these days :-(

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Note that Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) is not the same as, or even associated with, the US's very own well-known Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

And, sigh, my sig is so poignant these days :-(

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

Note that Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) is not the same as, or even associated with, the US's very own well-known Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

And, sigh, my sig is so poignant these days :-(

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

You're forgetting so called "Hate speech", which is really the criminalization of the expression of unpopular political views, as well as a host of other "forbidden" topics. Racism may be ugly and ignorant, but the state shouldn't be able to decide that a personally held belief is "incorrect", and therefore worthy of sanction if it is ever expressed. But if it only stopped there. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

Re: monitoring of it's citizen's internet activity
It does? Care to provide some reasoning behind that...

Sure. I don't know how you could deny this. The article's very title is: Australia Spying On Its Own
From the body of the post: "the Defence Signals Directorate listens to just about every bit of communications in Australia...In this case the govt spied because they were trying to win an election, ...National security be damned, this is echelon for political gain."

I am by no means suggesting that other countries, including the U.S., do not do it, but that was not my point to begin with.

Re: Gun confiscation.
My anonymous friend answered this, but I would add that the confiscation of any property merely because you own it obviously *is* both a seizure of property and a restriction on freedom. If a guy wants to build a howitzer in his back yard, isn't it his business so long as he doesn't use it to endanger or destroy other people's property, or otherwise deprive his neighbors of their right to peace and quiet?

Regrettably, the United States has been seduced by this "progressive reform", [albeit to a lesser degree], despite compelling statistical evidence that states which allow citizens to carry handguns have seen their crimes against persons drop in direct proportion to a surge in crimes against property. Apparently criminals are willing to consider career changes, because this strongly suggests that a criminal would rather break into an empty house or car than confront a potentially armed citizen. OTOH, "Home invasions" in Australia have skyrocketed since weapons suitable for personal defense have been confiscated. Here is a link with some interesting statistics, and here is another with graphs.

Re: restrictions upon encryption
Unfortunately, Australia, the United States, and 32 other countries are signatories of the Wassenaar Agreement. The agreement to subject commercial cryptosystems of moderate strength to inspection is not a big restriction, [and I certainly don't mind bans on exports to the "T7" (the so-called "Terrorist 7")], but it is stupid to pass a law which is impossible to enforce, unless that is not your motive, which in fact is the case. The licensing system is enough to stop and harrass a lot of commercial ventures, which in effect explains why most people do not use, or even know how to use encryption for email, while they will buy and use an envelope when using the post. [Trust me, I have worked on both the Berstein and Junger Federal lawsuits which challenged the U.S. export restrictions on crypto.]

You're forgetting so called "Hate speech", which is really the criminalization of the expression of unpopular political views, as well as a host of other "forbidden" topics. Racism may be ugly and ignorant, but the state shouldn't be able to decide that a personally held belief is "incorrect", and therefore worthy of sanction if it is ever expressed. But if it only stopped there. Unfortunately, it doesn't.

Re: monitoring of it's citizen's internet activity
It does? Care to provide some reasoning behind that...

Sure. I don't know how you could deny this. The article's very title is: Australia Spying On Its Own
From the body of the post: "the Defence Signals Directorate listens to just about every bit of communications in Australia...In this case the govt spied because they were trying to win an election, ...National security be damned, this is echelon for political gain."

I am by no means suggesting that other countries, including the U.S., do not do it, but that was not my point to begin with.

Re: Gun confiscation.
My anonymous friend answered this, but I would add that the confiscation of any property merely because you own it obviously *is* both a seizure of property and a restriction on freedom. If a guy wants to build a howitzer in his back yard, isn't it his business so long as he doesn't use it to endanger or destroy other people's property, or otherwise deprive his neighbors of their right to peace and quiet?

Regrettably, the United States has been seduced by this "progressive reform", [albeit to a lesser degree], despite compelling statistical evidence that states which allow citizens to carry handguns have seen their crimes against persons drop in direct proportion to a surge in crimes against property. Apparently criminals are willing to consider career changes, because this strongly suggests that a criminal would rather break into an empty house or car than confront a potentially armed citizen. OTOH, "Home invasions" in Australia have skyrocketed since weapons suitable for personal defense have been confiscated. Here is a link with some interesting statistics, and here is another with graphs.

