Slashdot Mirror
Draconian Censorship Push In South Australia
Diabolus writes: "Australian IT are reporting that the South Australian Government are about to pass a bill which mandates censorship of the Internet. Discussion of any "adult themed" content online now about to be outlawed - effectively anything worthy of an 18+ rating. Not only do Web pages fall under its scope, but also newsgroups and publicly archived mailing lists. Offshore content is also subject to this legislation if controlled by a South Australian. As a resident of SA, my freedom of speech is about to disappear ..."
Well Australia doesn't have the same 'freedom of speech' focus that the American constitution does. We also have much stricter laws on guns than the US does also, which IMHO is a very good thing.
Is this all-out ban on Adult content a bad thing? Possibly, but it -is- consistent with pornography laws throughout the country that prevents strong pornographic material being distributed in most states (barring the country's capital, go figure).
Australia needs a federal review of it's pornography laws that legalise distribution of pornographic material so that it can be better regulated, and the internet laws need to be consistent with other laws on pornography.
Some level of control is sensible, inconsistent or overly-strict laws are self-defeating.
I could see how Breast Exam sites might promote criminal behavior, someone might be tempted to commit random exams at a womens swimsuit photo shoot.
Just an idea - why not implement a system like that's being used for peer-to-perr file transfer for web data? Take something like freenet, then run your http traffic through it, encrypted. Then, not only is the traffic encrypted, but the location isn't known to the sender or reciever of the information, making it almost impossible to track or censor the information. It's kind of sad that we need to do that, but maybe these kind of draconian actions will force us hackers to come up with something that will protect our freedom in spite of (unjust) laws.
Combine this with a drive that's got a hard crypto filesystem, and you're sitting pretty. Just get 'em before they have content locks in the firmware! :).
Only after they had to stop sending them to the North American colonies.
The SA police are the most anti-fun, anti-pleasure police in all of Australia. SA residents should take this very seriously indeed!!
That doesn't surprise me. I saw a documentary once on the roving street gangs they have there. If I were a cop, I'd be pretty tight-assed, too if some guy calling himself Lord Humungus was terrorizing locals with his band of wheeled thugs.
Now it's free speech. Same as in Britain, now well on its way to becoming a police state. No surprise there.
No, you've got that a little wrong. Let me fix it for you.
If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. What don't you understand? Outlaws, by definition, don't obey laws...what makes you think gun laws will disarm them? And do you really expect a call to 911 to save you when a madman with a 12-gauge is pounding down your door? The police are only going to clean up after the fact.
Self-defense, plain and simple. More gov't, more laws, more restrictions to freedom ... they are not the answer.
-ChristTrekker
This implied right to freedom of speech already is limited under various state and federal laws - for example, libel and slander are illegal. In states such as NSW there are anti-vilification laws under which you can be punished if you publish material that could be deemed to incite hatred or violence.
I know that some of the American libertarian types out there may not like this - but I look at it this way, when speech is as 'free' as it is in the US, it basically becomes meaningless. At least in Australia, because we don't traditionally talk about having a 'right' to 'free speech' as such, it seems that we value using our speech wisely and responsibly _as well as_ valuing the freedom that we do have to speak our minds.
This is not to say that our governments don't occasionally pass some stupid laws... Hmm... don't you guys have an election this year? If so, make mandatory internet filtering an election issue. Think of it this way, a goodly chunk of the Bible would be filtered/banned! I am sure that those forces that are pushing for such filtering aren't aware that the GoodBook(tm) would also become invisible to kiddies..
Konquerer can be any browser you tell it to be. Opera has a similar feature.
Blimey, only a few posts in and already this discussion is officially declared dead by Godwin's Law.
Note that Godwin's Law, like Sturgeon's Law and Moore's Law, are not actually what the named person said. Godwin said that Nazis will be mentioned as a flame war goes on, not that it signifies the death of the argument. Sturgeon said "90% of everything is crud", not "crap" (although in this case, the meaning is retained.) Moore talked about transistor count doubling every 18 months, not processor speed.
I wonder what Murphy actually said?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Lawyers and judges look at intent all the time though. Intent is the only difference between many lesser crimes and their greater counterparts. Manslaughter and murder, for example. What is being created through the hate-crime laws is another level of crime, above our most severe crimes now. Now, if they can come up with enough evidence of your intent to blow up that gay pub because you hate gays, you are guilty of a crime greater than murder one. I'm really on the fence on this one. We already have several possible crimes that you can be convicted of if you kill someone. One part of me says, "Who cares if we have one more?" On the other hand, I'm afraid of how this could be abused (as most laws eventually are). I guess I think that if you can convict someone of murder one, then they'll be punished enough. Anything more than that is overkill (NPI, I live in Texas).
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Marijuana is decriminalized and all that.
Oh. So that's the cause for such laws. Now I see.
Is smoking dope mandatory for legislative bodies' members or just a traditional habit?
There's a lot of articles about "smoking dope makes your worse driver/student/whatever". Now we can make a case about "smoking dope makes you stupid legislator" too.
-- Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
--
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
Are you insane?
As a British subject I don't really have a choice (Until Scotland declares independance and becomes a republic) but you Auzzies *voted* to remain subjects!
Deleted
Blimey, only a few posts in and already this discussion is officially declared dead by Godwin's Law
Look, this whole discussion is bollocks.
Different countries have a right to censor their little patch of the net any which way they like. As techies, we all know it's pointless, but we aren't going to change any minds, so why not just let them get on with it and discover that it's pointless for themselves?
--
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
I was shocked to learn Canada did exactly the same thing for native americans in the west coast, a couple of days ago in a TV documentary about a wood carver in BC.
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
Yeah well, thats Islam for you, a religion still stuck in the middle ages.
...er... christianity is stucked in the antique age ... is it not?
' far as I know, the only "modern" religion is Pokemon.
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
You're deluding yourself about the purity of their motives if you really think that'd make any difference at all.
-----
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I tried an internal modem, but it hurt when I walked.
Oh, you mean like PICS ratings?n ic ator/netwatch/
n te ntAdv/default.asp
See:
http://www.w3.org/PICS/
http://www.rsac.org/
http://home.netscape.com/comprod/products/commu
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/Ie/Features/Co
I know what you mean, Godwin's Law and all that, but censorship is the beginning of a slippery slope; it is indicative of a repressive regime that may, if unchecked, move on to greater excesses. They do, after all, have a poor record with regard to Aboriginal rights, as does the USA re. native Indians and other coloureds, and as do we re. Jews (the Nazis didn't invent anti-semitism, you know, King Edward I was one of the pioneers of that field).
Don't feel too bad, the Canadian federal Liberal Party is almost as bad.
Vote with your feet. Move out. Go somewhere with at least less censorship, preferably none. Or, worst case, if you can't afford to move, refuse to work with any sort of censored computers. Then watch their economy go to the dogs from the brain drain. That should make the message pretty clear.
Long time exile from Oz here, wondering
if that is related to SA being the
first state to get this daft.
The point I would like to make is this: I don't own any guns, but if I want to have one I want to be able to buy one.
You namby-pamby we will not take away my rights to own a weapon, I will not give in. I am a free man, born and raised in a country settled by free men who came in with guns and killed most of the free men that were already here killing each other with sticks.
The point isn't whether guns help defend you against any particular form of attack, or if they're dangerous to have around, or if some people will use them to do horrible things to each other (you forgot to mention in another post that the recent "armed massacres" in Africa were mostly accomplished with clubs and machetes rather than guns)... the point is, are you going to be a free man and take responsibility for trying to make your community a safer place with actual work and communication? Or will you give in to the chickenshits who would trade your freedoms for "safety" under the oh-so-protective wing of legislation?
The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion.
Gosh tarkas, thanks for providing a much better response than I could ever manage. :)
The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion.
This is basically a reaction by a Goverment scared of big swings to the opposition in other state elections and the emerging strength of a nationalistic bunch of rednecks called One Nation.
The standard of debate on slashdot on Auastralian political topics is usually poor, and this is an example of people opening their mouths before they think. The Bill was introduced in November 2000.
It's a pretty fundamental error. Your presentation of the Liberal Party as a purely conservative party is misleading also. It's comparable calling the American Democrats 'just a bunch of unionists'.
Believe with me, my saplings.
It's a shame that while you're happy to whine about the political situation, but will just sit back and wait for a party to get it right rather than going out there and making it happen yourself.
Given that the Labor Party is a faction-dominated farce, whose decisions are made entirely by backroom deals and where you leading open policy debate is certain to getting you hammered by the right/left faction 'machine' and ruining your prospects, I somehow don't think they're approach to individual freedom is going to be anything special.
Believe with me, my saplings.
Speak for yourself! Wheres the pr0n?
It's "Ruxton". Is he still head of the RSL ?
Wrong. Two different governments (SA is a state govt). The other states don't have these kind of censorship laws.
Oddly enough, it's the states where those right wing dolts get in (like South Australia and Western Australia) that tend to have draconian censorship laws. Censorship in Australia has nothing to do with gun laws -- in fact censorship tends to be championed by the same right wing dolts who are pro-gun.