Re: restrictions upon encryption
Unfortunately, Australia, the United States, and 32 other countries are signatories of the Wassenaar Agreement. The agreement to subject commercial cryptosystems of moderate strength to inspection is not a big restriction, [and I certainly don't mind bans on exports to the "T7" (the so-called "Terrorist 7")], but it is stupid to pass a law which is impossible to enforce, unless that is not your motive, which in fact is the case. The licensing system is enough to stop and harrass a lot of commercial ventures, which in effect explains why most people do not use, or even know how to use encryption for email, while they will buy and use an envelope when using the post. [Trust me, I have worked on both the Berstein and Junger Federal lawsuits which challenged the U.S. export restrictions on crypto.]

no. what about the new aussie censorship bill? dont be foolish - all governments will take away rights. learn your subject matter before you post...I mean, china is certainly an industrialized country...

Electronic Frontiers Australia

Australia is no worse than the US- but that doesnt make it better.

My guess is that the government is too embarrassed to show how pitifully few sites have been taken down for the money expended

Refer to this EFA report : Government Net Censorship Reports - Facts or Fallacies? 7th September 2000
The censorship regime is highly costly in view of its ineffectiveness in protecting children using the global Internet. The explanatory memorandum to the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill 1999 states the total ongoing cost to the Commonwealth of the regime was estimated at AUD$1.9 million per annum.

Graham remarked "If the ABA has only received 201 complaints in six months as the government report states, and the government's cost estimate of $1.9 million was correct, it's costing taxpayers around $4,700 per complaint. Only 93 of those complaints resulted in a finding of prohibited content, a small fraction of the billions of pages on the Internet, and less than 20 concerned pages hosted in Australia."

Fantastic value for money there , AUD$100,000 per page....

You need to remember that Alston et all are only really interested in pandering to the popular press, and not in actually making any real changes.

Also, now that the balance of power has changed in the senate (ie Senator Harradine has gone) , the Libs will now be pandering to the Democrats, so we may see an end to these silly, unenforceable censorship laws

As far as I can make out, I still have unrestricted access to everything I have ever had

I say this because:

I have NOT been forced to install blocking software

My ISP is not running blocking software (nor any others to my knowledge

If the ABA has taken down a site, I'm sure it's just popped up again overseas

It's probably just more boring pr0n anyway ..

ho , hum , back to work...

Darren Kruse CCNP CCDP
WAN/LAN Networking Consultant
mailto://darren_kruse@hotmail.com
www.geocities.com/darren_kruse

If ISPs can't access a government-compiled list of what-is-banned, then to absolutely comply with the law they have to manually (ie. with a human) proxy every request from their customers, determine whether those requests will return <jellobiafra>HARMFUL MATTER</jellobiafra>, or expose themselves to possible prosecution.

It's a bit like keeping a secret list of banned foods, then busting a grocer for ordering in a special type of mushroom for a customer.

Much noise was made at the time against the leglisation because it's stoopid. I remember reading about six months ago (sorry, no link) that, despite all the fuss, only half a dozen complaints against ISPs had actually been received by the Aust. Broadcasting Authority. No prosecutions ever eventuated.

Although it's a Very Bad Thing, since nobody's (so far) gotten in trouble because of this legislation, the real danger of ignoring this might be that you teach politicians they can be ignorant and stupid all the time and get away with it.

This is interesting because it seems to be another take on freedom of information regarding what our governments do on our behalf. The EFA has a document that details the FOI requests released or denied.

In a similar vein, the US government won't even release information about how its own citizens are being profiled.

That familiar question from ancient Rome comes to mind:
Sed quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who watches the watchmen?

Of course there is: Electronic Frontier Canada / La Frontière Électronique du Canada (http://www.efc.ca/)! And following great Canadian traditions, the site is bilingual.

Australia has one, too: Electronic Frontiers Australia (http://www.efa.org.au/).

I don't know if either is tax-deductible, but they do have interesting info on legislation in both countries. Cheers.

The Australian EFF equivalent site has a lot of interesting information on censorship in general, and they also a review of some of the guts of the issue.

This doesn't seem to be a new issue though -- in 1999 The Age printed that the first game banned for violence actually occurred in 1997.

The Australian EFF equivalent site has a lot of interesting information on censorship in general, and they also a review of some of the guts of the issue.

This doesn't seem to be a new issue though -- in 1999 The Age printed that the first game banned for violence actually occurred in 1997.

I'd suggest you read IANA's report which is a lot more comprehensive than the media reports.

The news article says it is a private-sector body, but it is an open body formed of stakeholders including domain registrars, users, and Internet organisations (e.g. the Internet Society and Electronic Frontiers are on the board).

I am on the board of auDA, elected as a user representative. I am not from a registrar or any commercial interest. I can say that everyone has the best interests of .au at heart and I think this is a very positive move.

auDA's plans for .au are already available on the Internet and were formed through open public processes earlier in the year. The primary result will be competition in the domain registration area. Currently the domains under .au (com.au, net.au) etc are run by parallel monopolies, but this will be opened up to a competitive environment under the plan. The competition report is here.

As a member of the Australian Labor Party, I got the following passed by ACT Labor and Australian Young Labor this year:
Bill of Digital Rights and Responsibilities

This branch recognises that global electronic communications have created a defacto standard for free speech online. ACT Labor further recognises that it is not a coincidence that the most dynamic and enduring societies and economies are those that foster freedom of expression.

Recent and proposed legislation relating to digital communications has acted to erode legal certainties and rights. This trend should be decisively reversed.

This branch calls upon the Federal Parliamentary Labor Party, once in Government, to commence public debate on a Bill of Digital Rights and Responsibilities, to be legislated using the Commonwealth's electronic communications powers under the Constitution.

Such a Bill would include:

• A recognition that when communicating online there is the responsibility to not racially vilify or otherwise contravene the Commonwealth Racial Hatred Act or other Commonwealth Anti-Discrimination legislation.
• A less restrictive national definition of defamation, over-riding laws of the states and territories. The defamation laws would provide:
  • Freedom for non-malicious speech acts concerning corporations
  • Freedom for non-malicious speech acts concerning matters of public interest
  • That in the absence of malice no general damages be awarded.
  • The burden of proving malice would be with the complainant.
• A right to not be criminally prosecuted for any speech act made digitally that is of a purely expressive nature, with well-defined non-trivial exceptions. Also, a right to publish those speech acts on or by means of computers within Australia.
• Some guarantee of the opportunity for each Australian not just to access Digital information, but to publish it. The information super-highway must not be one-way: barriers to entry must be lowered as much as possible for the Australian with an idea on a small budget.
• A right to "fair use" of all digital intellectual property, restoring the original intent of copyright law.
• A right to not have substantive personal information transmitted from one's personal computer without consent.
• A right to use communications technology provided by an employer or educational institution for non-work or non-study purposes to a limited extent.

  Explanatory points:

  The relevant parts of the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act are here

  The ideas for reforming defamation law come from "The Law Report" on Radio National, see here

  The section concerning criminal prosecution addresses many problems, present and potential. An example of how bad things can get is a bill before the SA parliament. See here

  The "fair use" of digital intellectual property could become a big problem in the future. Presently it is a crime to provide the means by which someone may decrypt encrypted digital data such as a DVD, without the authority of the publishers. This has the effect of restricting "fair use" of copyrighted works. Yet this does not prevent piracy.

  The right to use workplace technology for non-work purposes is important. Catch-all provisions can be placed in employment agreements that allow employees to be dismissed for trivial reasons or for their politics. There is also the possibility that by making non-work communications unauthorised, employees are criminally liable for "misusing" computers in the workplace.

• Legislation they cannot realistically enforce. Banning Internet gambling, attempting Internet censorship, making web caching illegal, making PlayStation mods illegal. Censorship laws have so far been a complete failure, with people circumventing them. Internet censorship is said to have cost $2.5 million, while providing no benefit. It's genuinely frightening that the people writing these laws have no knowledge of what they are trying to control.

• Partially privatising the previously Government-owned telco (49% so far) for political purposes, which has made them give clear priority to profit and share price over service. Access to affordable telecommunications in rural areas is getting gradually worse (though the private sector is helping). They restrict their broadband net access to 3Gb/month after selling it as unlimited, while ensuring they are the only available broadband provider for many Australians. They were force to give other carriers access to their DSL network, so they now sell wholesale network access at $69/month, while selling broadband DSL net access to consumers at $70/month (line + access + equipment), and placing limits on the service. Just today, they are refusing to give any rebate to a broadband customer who had a 13 day outage. Somehow the government don't see any of this as a problem, and still plan to sell the rest of Telstra.

• Various laws with no regard for the privacy of citizens, like allowing spies to crack systems, and remotely tap and alter data.

For what it's worth, even Microsoft realise they are hopeless. Hopefully they'll be voted out at the next election (probably later this year?), and this insanity will end.