Wrong: One nation go several steps beyond merely opposing economic globalism. Like several other hard line isolationist movements, they're bigots, and this is why they are despised.
people are too irresponsible to own guns, but they're responsible enough to view what they want on the web, etc, etc.
The difference is that it's easier to hurt someone with a gun than it is by looking at webpages.
And while sending people to jail for refusing to vote doesn't neccesarily make you Nazis,
People are not sent to jail for refusing to vote.
it certainly goes to show that Australia is no democracy.
Tell me something -- if less than 50% of the people vote, do you have a democracy ? And can anyone speak of having a "mandate" when the system itself cannot win a majority of voters ?
If you can't chose not to vote, you have no democratic freedom.
You can choose not to vote -- just write "voting should not be compulsory" on your ballot paper. All the laws say is that you should drag your sorry ass to the polling booth. It doesn't say that you need to fill out your ballot correctly.
The result is that the elections are administered with the expectation that a lot of people will vote. We don't need to wait 3 hours in line to vote, we don't have large scale disenfranchisement of the voters.
Perfect, no. No system is perfect (not even the US system!) But I'd say the system is pretty good. The US system is also quite good, but you'd be a fool to fail to see that it also is not without flaws.
And what happens when private corporations controls culture?
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Religious schools continue to publish -openly- that the successful candidate for publicly advertised non-teaching positions (for example, IT Technician) "must be committed members of a Christian church".
Err, what is wrong with that? Should a private organisation be banned by legislation from doing this? Should they also not request that successful candidates have qualified IT skills? Being a Christian is probably part of the job, why shouldn't it be part of the description?
Well, I can certainly see your point, but I don't think you should outlaw what someone can put on their job advertisement. Speaking of censorship and heavy government...
But I do think you perhaps missed the point I was trying to make. There *are* similar laws here.
Why shouldn't we be able to have a men-only club? Why shouldn't we be able to have a women-only club? Why shouldn't we be able to have a Nobel-prize-winnning-physicists-only club? Of course, then we'll be able to have white-only or black-only clubs... in all probably based on racial hatred. Is this why we have these laws?
But we do have these exclusive hate-based groups. Outlawing discrimination in the name of stopping intolerance or hatred will not get rid of intolerance or hatred anymore than outlawing Internet porn will stop people from viewing it. You will only end up suffocating society with silly laws. Yes, this is a worldwide problem.
Glad to know I wasn't the only one thinking this ... and have they improved with age? (i.e. gained wisdom and intelligence?)
Ummm. no.
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Delphis
Come move to Western Australia.. our draconian net censorship laws came into effect years ago. Back then they hadn't thought of half the things that they have decided to ban in SA!
Not for the job, but for the requisite approval. My page has a few facts, plus some hidden pictures of my first grandchild. I'm sure there are lot's of innocent pages like mine. Soon we will all be able to emigrate to South Austrailia, and get a government job right away.
Bill
Actually, I think if you'll read the American Bill of Rights, you'll see that it's the second amendment which preserves the right to bear arms. The first amendment is the freedom of speech (you know, that other thing people don't have in Australia, according to this article :)
The incidence of people being shot during traffic altercations in the U.S. must be over-reported overseas; most guns around here are accidentally used by the owner's children to shoot each other instead (tongue very firmly in cheek).
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Well, but that matches up perfectly with the whole censorship thing, doesn't it? According to you, it's OK to give up rights if that's what the majority wants. And if you're in the minority but have legitimate reasons for holding a different viewpoint, you're out of luck.
This is exactly why you need a strong federal Constitution, to protect the rights of the minority against the depredations of the mob. Because let's face it - the great masses and their representatives are going to vote for the easy way out every time, rather than face the real responsibilities of citizenship in a representative government.
I'm just sorry for the Australians who are fully cognizant of their natural rights to defend themselves but have had their rights trampled on by the majority. Don't look now, but the next set of rights to strip away might be the ones that you find important.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
...and now they're unavailable to all. How exactly was this a great moral victory, giving in to the majority and all?
This is what a constitution is for - it protects the rights of the minority against whatever bright idea the majority has today.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Unfortunately, the two parties have warped state electoral laws enough to destroy any advantage that the electoral college might have provided. Electors are no longer statesmen or even really representatives in other than the technical sense; they're just party hacks who are picked for their extreme unwillingness to actually think about whom they're electing President.
We might as well go with straight popular vote counts or even instant runoff - at least that way the eventual winner could truly say that they have a mandate from a plurality of the country.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Good point - what we really need now is the right to reverse-engineer and the right to strong encryption.
Although I agree with the right to bear arms, I have to point out that the amount of firepower in the hands of private citizens isn't necessarily the determining factor in winning a resistance to a corrupt U.S. government - the citizens of Vietnam did wonders with much simpler equipment, for example. Of course you're going to lose against tanks if you make a stand from an armed compound; but the U.S. government doesn't have a large enough standing army to withstand a widespread guerrilla movement which has popular support. I'm not sure that any size of standing army could effectively control the U.S. against a unified, unhappy populace, but then again it seems to work in China.
Not that I'm fomenting a revolution, but I see how it could be done. As did Thomas Jefferson, etc.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Why is there no penalty for politicians who vote for a non-constitutional law? A nice, economic penalty for those who vote for a law which is later ruled as unconstitutional, would probably remove quite some stupid law-making...
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Internet censorship has technical solutions.
And technical solutions can be legislated against...
Cheers,
Tim
It's official. Most of you are morons.
To set up a co-lo bonx somewhere reasonable, and use a VPN to connect to it.
:-)
On the co-lo box you can then use IP forwarding and masquerading to view any sites you want.
The upside is that it is encrypted, when it passes through the aussie censors
The only downside is that it can run to about £100 a month in hosting charges + initial cost of the machine, having said that though, you should be able to split the cost with some mates.
If enough people are interested, I might set up one of these for my poor Aussie relations.
The secret of success is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake those, you've got it made. (Marx)
I say nominal cause the fact is that without serious firepower far in excess of what is allowed into private hands, there's no way that any group of people could seriously mount any sort of resistance against the US military. See Waco.
Actually, that is pretty much not true. Waco is not a good example, because a small group like that, short of nuclear weapons could never expect to take down a government. On the other hand if there were hundreds of such groups with a common cause against the government, spread across a large area, then the government would have a serious problem. If those groups were able to get widespread popular support, then the government would be in a world of trouble. While an organized military stands a good chance against any small encampment or bunker of people, they tend to have real problems fighting a large scale guerilla war.
The North Vietnamese were able to beat the US despite being totally outmatched for weapons and equipment, and would have eventually done so even without Russian and/or Chinese support (just as they beat the French largely without significant outside backing).
The Afghans beat the Soviets similarly, and with very little assistance from us and with much more primitive weapons and what they stole from the Russians.
During the fall of the Soviet Union, people loyal to Boris Yeltsin used privately owned weapons to defend Yeltsin's compound, and the Soviets didn't have a good record on gun freedom (although it wasn't totally impossible to legally own anything like it is in the UK or Australia).
The Zapatistas down in central Mexico have been giving the government there fits for years, and they hardly have any backing at all, and they have been doing it in a country with draconian (although like anything in Mexico, poorly enforced) gun control.
And for an example closer to home, although not so recent... The Confederacy, though ultimately unsuccessful, was able to fight for a long time and inflict significant damage to the Union during the Civil War, and they made extensive use of privately owned arms. And no, I don't believe in slavery...
One thing you don't seem to take into account... In a guerilla war, the standing army becomes the rebel's supply line, so eventually what the army has, the rebels have. There are hundreds of thousands of military trained citizens in the US, many of whom have guerilla and counter-insurgency training. And for that matter, how easy is it for a standing army to take on people who look, talk and think like themselves? In numbers, if the military were to be used against civilians in this country, desertion would be widespread. How many soldiers if not whole units might change side if they thought that they were defending the constitution and the people against a corrupt government?
This whole 'the people wouldn't stand a chance against the government' thing comes up every time that gun control is mentioned, and it just doesn't fly.
Africa is full of countries where the citizens are well armed and, guess what, it makes for a living hell.>
I don't think that is what makes those countries a living hell. It is more likely massive scale poverty. Even in African countries with long running civil wars, you are more likely to die of malnutrition or from AIDS or other diseases than you are to be killed with a firearm.
But why go to Africa when you can go to LA? There are parts of US cities where gun ownership is very high and, guess what, it makes for a living hell.
California already has much more strict gun control than most of the rest of the country, and it has a worse crime problem than average too. There is no reason to think that more legislation will help. They can't seem to enforce what is already on the books. The same thing seems to hold true elsewhere in the country. The more gun control that is enacted, the more crime. Washington D.C. should be your ideal place to live, as guns are almost completely illegal to own there. Guess what, it has an order of magnitude more murders than does Arlington, VA, which is right across the river, has similar ethnic and economic demographics and where guns are legal. States in the midwest, for example which have little gun control, and a much higher per-capita gun ownership rate have sigificantly lower crime and murder rates than do east and west coast cities with extensive gun control laws.
The German example is actually a good illustration of where the NRA would like to go
Actually, that is a blatantly slanderous assertion. The NRA is actually very anti-fascist. Hitler was a big proponent of gun control, especially for Jews. The Nazi position on gun control and the 'pinko' one is basically the same: only the government should have guns. For that matter in the long run, the only difference between fascists and stalinists is the order in which they will remove all of your rights and the rhetoric they will use to try to justify doing it. In the end the average guy gets screwed.
The difference in the NRA's intent and the result of their actions is important. I'm sure most members do not understand that what they are doing is leading down the road a fascist state.
I still don't see any sort of reasonable evidence that anything the NRA is doing is leading towards a fascist state. Things the previous (very anti-NRA) administration were doing (Clipper, key escrow, burning cult members, gutting the bill of rights) certainly seem more in line with 'leading down the road of a fascist state'.
A fascist state (in post-nazi terms) is one where the strong rule.
That is far too simplistic a definition to be useful.
Guns make people stronger, but only in attack. To use the strength a gun gives you requires it's use or the threat to use it (and the threat must be backed up occasionally by actual use). This leads to the fascist position where if you dislike what someone says to you you just shoot them (so much for freedom of speech!), which Hitler actively encouraged amoungst "true ayrans".
Oh, please. That is about as much of a stretch as it would take to span the grand canyon. Presence of a gun, and the willingness to use it (in self defense, or the defense of others) does not necessarily lead to unrestricted mayhem in the streets as you would lead people to believe. There are several states which have liberalized concealed carry laws (often enacted, as in Florida, in order to eliminate racism in the permit issuance system) and they have actually seen a decrease in violent crime since it has become easier and more fair to get a concealed carry permit.
Legal gun owners tend to be much more responsible than illegal owners. Most of the violent crime is committed by people with previous felony convictions, who are already prohibited from firearms possession. The government can't stop criminals from importing thousands if not millions of tons of drugs into the country, how can they keep them from getting guns?
A well run democracy is a far better solution to a society's troubles than arming everyone and hoping they'll all get along.
A well run democracy isn't incompatible with firearms ownership. The US didn't have any significant problems with that until prohibition (no, the 'wild west' is almost entirely fictional and exaggerated) threw things out of balance. Once prohibition was repealed the gang violence problem dissapated. Things didn't start falling apart again until drug prohibition started becomming a problem. We should learn from history and figure out the 'war on drugs' isn't working, and isn't going to work. It has basically turned into a war on the bill of rights, and it is what is leading the US on the road to fascism, if anything.
From an incredibly high base. Look at countries where gun control is enacted and compare the number of fatal shootings. On a per capita basis there are few states in the US which aren't worse than Northern Ireland at the height of the troubles in the 70s.
I guess I am fortunate enough to live in one of those states, however, I tend to doubt your statistics a little when it comes to total violent crime rates. Or at least just comparing the number of shootings is not the only thing to consider. Having been in the US during the 70s and now, I'd much rather be here than in Northern Ireland, thank you very much. I've never been to Ireland, but I've been to the UK, and I can't say that I felt any more safe there than I do where I live.
If everyone has a gun then every criminal will have a gun with which to be irresponsible. Not a great help.
Who said anything about everyone. Felons would be excepted, very few people would disagree with that. If a large share of everyone else might be armed at any given time, felons would have to be much more careful with what they did. Besides that if the criminals have guns now, then increasing the number of honest citizens that do is improving the odds. Switzerland for example actually requires firearms possession and training for many of their citizens, and they have a lower violent crime rate than the UK or Australia.
Yes it is.
We will have to disagree on this one then.
The freedom to say what you like without living in fear of being shot is part of having a democracy.
I say what I like now and I don't fear being shot, and I live in a state with relatively few gun control laws. Many places with strict gun control laws (like the UK or Australia) I would be much more fearful of saying what I like for fear of being jailed, if not shot.
I don't think that a widely armed populace would lead to people being gunned down in the streets over words, or we'd see it happening already, and we don't. The vast majority of our violent crime is related to the marketing of illegal drugs.
Guns are not the only weapons but they are among the best.
Guns are only a tool, and as such they can be used for good or bad.
Kennedy was shot, Lincoln was shot, Reagan was shot. How much harder would it be to have stabbed them, and how much better would their chances of survival have been?
Well, Reagan did survive. What would their chances have been if the assassins chose to use suicide bombers? There is no 100% way to avoid political assasinations.
Arguments will always lead to some violence, it is better to limit the potential of that violence even at the "risk" of making a fanciful future rebellion a bit more fanciful.
The benefits of firearms ownership outweigh that though, for all of the few people who are shot every year, guns are used by law abiding citizens to prevent crimes many more times. And if you ban guns, then your arguments will revert back to the physically strongest always having the upper hand, so its not really that big of a win.
Mainly in duration, it was pretty wild but not for very long.
The wild west has been grossly exaggerated in both duration and intensity. As in other places where there is or have been very little civilization, you would be far more likely to die of disease than from a gunshot in the 'wild west'. The biggest killers in those days were influenza and cholera. Drunk driving these days kills an order of magnitude more people than do gunshot wounds. Deaths due to smoking related illnesses kill far more than that. You don't see me calling for a return of prohibition or a ban on tobacco.
This is true but are you going to get a gun and go tell congress to sort it out? How long would you last?
As I've said before, one person can't stand alone against the government.
Would it make any difference if everyone who thought that way went with you (with guns)?
Getting that number of people (somewhere around 76 million gun owners in the US according to what I've read) to agree on much of anything would be a challenge. Anything that you could, would provide a force to be reckoned with.
Do you think the 60's riots would have got faster results if the civil rights protesters had had guns, our would there just have been a lot more dead people?
There is no question that if the 60's protesters had been armed, then the riots would have been over and resolved much more quickly, one way or the other. There might have been a less death and destruction if the riots hadn't lasted on and off for 5 or 6 years, but that is hard to say. Believe it or not, most people think twice before they arm themselves and go into a situation like that.
Acutally, even your comment does not go far enough to reflect the historical thinking in place at the time the Second Amenedment was debated, passed, and ratified. All indicators are that it was intended to be a personal right. Each individual was expected to possess arms that he knew how to use. It was clearly not for militias, because before the 1776, Pennsylvania had a provision for the right to bear arms in their state constitution, and they did not even have a militia. Too bad there is no branch of the Federal government willing to recognize these facts. The Framers' intent is a good thing, I guess, until it gets in the way of the need to control the people. --mad
Still, there remain stupid poiticians in the government there (as well as just about everywhere else in the world, which is not unexpected, since usually one has to be stupid to be a politician). You could try working on expunging the stupid ones, if it is the case that their numbers are low enough to make this practical.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Aren't these all Federal politicians?
I don't know of an email list but State members can be found here
Don't stress folks. I live in SA and I can tell you now that there are no storm troopers out the window.
SA was amongst the first places in the world to give women a vote, gave rights to aborigines before most other states etc. Marijuana is decriminalized and all that. Good food and wine, lots of motor sports, great climate - could be worse.
The government here is mostly powerless and these sorts of laws are unenforcable. Anarchy is just around the corner anyway.
So chill out. People should be more concerned about concentration of media ownership and draconian defamation laws in Australia. Internet censorship has technical solutions.
Um ...
... and ... don't quite know what to do about this.
As a resident of Adelaide, SA, i am rather shocked
Lots of SSH and SSL? Tunnel PPP over SSH from a shell in the US?
Suggestions, ideas?
martin.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
See Vietnam. I'm no military scholar, but I doubt that the military would be able to occupy and hold this country against an armed citizenry determined to resist it. Not to mention the demoralizing effects on the troops from fighting their brothers and sisters. Which, I suspect, is why the govt. tends to keep such a suspicious eye on all of those paramilitary organizations.
...and they lost most of their gun rights too a couple years ago...Amazing how those tend to come one right after the other.
The US still has the right to bear arms. And what's happened there? "Lobbyists" from major corporations and other well-financed organisations providing bribes thinly disguised as "campaign contributions" to get some laws passed and other laws defeated. What do Americans have as a result? The Digital Millenium Copyright Act. UCITA. Communications Decency Act (which got defeated). Anti-spam bills being rejected in committee. Schools and libraries that receive federal funding being required to install censorware or forfeit their funding.
Not to mention Florida's farcical election result. That made American democracy a worldwide laughingstock because the US lacks a uniform national organisation to administer national elections in a consistent manner.
So it's clear that the availability of guns has nothing to do with the quality of legislation that's passed or the quality of government. How are they to help? Are we going to see thousands of rednecks with guns storming Congress and forcing Congressmen to pass or defeat laws at gunpoint?
One thing that many Americans don't understand is that the Port Arthur massacre of 1995 and the Hoddle Street and Queen Street massacres of 1987 are not normal events here in Australia. As a result, the community would rather see tighter and more uniform gun laws than run the risk of more such events. You can still get guns in Australia if you have the appropriate licence. Because you don't need an AK-47 to shoot rabbits and other vermin, you can't buy an AK-47 over the counter anymore. After all, you can't eat a pink mist.