• Legislation they cannot realistically enforce. Banning Internet gambling, attempting Internet censorship, making web caching illegal, making PlayStation mods illegal. Censorship laws have so far been a complete failure, with people circumventing them. Internet censorship is said to have cost $2.5 million, while providing no benefit. It's genuinely frightening that the people writing these laws have no knowledge of what they are trying to control.

• Partially privatising the previously Government-owned telco (49% so far) for political purposes, which has made them give clear priority to profit and share price over service. Access to affordable telecommunications in rural areas is getting gradually worse (though the private sector is helping). They restrict their broadband net access to 3Gb/month after selling it as unlimited, while ensuring they are the only available broadband provider for many Australians. They were force to give other carriers access to their DSL network, so they now sell wholesale network access at $69/month, while selling broadband DSL net access to consumers at $70/month (line + access + equipment), and placing limits on the service. Just today, they are refusing to give any rebate to a broadband customer who had a 13 day outage. Somehow the government don't see any of this as a problem, and still plan to sell the rest of Telstra.

• Various laws with no regard for the privacy of citizens, like allowing spies to crack systems, and remotely tap and alter data.

For what it's worth, even Microsoft realise they are hopeless. Hopefully they'll be voted out at the next election (probably later this year?), and this insanity will end.

It's like the EFF, but instead of a second F, there's an A

http://www.efa.org.au/JoinEFA/

My own site has some details of takedown notices and classifications.

Danny.

My own site has some details of takedown notices and classifications.

Danny.

• Electronic Frontiers Australia
• Irene Graham's site
• my own site

Danny.

Complaining about spam requires forwarding the entire message with complete headers. I haven't had a chance to read the bill yet - it was introduced and went through the committees in 1999 - but it looks like this bill may make spam complaints illegal.

What I'd like to know is, what were EFA doing at the time? The bill was titled "Copyright Ammendment (Digital Agenda) Bill 1999", yet EFA is not listed in the submissions to the committee inquiry. A bill like that screams out as being right down EFA's alley, and this interaction, which seems obscure to most people, would be blindingly obvious to EFA. It looks like they seriously dropped the ball as far as keeping in touch with what the Parliament was doing here.

Oh yes? Well such a meaningless article is typical of the Australian press (as if summarizing a whole act into 10 paragraphs is simple - I am being unfair). But its a bit hard to draw the conclusion you have made.

So.

Here are some useful links on the subject (including analysis - difficult for some slashdotters to read, but give it a try - and the actual amendments). Unfortunately some of these analyses are rather old due to the fact that the Act was proposed several years ago and passed last year:
http://www.gtlaw.com.au/pubs/digitalageaustr alia.html
http://www.roma.unisa.edu.au/08908/lect11/co mmentary.html
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au//legis/cth/cons ol_act/ca1968133/notes.html
http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/IP/copyright.ht ml

Oliver

Who, as usual, still hasn't thought up a clever sig.

The link to Electronic Frontiers
Australia is misspelled.

Danny.

Based on your name, you sound like an Aussie. You might want to try EFA, the Aussie version of EFF.

Danny.

I live in QLD Australia. In June '99 the Federal Government made an amendment to the Broadcasting Services Act. This amendment introduced a "complaint based" internet censorship system. It came came into effect one the 1st of January 2000.

I haven't noticed the slightest bit of difference. There was a lot of puffing and blowing in Parliament about Protecting the Children and applying the same standards we have for movies and TV to the internet. There was talk of filtering all packets that came into Australia after the (startlingly obvious) point was made that most content viewed in Australia is hosted overseas.

Informed opinion (i.e., that of people who actually used computers/the internet) was that the proposed scheme was ludicrous and unworkable (ISPs are legally require to "make available" client side filtering software, although no-one seems to know if use of them is supposed to be mandatory), and time has shown that opinion to be correct. The scheme isn't the slightest hinderance to accessing "undesirable" content, it has cost millions of taxpayer dollars, and it has made Australia look like an IT backwater (which it isn't). Check out this link for an overview of the law.

At the time I said to people "this is the thin edge of a nasty wedge", and I'm still concerned that I may be right. While the law in its current form is more stupid than problematic, I'm deeply uncomfortable that it sits there packing some nasty penalties for non-complying ISPs. When there's a precedent for blocking one form of "undesirable content" it means that the infrastructure is right there when the government wants to block another form of "undesirable content".