Students here in Australia go to school without being required to pass through metal detectors. I can walk down to the local shops after dark without fear. Our leaders do not need elaborate security precautions before appearing in public. These are some of the reasons why American visitors to the Olympics were correctly advised that Australia was a safer country to visit than the US.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
You're sixteen, huh? Bad luck. You get to vote at 18, but chances are you'll have to wait until you're 22 or so before you vote at your first state election, because the next state election is due in SA in the next 12 to 15 months, and you may not be of voting age then.
I think this law will make it onto the Dumb Laws website, http://www.dumblaws.com/. In fact, if I was you, I would send an e-mail and nominate this law as soon as it's passed.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Sex is heriditary, if your parents didn't have it chances are good you won't either.
What with cloning and in-vtro fertilization and same sex marriages it seems to me that your statement is becomming outmoded.
MOVE 'ZIG'.
We have public health care, publicly funded university loans, national welfare institutions, etc, in short, a lot of things Americans have sacrificed to a combination of neo-liberal and right-wing ideology.
I really like it when somebody from another country spouts off about something they obviously know nothing about.
For your information, the US has a large number of public health care programs, national welfare institutions and publically funded university loans. The only presumable difference between the programs in the US and Australia is that the US programs are perhaps a bit narrower in scope - we don't have an unlimited right to welfare for life, nor is there universal free health care, and there may be means tests associated with the student loans.
MOVE 'ZIG'.
Uhhh...what's your point? Private organizations SHOULD be able to put whatever requirements they want to on employees. I would expect that all employees of a Christian school to be practicing Christians. OTOH, institutions supported by public funds are the ones that have to be careful about non-discrimination laws.
Partially, but it is an outgrowth of the severe (and, in retrospect well warranted) fear of government and its perpetual drive to infringe on the rights of individuals that was held by the founders.
Once it is gone, tattoo a number on your forehead because at that point we become just so many STATE ASSETS.
--- Mercutio was right.
[rant mode | on]
Why can't software developers take it upon themselves to integrate a web filter into their browsers as a standard component? If all browsers had a content-screening feature enabled as a default, wouldn't this would keep governments at bay and empower parents who normally find it impossible to monitor everything their children see on the internet?
Would this solve everthing? Absolutely not, but modifying the vehical for which children and sensitive people view psychologically harmful material is a start.
[rant mode | off]
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
The harder the various Australian Governments push these absurd laws the futher behind the Australian IT industry is going to be. And I suppose that next you will saying that australian society will fall down next, and become nothing but a heap of junk because of this. Funny thing is though, just to north of Australia, is a little country known as Singapore. Much tight laws (no porn allowed[1], or chewing gum (or is that one an urban myth..))... Newsflash. The economic world doesn't revolve around IT. The only people who think that are the people that have the most to gain from it. The reason the "dot com" bubble burst is because of reasoning like this. IT is the solution to everyone's problem in the entire world. E-commerce will save everyone. Unless of course the people that run these companies have no idea on how to run a company, go bust, losing millions in investments. Yes, that would be a good reason why the economy would slow. With a population of 19 million people, I would say on a overall scale that Australia is actually doing quite well in the overall stakes in regards to IT. No we don't have a Microsoft, an Intel, a Red Hat, instead, we have companies that do the things they do well without all of the publicity (see http://it.fairfax.com.au/networking/20010220/A2331 5-2001Feb19.html) for an idea of what I am talking about.
[1] The no porn I am fairly certain of because it says so on the cards you fill in on the plane when you are coming in to land.
Our politicians don't make overt displays of religious ferver. Three words. Reverend Fred Nile
We're generally not in the habit of making our voting choices on a single issue.
True in most cases.
We tend to consider a party's/candidate's entire policy platform when it comes to filling in a ballot. Generally true. It also depends on how our parents voted, how we where brought up... How specific policies affect both us and the community around us. Before the last federal election, I was talking to someone about the GST, and he said that even though it would benefit him at all (large wage earner), he could see the benefits it would give to the rest of the community, so this change his vote from a traditional labor man (and union rep), to a liberal vote.
In general if the political system is not ingrained in you (i.e., your have been brainwashed since you where a child, you have been brainwashed at uni into thinking socalism is the answer to the worlds problems, yeah right!), then it all comes down to a choice of the lesser of 2 evils. Much like in most societies that would consider themselves a democracy (can anyone say Bush v Gore).
...but this time with X rated material.
Didn't you watch A Current Affair... In actual fact, you can only get X rated materials in ACT and NT in Australia. You can get R rated stuff everywhere else though. Of course, you could else look in the local paper for someone to deliver you these X rated materials (the whole point of the ACA story).... aca.ninemsn.com.au (note it doesn't work in konqueror, bloody browser detects...)
Yes you are correct. I had mental blank at the time. He is still the head of the vic division, and even if he wasn't, he still be making sure he put in his 2c (or should that be 2.2c incuding GST), into everything...
You see, guns aren't actually necessary for most people.... Oh yes they are. Any day now the Indonesian and Japanese are going to come down through the Top End (assuming of course that aren't eaten by the crocodiles, snakes, spiders,... general nasties that us Aussies have in all of our backyards, fighting for room with the kangaroos, koalas and the BBQ with the shrimp on it), and the only way to stop these invaders is the good old shotgun... Actually, there are those in rural Australia that do believe this to be true, and have secret caches of weapons in case this does occur. I kid you not. This is also the areas where One Nation does well in member support. yeah,...the nationals are sticking up for us enough... we need guns cause the army would save us, and the yanks won't save us.... Just as Bruce Ruskin (?) head of the Victorian RSL....
Are you an idiot or just a troll?
Name one time in the past 300 or so years when the US Government has reversed a decision because some citizens had guns.
Democracies and democratic republics make decisions based on what's popular to most people, or at least to a vocal minority. They don't care if the people are armed or not, they care about how many votes they get at the next election.
Do you honestly doubt that if the US government thought it was popular enough they'd find a way to limit people's access to "naughty things"? They'd do it if it seemed to them that enough people supported them. If a small vocal minority disagreed with them, it wouldn't matter much. If that small vocal minority had guns, it woudn't matter much. If that small vocal minority used their guns they would be either arrested or killed.
Face it, "the right to bear arms" is an anchronism. A small group armed with rifles has about as much chance of affecting political change as an email to the whitehouse.
If you want to make a difference you need a lot of supporters or a lot of money. A lot of guns will just get you killed.
Wasn't Australia the island where the british sent all their criminals and other "anti-social" people to get rid of them ?
However, the colony of South Australia was founded by free settlers as a business venture. Unlike almost all of the other states (i.e. former colonies), which *were* made up from criminals and those sent to guard them, at least initially.
Messes up your "theory", doesn't it.
deus does not exist but if he does
Sure there is a vocal crowd who oppose such things as keeping refugees in concentration camps, but these are (smelly hippies || professional protestors || 'do-gooders')
Remember that this in contravention of UN human rights treaties that we (Australia) have signed, and puts us in about the same position as Burma or Pakistan when it comes to making statements on human rights abuses in other countries. (East Timor, for example).
i.e. not a very credible one - "do as I say, not as I do"
deus does not exist but if he does
Vaguely related fact: The capital of South Australia (Adelaide) is known as the 'city of churches' as it has more per capita than any of the other Australian states / territories. (Fortunately in my case I'm from Sydney).
:)
Apparently Adelaide also has more brothels per capita as well. (No, I haven't indulged
deus does not exist but if he does
how the HELL does this rate as insiteful. Its simply a reactionary and uninformed, 'stupid-ass' post.
... i defy you to go find a web page that contains all my thoughts. Or the guys next to me, or my grandmother who can't even SPELL internet. Or perhaps the other 90% of the populas on EARTH that don't have internet access.
How the HELL can you equate INTERNET censorship with THOUGHT censorship? The Internet is NOT our thoughts
Why don't you THINK before you SPEAK. Its people like YOU who whole annoy the shit out of clear thinking, inteligent people with your wild-eyed conspiracy theories.
grow up.
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us.
We emerge from our mother's womb an unformatted diskette; our culture formats us. - Douglas Coupland
I don't know what you people are getting so mad about. I think having sensors on the internet would be a great idea! I mean if a router goes down or something is wrong the "sensors" would indicate it just like a car and then....
..........<BSSSSSSST>
Hey! Wait a minute... It's "censor", not "sensor"?
WELL THAT'S JUST FU*CKING
<<Connection blocked by South Australia Gov.>>
<<Resume your pleasurable internet experience!>>
So if enlightened ISP's were to cooperate they could effectively "boycott" an entire region by ignoring requests from specific ip addresses.
You made a bit of a jump from "the people" doing something in your first post to "enlightened ISP's" doing something in this one.
Do you want "unenlightened ISPs" telling elected governments what to do too or is it a power reserved for those ISPs that agree with you?
If I remember correctly its illegal for prople to own guns in Australia.
You poor people got suckered into giving up your guns and now you'll be suckered into giving up your other rights that depended on your being able to keep and bear arms. How are you supposed to be able to defend your rights against this kind of BS if you've been rendered powerless?
Democracy is not possible if the people have no authority. Authority is simply another word for the ability to exert a certain ammount of force without being penalized for it. You aussies have given up your authority, I hope you're pleased with the result.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
You are pretty close. This is a meme in Sweden approaching Zero Wing in its overexposure. Basically, someone takes a Turkish folk song and "translating" it into rendering the Turkish syllables into what most closely resembles Swedish, and uses that as the subtitles. The results are, of course, nonsensical: "Glue a bit of ham, way cool!" Some people find the fake translations funny, though. This is the third of these I've seen.
"The good die first." "Most of us are morally ambiguous, which explains our random dying patterns." --- MST3K
Being ordered to attack civillians who are in the process of throwing out government officials who have used their office to supress the Constitution would be unlawful.
This is true. However, being ordered to attack revolutionist anarchists bent on overthrowing the democratically elected government, which has the mandate of the people by the Constitution is a lawful order. The thing you fail to realise is that by your own Constitution, it is not the people or the military who are the interpreters of the Constitution itself, but the judiciary. An order only has to be believed to be lawful for it to be carried out - a soldier is not a trained lawyer and cannot be expected to act as one (thank God). To overthrow a government which is abusing its office and suppressing the Constitution, according to the Constitution should be done through the legal system. Anyone who suggests a military uprising of the people is either delusional, crazy, naive or has an ulterior motive.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
Yeah, I meant the second amendment. Sorry.
;-)
Freedom of speech in Australia is interesting. You have freedom of political speech (including the ability to criticize the government) in law, but not general freedom of speech - the government can legitimately suppress the media on matters of a non-political nature (I believe). This actually isn't a bad thing (IMHO) - you have the freedom of speech you need: the ability to criticize those in power.
As for children shooting each other - you are absolutely correct. I can see the need for firearms in a society and culture such as the US and you have the right to them in law. In Australia there is certainly no need for a private citizen to carry a firearm in public. Personally I support the idea of gun control in the same way you have car control - licences to use and the vehicle itself must be registered to be used, and can only be used legally in designated areas.
As for needing a second amendment for there to be a first, this is numerically stupid. If it was that way around then the second would be first and the first second. The maths just doesn't make sense.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
This has to be one of the most stupid ideas I've ever heard. Just how many people are taking up arms against the US Government over the DeCSS or Napster issues? What would happen if someone decided to organize an armed overthrow of the government?
I'll tell you - they would last about 5 seconds. In fact, why don't you take your gun into the court room, or to the white house and see what happens? Bet you don't change the law.
Saying that the first amendment was put in place to facilitate armed overthrow of the elected government is daft. It was put there (if you read your American history) as a safeguard against foreign invasion in a time when communication was somewhat less rapid than it is today.
Personally I like having the right to expect someone else in the street not to be armed in Australia, and I fail to understand why Americans continually deny themselves that right. Of course, you may indeed choose whatever rights you like - that's the point of democracy and I'll help defend democracy even if I don't believe in the specifics of each nation's laws. I just like having the right to cut someone off in traffic accidentally and not have to worry as much about being shot. I like that. If you've never lived here for any length of time then you have no right, and no perspective to criticise our FREE choice to not arm our citizens.
Fear: When you see B8 00 4C CD 21 and know what it means
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
Yep, but to all people across the world whose speech rights are being taken away (that does also includes the US, don't forget DeCSS !) there's a solution :
FreeNet
The definitive end of all censorship and copyrights !
Is there a chance of your legislators pulling their heads out of their arses, if all the ISPs in South Australia simply shut off their routers for a day, or a week, or however long it takes to make the point?
You could always claim that you simply can't operate in the current legal climate.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
What SA did (arguably) was to refrain from infringing on the rights of the aborigines sooner than the rest of the country, but please don't make the mistake of believing that your rights are given by your country.
Rights are not a gift of the state.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You said that the right to bear arms doesn't *exist* in other countries. I'd say that the right exists everywhere, the question is which countries do or do not prohibit their government from infringing on that right. The constitution of the USA specifically enjoins our government from trying to take away our means to defend ourselves, but they keep on trying.
The constitution doesn't *grant* any rights at all. It is merely a statement of our *intention* to preserve our rights, which are intrinsic to free people.
The right to bear arms is one's right to self-defense, whether from criminals, governments (I know, same thing), or even wild animals.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Nonsense. Any goverment can censor the Internet.
The level of EFFECTIVENESS will vary though.
What a great tool to use against your citizens when you want to keep them in line. Just threaten them with "Cirumventing web filter laws and viewing illegal content."
And I'm surprised it's Australia that's pushing this sort of thing.
Later
ErikZ
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Governments, corporations or any other centrally controlled body really dont have any chance to control the content of the net, technically, politically etc.
Is there already a 'standard' for website classifications ?? If so why isnt it in the dev tools that we use ? Im quite sure that the majority of website developers would be quite happy to put a classification on their site. Even pr0n sites often have a cover page that states they are all for protecting access to their sites - im sure they would self-rate their sites appropriately. The browsers just have to read the classification of the site, check it against the allowed level and load or deny as appropriate.
The remaining problem if incorrect self-classifications is a LOT smaller than attempting to classify every site.
It's just another means of breaking up the printing presses.
Governments' ideal is a crime that you cannot avoid commiting. That gives unlimited control of the activity by selective prosecution. ISP's will all be owned by a few who can purchase immunity and can be relied on to not annoy the government or any of it's friends.
Zax
-- We are Linux. Resistance is measured in Ohms.
South Australia used to be the most progressive state in the country, being the first to give the vote to women, legalise homosexuality, liberalise drug laws etc. and Queensland and Western Australia the most reactionary. With the recent chucking out of a very dry right-wing government in WA (and it's replacement with a likely Labor/Greens coalition) and the re-election of Labor (and general rejection of the Pauline Hanson Retarded Redneck Party) by a massive majority in Queensland, it seems that this role has been reversed.
- Daniel
You never know about the constitutional test - after all, they are passing the law itself. That says enough about their "constitution."
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
The tyranny of the majority is one reason why we have the electoral college.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
http://www.avagara.com/e_c/reference/00012001.htm
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
It's tough to keep your government from taking away your inalienable rights when you can't threaten them with deadly force :)
Thanks for reminding me that it's time to renew that NRA membership of mine...
The South Australian government would have seen the effect similar efforts in other states has had in recent years. The laws were tabled in parliament and passed. The huge public outcry was basically ignored.
As already mentioned in many comments, the proposed censorship is (virtually) unenforceable. The people suggesting the law probably know this.
The aim of this proposed law is probably to sidetrack the public from some other issue the government doesn't want talked about. What better way to hide some embarrassing crome statistics or a pay rise for politicians?
(I am a resident of Western Australia, btw)
Go read the US Code. Search for "Unorganized Militia", which has a legal definition. Most male Americans within a certain age range who aren't Organized Militia are Unorganized Militia.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Well, if you look around, and notice that not too many people agree with you that everything's sufficiently gone to pieces to try -- you're probably too early.
It'd basically take some *really* serious, blatantly wrong juju that would anger, oh, at a minimum, several millions.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
I think the real issue is the government and technology being so out of step.
.au don't even know what the internet _is_!
The people who make the laws about technology down here in
Most think it's just a new type of pay-tv!
Yeah, you're right. I does, kind of. And, if the Austrailian government were brutally torturing and murdering people, instead of simply blocking porno, you'd be right on!
sig: sauer
The federal law treats all internet content as film, and requires material to be rated by the Office of Film and Literature Classification accordingly...
They refuse to see the internet as a new medium. In fact, look at the name of that government department: the office of film and literature. Sounds kind of like they did the same thing with film a few decades ago.
The main problem as I see it is that the internet, more than either film or literature, breaks down the producer/consumer wall - for a low low cost, we can all be both producers AND consumers of web content. Which makes it almost more like one big phone call, rather than one big film.
But the thing is, I don't want to use that metaphor, either. The internet is something new, and should be recognized as such. As Dr. Lessig said at BayFF earlier this month, the whole point of the internet is that it's smart at the ends and dumb in the middle; the protocols can be used for anything that people think to do with them, unlike the phone, where it's centrally switched and you do exactly what they say with it, or film, where the barrier to entry is so high that it's just not practical to make your own movies.
The internet gives people the capability to figure out new ways to use it, ways that never would have worked with older media. Central control would only ruin this, and this censorship plan would pretty much necessitate central control. It may be too late for southern australia, but everyone else should be ringing up your congresspeople or MPs right now to tell them what you think and help them understand the real issues at hand.
I don't think there's any easy way to avoid this sort of happening ever, its where democracy fails at its grandest. Even in Australia politicians are... well, politicians. You vote for the one you think is going to do the least damage and all you can do after that is hope.