Hope this helps for your article!

grib.

Given that I'm in Australia, what the US and Europe think doesn't do me much good! The lawyer in question also happens to be the chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia, so I'll guess I'll trust that he's reasonably well informed, and take his word for it.

I moved here from the US, and noticed a vast difference in the govt. attitude towards the net/media.

The US policy in general is that business must be left alone, unless necessary to safeguard consumers. The Australian policy is that govt. must *guarantee* good results to consumers. This can take comical effect.

In parliament, you can hear the Prime minister and the opposition leader argue over the management details of how Telstra, the govt. monopoly phone company, should be run, what the pricing policy should be, etc. From a US perspective, this is shocking stuff - elected leaders running company business.

Thus it is not surprising that the govt. here is dreaming about regulating streaming media on the net. For all the whining that Americans do about how bad they have it, they have no clue how lucky they are.

The problem is not that the Aussie govt. is particularly clueless about the net. All govts. are equally clueless - the problem is that the Aussie govt. has WAY too much power over what people can hear and read.

The govt. can decide what/when/how things should be broadcast. Check out this story on ABC news , the govt. funded media/news corporation. But it's even funnier when politicians regulate pr0n.

Yes, Virginia, there is censorship in Australia. Want to see what the Aussie govt. thinks of your favorite multiplayer game? Go check it out! Yes, books are censored too. Don't you want to be sure the public doesn't read naughty things?

Having said there, there is considerable irony in some situations. Breasts can be seen all over the place, even on movie posters in public view. Some weeks ago there was a TV show on censorship, and lo and behold, there was shown a scene of two women licking breasts, on prime time news. Unthinkable on good old American soil, land of free speech and all. Yet openly shown in a country with censorship, on a program on censorship, on a govt. funded TV channel. The irony doth overflow.

Overall, though, the regulation stifles competition. One side effect of all this is that Australia lags behind the US by about 4-5 years in bandwidth, because everything is so heavily regulated and the competition is dampened. When I check out ISPs, there are still those stupid "plans", depending on your download limits and how many hours you spend online. Not one ISP in this city offers unlimited bandwidth AND unlimited hours. All on 56K, of course.

Anyway, I'm done with my ranting. Australia sucks on a grand scale when it comes to the internet.

w/m

more censorship info here

I think that the irony of Parliament's protest against filtering cannot be emphasized enough, considering that effective Jan 1, 2000, they put their entire nation, public and private, on a mandatory filtering system

According the the Australian EFF, in the area of 'adult images' (one area which the parliament protested filtering). All 'R-rated' content must be subject to age-verification, no 'X-rated' sites are permitted in Australia, and all foreign 'X-rated' sites must be blocked regardless of the age of the viewer.

So basically, 'pornographic content' shouldn't be available to the Parliament (or anyone in Oz) in the first place. Blindness - a fine starting point for future reasoned debate!

A Real-World example of uninformed debate
-----------------------------------------
A friend recently returned from Costa Rica and said their War on Drugs is based on a survey that saud a quarter of voters 'felt drugs are a serious concern'. Concern, possibly, but not a problem, according to external public health agencies. Costa Rica has an extremely low drug usage rate -- about 1%.

Unfortunately, only in the past year has there been any real discussion of the facts (some local doctors held a public forum). Until now, 'drugs' were considered a 'dirty' subject that everyone just naturally opposed.

Costa Rica is a wonderful country, with a stable government, low cost of living, good medical care and a large expatriate USAn community - a great place to retire - but it has real infrastructure deficiencies that would benefit from the resources devoted to this misguided policy. I'd hate to be in an ambulance dodging their crater-sized potholes!)

The point is that this database provides for easy access to large volumes of sensitive data which is incorrect.
Have you ever tried getting a correction to your credit-card bill ? The CrimeNet database will be worse. As someone has already said, a lot of people would be suspicious of us for raising the issue in the first place ("If you've got nuffin to hide, then you don't need to hide.."), and CrimeNets first defence will bethat the Newspaper and Public rcords are incorrect. As it is, Australia has a piss-poor record in privacy anyway.

This is part of a disturbing trend in Australia... There are moves in another state (NSW) to set up a Police DNA database. In a recent trial, in a small town in NSW, people were forced by public opinion to submit to DNA examination. As it turned out, the perpetrator handed himself in. We have the Police Department's word that all samples were destroyed. In other words, we're all guilty.