(ie. One of the annoying potential side effects of voting for people who you agree with on A, B, C, D and E doesn't mean they're going to agree with your opinion on point F, and in fact may do exactly the opposite. (Not that I know anything about SA's state politics)).
IMHO, There should be some sort of common sense check before these inane laws are passed. Like:
This proposed change (and many others) obviously fail to meet the above criteria (at least according to me), and this is before we even get to the censorship issue!
Considering (common sense != politics) so the only (not particularly good) option is to move to a different state more in alignment with your views, which in turn concentrates people of the same type (eg. Very pro gun vs pro religion states in the US, for all I know they might both be the case in some states).
Vaguely related fact: The capital of South Australia (Adelaide) is known as the 'city of churches' as it has more per capita than any of the other Australian states / territories. (Fortunately in my case I'm from Sydney).
More ironic fact: The most 'liberal' state / territory in Australia in terms of censorship etc. is actually the one the capital (Canberra, not Sydney) is in. - The ACT (or Australian Capital Territory). This is the state that you can order your pr0n from, and has the least restraining drug penalties, least censorship etc. etc. Of course, this is where the majority of the politicians work and hang out a lot of the time. Coincidence? I think not....
No, they didn't need them to be safe. They needed them to be free ...
Unfortunately, Australia's constitution contains very little in the way of protections for people.
It certainly provides no assurances of freedom of speech, and this is provided, in basic form, by precedence and common law (made by Parliament, can also be repealed by the same).
Australia is moving more and more towards right-of-centre politics in a number of regards, our only protection at the moment is that the right-of-center political forces have managed to carve up the conservative vote, hence removing them from power all together, but eventually this will change, and I'm sure we'll see more along these lines very soon.
Yes, but this is not the Aussie government as a whole, it's the government of the State of South Australia.
People in Australia aren't at all cynical of government, only politicians and political parties. They are, in general, quite supportive of increased police powers, and increased government regulation of all kinds. Sure there is a vocal crowd who oppose such things as keeping refugees in concentration camps, but these are (smelly hippies || professional protestors || 'do-gooders') and hardly reflect a general Australian cynicism in state control. Sadly, it may be the case that attempts to censor the net enjoy general support.
Perhaps more importantly the influence of the churches, who were the driving force behind the genocidal policies of the past, has faded. (Well except in NSW, which is being run by a consortium of the Vatican and the editorial board of the Daily Telegraph).
If you live in Australia you really should not need the irony/irony tags, should you? Or are you a recent blow-in? I thought my own position on the matter would have been clearly flagged by my description of the centres as "concentration camps." I am stunned that anyone could so badly misread my post as to take umbrage in this way. My point was that mainstream Australians, while they may be cynical about politicians, are not overly concerned about the abuses of state power.
Don't make blanket statements about populations that you obviously don't know everything about.sarcasmI reserve the right to make blanket statements about populations I know almost everything about./sarcasm Besides which, of what possible relevance are your opinions when it comes to assessing the popular sentiment of mainstream Australia? Your rabid opposition to gun control puts you against the 87% or so of the population who were in favour of it. Moreover, your belief that firearms are for "self defense" (sic) places you in the even smaller minority of crazies who think that guns are for killing people --there not, they're for killing rabbits, wild pigs and assorted other vermin. (NOTE: I am writing only of the Austrlian context. In the US, guns clearly are for killing people). Admit it, your not a local, you're a seppo, aren't ya mate?
Critical as I am of the political culture which denigrates civil liberties and privileges the hip-pocket, I must express my relief that your ideology remains that of the lunatic fringe in this country. Note further that I have recorded your /. id and that I will pass it on to the Australian Federal Police should you make good your threat to begin bombing government buildings.
The Aussie government as a whole has a bad record on privacy concerns.
This is true, but it has to be viewed in the context of the times. The 50's was a time in which people were less cynical of government than today, and hence were more willing to believe that civil servants were to be trusted unquestioningly.
For their part, the government agencies genuinely believed that aboriginal babies were better off taken from their village surroundings and put with white families. This was based on the facts that education, healthcare and opportunities were better elsewhere.
Of course, I am not condoning this practice in any way, just presenting their justification for it, until it was abandoned in the late 60's.
It's probably also worth explaining that
even though the political party is called
"Liberal", they are actually a slightly (or more?)
right wing party, similar to the US Republican party in some ways. Following the recent Queensland and Western Australian elections, South Australia is the only Australian state with a Liberal (capital L) government. Of course we also have a Liberal federal government who also can be relied on for a few braindead privacy laws (e.g. self regulation of direct marketers). We may get our chance to find out if the Labor party are any better following a federal election later this year.
What's happening is that the Internet poses a real threat to governments. The Internet permits people to communicate and access information without having to go through the government or commercial entities (which can reach an accommodation with the government). The danger is that people are starting to think for themselves, and they're forming social structures independent of the government.
Worst of all, people are finding out from the Internet what the rest of the population of their country and of the world is really like. REal people have much more interest in sex than anyone realised before. Pretty soon, the general population may come to believe that sex is normal, and that looking at other people having sex is normal. This is a very serious threat to governments, who have been telling their people that pleasure is bad and abnormal. Good people work in offices and achieve a good standard living and contribute to the GNP, blah, blah....
For just the same reason that drugs had to be made illegal during the cold war to prevent the western world from losing the will to fight for and defend capitalism, so now it necessary to prevent large numbers of people organising independently of the government. We see the Chinese crack-down on Falun Gong as bad. But the Chinese do this for exactly the same reason that western governments crack down on the Internet. We have nothing to be smug about!!!!
But during the last 10 years, we have turned into the ``Wowser State''. We're the kind of place that is pitied by our neightbours now. I think that when the economy of a State goes downhill, the creative and enlightened people leave, and only the people without the skills required to emmigrate are left. So you end up with things going further and further downhill. In both Australia and the USA, the most wealthy States are the most tolerant, more or less. SA is becoming poorer and poorer now. So I see no hope in sight.
Woo, so kiddie porn is only considered certificate X over there? I thought almost everywhere else it was outright banned!
(P.S. Don't rush to correct, I know it's not true, but just poor wording)
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Oo, troll. FYI, you remember incorrectly. We outlawed automatic weapons (read: guns designed specifically for killing large numbers of people).
Australians have quite a different relationship with their government, and with guns, than do Americans. By and large, Australians trust that their government is made up of real, ordinary people. Sure, they screw up, but it's not a conspiracy against the citizens; it's just perfectly ordinary people behaving in perfectly ordinary ways.
Australians also have no problem with their government holding monopolies over things like the postal service, or power generation, or telephone service, or whatever. (OK, so we've privatised some of these things, but we didn't have a problem with it the other way; it's just that the Liberals got in to power. :-)
And as for "defending our rights" (with the implication that we should shoot everybody that is in any way connected with the Evil that is government): well, actually, we're quite happy with our current ability to vote the bastards out next time around. And the authority of the Australian Electoral Commission is hugely respected. Can't say enough good things about them.
Democracy ain't perfect, but it's the best system we've got. And contrary to many gun totin' American's opinions, countries such as Japan run just fine with no gun ownership whatsoever.
Yeah, well, from an engineering perspective, they're pretty much the same thing. A weapon that is designed as semi-auto can often be converted to full-auto by filing a bit off, or installing a simple kit. (I understand that this dodge is used in the U.S. by people who want to buy full-auto weapons.) So in order to prevent nasty people acquiring full auto weapons, they had to ban semi-auto.
And from a practical perspective, there's little difference either. I can pump a trigger at four shots per second, easy.
Double-barreled shotguns are banned on the basis that they're sort-of semi-auto: there's two barrels and you can fire them in quick succession. This one is a quibble, I know, and there was a bunch of wrangling back and forth.
Some .22 rifles are banned because although they're low calibre, they are semi-auto (the banned ones are, anyway), and they were the Australian spree-killer's weapon-of-choice.
"i defy you to go find a web page that contains all my thoughts"
Are you a Republican? There are pages about that. Are you of Spanish decent? There are pages about that. Are you into gay midget porn? Well there are pages about that too. Same for the guy next to you or your grandmother (mine loves to cook recipies I download for her from Martha Stewart).
My point was the punchline, as best as I could express it at 3AM in the morning. All governments by nature want to control thought. They can't, but they can try by using censorship which may vary from government to government.
On one end of the spectrum you have some Middle Eastern countries where connections to the Internet are banned. Those countries don't want their citizens thinking about the Western lifestyle...so they censor it all.
Moving down the spectrum you have countries like China that only allow connections to the China-approved Internet. China doesn't want its citizens thinking of Taiwan as a separate country or Falun Gong as a peaceful group...so any site not depicting Taiwan as a spoiled child and Falun Gong as a hideous cult are censored.
And so on until you get to the other end of the spectrum, countries like the US, Europe, Australia. However those governments also have an agenda. They don't want their citizens thinking about porn, drugs, violence and bombs. They would like nothing better than to censor them. And gradually they are moving in that direction, with repeated attempts at CDA, the new rider against drug information sites, and the way the media always depicts any bomb-maker as being taught by the Internet.
And so on. Controlling the Internet, which is basically millions of people talking about something they think about, is as futile as controlling human thought. We will never be rid of ________ (fill in with racism, child pornography, gaybashing, whatever is the current outrage) on the Internet. There will always be someone who is thinking about ________ and as long as he/she can find others that also think about ________ there will always be some ________ out there on the Internet. The only way to truly get rid of ________ is for people to stop thinking about it.
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
Anything that people could possibly have thought of is going to be expressed on a website somewhere. Therefore, a better way to picture the Internet is the sum of all human thought.
So basically this topic is:
"Australian IT are reporting that the South Australian Government are about to pass a bill which mandates censorship of thoughts."
And hasn't that been the secret goal of every governement since time began?
- JoeShmoe
-- I wonder which will go down in history as the bigger failure: the War on Drugs or the War on Filesharing
In the US, Congress can go ahead and pass any censorship law they want (and have done so in at least one instance.) It is up to the Supreme Court to nullify it if it is unconstitutional
It's not supposed to work that way, but unfortunately it does.
What the US needs (and Australia apparently even more so) is some teeth to the Constitutional laws. In the US, the Bill of Rights tells the government what it can NOT do. Unfortunately there are no criminal penalities when the government breaks those laws. If politicians started serving prison time for casting unconstitutional votes, I bet they'd stop.
All anyone can do now is be the loudest squeaky wheel. Anyone have any addresses (email or postal) where people all over the world can write and express, in a polite and civil way, their complete disapproval for this sort of thing?
When will Windows be ready for the desktop?
"Please Mr policeman I saw a dirty web page."
"Were you forced to look"
"No."
"Go away."
Nothing. To get publicity? Everything.
Kiwaiti
Member of the Legion Of Microsoft Haters
In an effort to educate ignorant authoritarians (lawmakers) we should try and get them to undersand that all the internet is an efficient method of communicating.
All us geeks and nerds should band together and collectively abolish the word "Internet" from out vocabulary and instead replace it with the words "efficient communication" (or something like that).
e.g. this topic would become
Australian IT are reporting that the South Australian Government are about to pass a bill which mandates censorship of efficient communicatons methods.
Just because we voted to stay with our current slavemaster rather than choose a new stranger to control our lives doesnt mean we dont want our freedom.
Or are we not slaves as we can elect who our slavemaster is ?
So do you think if scotland declared independence that that new government would treat you any better ?
If you think that the conservatives (look at their policies and tell me that they're not, oh I see you support them) are only just becoming worried about an icreased lack of relevancy to the Australian voting public, you're deluding yourself. They have been polling very poorly since the last Federal election.
You're attack of me and not my facts is far more indicative of the standard of Slashdot debate.
.sig
This is basically a reaction by a Goverment scared of big swings to the opposition in other state elections and the emerging strength of a nationalistic bunch of rednecks called One Nation. For the conservative branch of Australian politics, the ironically named Liberal party, this is an effort to appear pro-family. It's an easy target and with no freedoms built into our constitution (Australians are crown subjects, not citizens) there is little recourse such as an American citizen would have access to.
The only good thing I can think of is that it is highly unlikely that the authorities will prosecute except in politically expedient cases.
sigh
.sig
If I'm not mistaken it was the PEOPLE who wanted the gun laws. The goverment was heavily lobbied to enact these sorts of laws. The people there relized that they didn't need machine guns, and handgrenades to be safe.= \=\=\=\
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\
This smells like the machincations of Yahoo Serious, trying to revive his career.
Last night I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got in my pajamas I'll never know.
I wouldn't send us your condolences just yet ... how the f*#@ are they even going to implement to make it a problem for the end user? ;) ... although i have to question now why i moved from melbourne to here [SA] when they don't even have 'cable' here ... and ADSL isn't exactly available to the masses here either ~sigh~
yeah whatever, its "RESPONSIBILITY" not "wrong".
Get a useful job as a garbageman, instead of whatever one we have, and then we'll talk about rights.
Take this personaility test.
To those who are always looking down on americans for their views:
At least we have a constitutional right to free speech, unlike many other contries where free speech is simply an indulgence granted by the local government, and can be taken away at any time.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Arrrgh. For God's sake, if you're looking for historical accuracy, read a history book, read original documents, etc. Do NOT rely on Holleywood for history. Do not suggest Holleywood films if you want an idea of what "things were like."
I'm not trying to claim that civilisation as we know it will end without an IT industry, but if it weren't kinda important there wouldn't be a National Office for the Information Economy, would there?
:)
My point was simply that regulation costs industry money. I know first hand that Ozemail have refused to run certain content for fear of litigation under the federal laws introduced last year. This is clearly making the industry uncompetitive on an international level and - although many US content providers haven't realised it - The Internet is an international media.
BTW, either you have a wild imagination or you fly a very nosey airline. I had to fill in some paperwork when I passed through customs in Singapore (October last year), but Singapore Airlines weren't about to throw me out of the plane before we landed
I've been posting on the net since 1994 and I still haven't come up with a good sig!
Almost:
:)
8.50CHF (about $AUS9) for a VB
But my wap sony and my crusoe sony were cheap
I've been posting on the net since 1994 and I still haven't come up with a good sig!
Sit down and have a hard think about it.
I migrated from Australia to Switzerland last year because of these laws. I had already moved my website to LA ( on dreamhost ) but the real reason wasn't my personal web site.
The harder the various Australian Governments push these absurd laws the futher behind the Australian IT industry is going to be. And when IT gets behind, the rest of the economy will follow.
Added bonus: salaries in Zurich are about 5x Sydney.
I've been posting on the net since 1994 and I still haven't come up with a good sig!
Not trying to start a flame war, just curious - What is the scriptural reference for this attitude? (I'm assuming it has one if this is the truth thats been twisted by churches). I ask, because while this is a basic Jewish idea I have heard, the only NT reference to sex that I know of is Paul, who IIRC actually considered even marital sex a sin. The only way to really be with god was to be celibate, but for those who were not capable of celibacy, sex within marriage was a "lesser evil" for channelling your sinful urges.
I have not read the entire NT however, and if there is a contridicting verse I'm missing, I'd love to know.
Kahuna Burger.
...will work for Chick tracts...
yeah, but to be fair, i`m from a country (England) that was putting unmarried mothers of children into mental asylums until around the same time.
Youth suicide rates are high here (just listen to the police for a few days) - in fairness, also in other Australian states & territories.
(BTW, here's how the Adelaide High School contributes to the suicide rate in the State:
The -FIRST- example on a "STYLE TIPS!" sheet, handed to students in a composition class is:
"Always use the strongest words you can without distoring what actually happended. e.g.:
'A schoolgirl committed suicide at Onkaparinga Bridge yesterday after being teased by her classmates over an untrue rumour.'
becomes...
'A teenage girl lept to her death from Onkaparinga Bridge yesterday after being victimised by her peers over a false rumour!'"
BTW, the Bridge is a well-known, local one.
I guess the logic is: one has to pay the price of a private education by way of insuring against this kind of "programming" - to the extent that one can... i.e. with so many other examples to choose from...)
(As I write this, the ABC's rural-based radio program - "Hay Wire" - presents the voice of a young girl telling the story of her brother's suicide... by a self-directed shotgun blast... why, you'd think it's a part of life around here... maybe it is!)
It's forbidden by SA law for large supermarkets to operate after 7 pm most days of the week
(i.e. the State gov't dictate when people will be permitted to "shop late" for food, etc.)
But - of course - non-supermarket venues - e.g. those with Poker Machines, etc. can stay open very late.
Culturally, there has been a significant decrease in local cultural events (i.e. organised by community groups), since the instroduction of Poker Machines in venues around the State, a few years back.
A "mug mentality" thrives in SA!
SA's Technology Centre has now become a -residential- development area, rather than a hotbed for technology development.
Most bothersome is the noticable -unresponsiveness- of State (not to mention federal) government here on many issues.
Shopping centres in or near Adelaide have empty shops (one I visited just today had 4 -recently- emptied in an area very near its large, well-equipped Coles supermarket).
Religious schools continue to publish -openly- that the successful candidate for publicly advertised non-teaching positions (for example, IT Technician) "must be committed members of a Christian church".
There is no real penalty for this kind of blatant discrimination here!
While schools close and public hospitals are overloaded with patients, often waiting in the corrodors for treatment...
... the unelected, figure-head "governor" (a carry-over from the British colonial period) has a State-funded mansion at the centre of Adelaide, and is deemed to warrant a police-escort when/where-ever he travels...
The Adelaide Club -still- AFAIK will not accept women as members. Discrimination is rife!
The bottom line is... after erring (in past, mostly...) by supporting the taking of indigenous children from their parents, SA's Religious Right is now (apparently) erring in the -other- direction...
Oh, you're not religious? Don't call us! And we won't call you...
Go figure... ;-)
I suppose that "the Stockholm effect" explains the defensive responses (above) to calls for freedoms that Australian &/or SA Gov't(s) do not provide, at least on paper, to their "subjects"... I don't think it would be fair to call them citizens... for that word connotes a place (as a group) -above- their governments...