Hey, Katz, did you see the quote from the CrimeNet guy ?
Mr Schultz said yesterday he was appalled at the suggestion that the site should be closed down. "We have a legitimate business operating within the law," he said.

"The reason I was speeding is.....

We've already lost our rights, remember?

Passed under the guise of anti-terrorism measures for the upcoming olympic games, various organisations now have a bunch of rights, including:
* use your PC as a monitoring device
* modify data &/or software for the purpose of achieving the above.
(It purports to extend the current legislation on installing audio devices.)

And all this without the usual audit trail required for evidence, because that might prejudice current or future investigations.

Check out http://www.efa.org.au/

So far, the Australian Broadcasting Authority has issue a couple of "Takedown Notices" to certain websites hosting prohibited content. Each of those sites was back up again running from an offshore host server within hours.

Electronic Frontiers Australia has more details..
--

Australia already has a (unworkable) censorship scheme for The Internet. At the moment it's only for porn, but perhaps they'll take a look at this too.

I mean traitors who steal state secrets are worse than pornographers aren't they? Oh hang on it was to appease some screwed up religous nut in government..

The thin edge of the wedge, as they say. If you want more info about what Australians have to put up with go to The EFA website.

If you take a look at Elecronic Frontiers Australia there is a document which the Aus government recalled earlier in the year suggesting this course of action. I'm not sure if I agree with the spooks installing trojans, but could it be any worse than echelon? FWIW, "they" would have to get up pretty early in the morning to get past some modern operating systems undetected, especially those used by only one person.

If you take a look at Elecronic Frontiers Australia there is a document which the Aus government recalled earlier in the year suggesting this course of action. I'm not sure if I agree with the spooks installing trojans, but could it be any worse than echelon? FWIW, "they" would have to get up pretty early in the morning to get past some modern operating systems undetected, especially those used by only one person.

Disclaimer: This started out as a response and turned into a bit of a rant, though I believe I've made my point adequately.

I think this is fair if a consumer has the right to see everything in the database under his name and delete it if he so wishes.

The problem is that we don't have the right and the government will not doing anything useful on its own initiative. The only good thing that I've seen from the current government is the intervention in the East Timor situation. Prior to this in the same term John Howard's government has screwed the university students over and allowed Brian Harradine, the 80-something year old codger from out-of-touch-with-reality-ville Tasmania, to force the draconian internet censorship laws through parliament. While this is a little off topic, I've always been a Liberal supporter because I believed that they had a genuine ability to do good for the country and repair some of the damage that has (arguably) been done as a result of the Labor governments over the last 10 years of their reign. If I was willing to stay in a country run by this bunch of dickheads any longer, next election I would be voting for National party, whose members were part of the few to oppose the censorship laws.

I digress.. The government seems willing to good, but lacks any clue on modern issues and relies on its anachronistic values to pull it through contemporary decisions - and in my judgement it is failing miserably. On issues in the public eye it is quick to action, not necessarily the right action but action so it is seen as acting. On peripheral issues it lacks the willingness or ability to do anything beyond burp and stutter, then pass some bet hedging legislation that ends up screwing the people over that it is supposedly there to protect.

Back to the issue at hand.. Australians have voluntarily been contributing to such schemes for years. Fly Buys is the best example. For those non-Australians here, Fly Buys is a scheme where when purchasing from any number of stores you use your Fly Buys card to accrue frequent flier miles (this seems to be the generic currency of such schemes) which may then be used to exchange for goods and services (anything from televisions to plane tickets). Does anyone believe that Fly Buys exists cause the big companys want to give away televisions and send you on holidays? Does anyone believe that there really is value in purchasing based on the gain of Fly Buys and not purchasing cheaper from a competitor? Unfortunately there are people that believe one or both of those options. Fly Buys exists for the sake of convenience of companies involved in the Fly Buys scheme. When you purchase a tank of petrol, it's recorded. When you buy the bag of kity litter from the Supermarket, it's recorded. When you buy a set of kids clothes from David Jones (like Maceys in the US?), it's recorded. Then X company does the numbers and figures it's a family household and send its brochures about Dreamworld holidays to you just in time for summer. Maybe this is a convenience for you, maybe not. Myself, I dislike being spammed, no matter how close to my interests it may be, and I dislike it even more when the spam appears in my mailbox with my name on it. I only want to receive what I've requested, and that should be the default option for anyone.