Chains of Command diagrams that I've seen here (for SA State organisations, at least) position the Minister (of the corresponding gov't dep't at the top, not "The People" as in USA...
-------
Let's not forget that this is the State that signed a long-term whole-of-enterprise agreement to use Microsoft software rather exclusively.
Result: Old non-Microsoft (read: UNIX) servers -don't- get replaced, due to the need (under the contract) to replace their operating systems with NT Server, et al.
-------
The SA Gov't Radio Network... its trunking radios cost about Au $ 2,600 per box (possibly MORE, now that the Aussie $ has sunk in value vs the US $) - handheld or mobile...
The gov't has to pay for [Telstra] by the minute AIR-TIME, i.e. whenever they're used by gov't or emergency service (although instructors of would-be SA-GRN users -teach- their students that there are -no- AIR-TIME costs).
And, it costs Au $ 8.00 per minute when someone uses the the Gov't Radio Network (GRN)'s "telephone interconnect" to make a telephone call...
... on -top- of Au $ 5.00 per month for -EACH- GRN radio that has technical access to the tel. interconnect service.
(That's the same technology as the "autopatches" that US Radio Amateurs build into their VHF/UHF repeaters for COST-FREE local telephone calls for non-commercial purposes).
As an aside, I'd be very interested to know if these are standard contractual costs... and, if not, what other trunking radio system users in the world are charged for the same...
-------
I'm sure that many would have it different... but - as you've seen above - "past is prologue"
If you've -not- had freedom... and you can't work out how to get them... and if curtailing freedoms seems to win votes for unpopular parties...
what do you expect... maybe this helps to explain the youth suicide rates:
Able to see lots more freedoms "over there" + unable to pursuade local "powers that be" to become more responsive + assessing the decisions of those same "powers..." as dull-witted and ineffectual = (suicide).
BTW, on SA Police activities... a friend has told me of a family member who - as a SA Police officer - accesses the Internet on a daily basis.
Where is there information on exactly what such police officers are doing there?
What "offenses" (as breeches of the Law are called here) are being sought by the Internet-based SA Police?
What cases have been moved to prosecution as a result?
What methods were used to collect evidence along the way?
Where is the subject-oversight of this police activity?
At present, this is nothing that gets discussed at "Neighbourhood Watch" meetings...
Maybe it should be... (if you're close to an SA NW area, why not attend your next meeting and let us know what you get back from some good questions about this)
Maybe we need to form a Cyber-Neighbourhood Watch groups in the metro-Adelaide area, to keep our finger on the pulse of policing of our public spaces...
I'd be happy to hear some -knowledgible- SA Police representatives make a presentation about this & related topics, say, at a LinuxSA meeting.
It might be deemed useful as a Recruiting Meeting, from SAPOL's point of view... ;-)
What'cha think...?
There is not a nation around that is a democracy. Not a single one. Furthermore, this isn't a matter of right or left, but Authoritarian or Libertarian.
Pax Digitalia
Sorry, left it out... for those who are not aware, Alan Turing was a homosexual. That is why society at the time treated him so badly.
Which ones? The one in South Australia? The one in the UK that passed RIP, and where it's legal to hold people in jail without charging them or letting them have a lawyer? The one in Germany that has essentially banned fringe political parties? The one in Japan where confessions extracted by torture do not get excluded from trials?
If you want to talk about free countries, first you have to find some.
How do you want to fight a government Apache gunship with your shotgun and revolver?
Ask the Afghans. Look at the Balkans. It's awful hard to use air power, tanks, and nuclear weapons in your own cities.
...and this is how it ends.
_______________________________________
Don't blame Windows--if you were a Microsoft operating system, you'd have problems too.
I remember testing some of this crap, and it would block some chicken slaying company's web site... sure enough, they produce Chicken Breast...
sounds like some obscure bureaucratic thing from Nazi germany, or maybe stalinist USSR
if you read the article (gasp!) it points out that aussie federal law "treats all internet content as film." wtf? umm, so maybe that's where the aussie gov't is a couple screws short. you don't "watch" the internet, there's no plot, it doesn't end, its free (well, sort of). you don't post messages to a movie for other watchers to respond to. the only thing that the internet is really like is the internet. its a new category of thing. more policy makers need to realize that.
just to give the literal answer to this question in australia's case here: police officers decide what's obscene.
.. when you live in one of the most right-wing countries in the world (politically)? I don't know why, but even though Aussies are generally quite laid back, their political views are so right wing in my experience that I almost want to vomit.
Admittedly, not everybody in Oz is like that, but the fact that there are sufficient people in the country to support a party that is like that says something about the politcal sense of it's citzens.
Oh yeah, and in case you hadn't noticed, you live in a Democracy. In fact, it's the law that you have to vote. If you don't like it, lobby Parliament and vote them out next time. The chances of this being enforceable are pretty slim however.
> As a resident of SA, my freedom of speech is about to disappear ...
Maybe it is me, but you seem more concerned by the disparition of your freedom to free porn...
(Which, I think, is the real issue. Porn is a mega-business, and internet threatens it [for instance: news://alt.binaries.erotica.picture.*]. Law are getting passed so they can save the business model of soft-porn. You didn't loose any freedom, mostly because you did not had any to start with)
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Just ask Richard Court.
I'm also in Western Australia, but I don't recall ever even hearing about net censorship laws here... Got any pointers where I could find out about them?
The submitter said he/she was about to lose their freedom of speech, but I am curious if Austrailian law guarantees it (like the US Constitution tries to do)?
Of course _I_ could not fight the US Army. However, if the government was corrupt enough to cause thousands, or millions of citizens to rise up, then we MOST definitely could fend off the army. See Vietnam, where a massively under-armed and under-funded guerrilla force kicked the shit out of the American military machine.
A revolution in America wouldn't involve solitary citizens facing off Apache gunships in the streets... It would be citizens, who would be indistinguishable from the average man or woman on the street, performing more covert, revolutionary tasks... And, come on, a nuclear missle? The moment the US detonates a nuke on native soil, against Americans, would be the moment that 80% of the country and the Army would join the side of the revolutionaries.
Josh Sisk
this online censorship thing got out of hand a long time ago, governments need to stop catering to these special interest groups and start really thinking about the decisions they're making, granted certain things are inappropriate and probably shouldnt be viewed by certain people, ie porn and young children, but is that grounds to deny the rest of the population the right? when and where do we draw the line? the internet is its best when everything is at your disposal, take away the easy access to information and you're left with an ass load of banner advertisements and webpages trying to make a quick buck. i dunno, ive probably trailed on enough, its 4:10am, this is the best post i could come up with at the moment. goodnight.
Please reinstall your propaganda filter. It's having trouble with NRA spin.
I think you mean well, but you've regurgitated mere dogma. It's interesting how you've made some pretty questionable premises and then jumped to some amazing conclusions.
Lastly, any victorious militia will want a say in the new government. I sincerely doubt militia members will understand or be remotely interested in restoring your rights to the level you are accustomed. Think of all the conflicts about the globe now and in the past, particularly the ones that drag on. It's always the civilians that suffer most. They are brutalized by both government and revolutionary forces.
After all the effort, I doubt the majority of militia men would just want to be left alone. There would necessarily be a whole hierarchy whose members will want to capitalize on their new found windfall. They will say, "Hey, I risked everything. Now, pay your tax, and while you're at it, I'm changing the way water is distributed in this valley. If you don't like it, I'm going to kill your wife and me and five buddies are going to rape your daughter. In the meantime, grow more poppies because we fund our operations by selling the big H to metropolitan cities around the world. Hold on, we're going to rape your daughter anyway."
That's how the majority of revolutionaries operate.
Civil unrest is an ugly thing. Let's hope we never have to face it. I put my trust in preventative measures in the form of prosperity and equal access to justice. Stockpiling of weapons by weekend militia men is a recipe for violence and injustice and does little to nothing in the way of preserving our rights.
It's also worth mentioning that freedom of speech is not a right that Australians have, or for that matter anyone outside of the US (and of the evidence of the average bland, conservative mainstream output of the American media, it could be argued that they drastically fail to appreciate the principle anyway).
American "free speech" has never been free in that sense. The FCC regulates, with the total approval of the US Gov, everything that the media says.
The only place there is currently any real "free speech" is on the inet and the clock is ticking as to how long that will last.
IE, Please don't judge America by what comes out of our mass media.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Physically removing their heads would actually suffice. I wish I had a sig.
I have a photographic memory for numbers. I know almost a hundred of them.
Did you actually go to school in the U.S. or did you just sleep through history class from 6th through 12th grade? The colonies already had an army at the time they united to form a union. (ie: the colonial army, the one that fought the British.. are we starting to remember?)
The intent of the right to bear arms was just as others have said, ie: to form a militia that would supplement the existing military in the case of an invasion and to prevent the government from becoming too powerful by maintaining a balance of power. In other words, if the govt. became oppressive, the people have the right and the duty to defend themselves against such tyranny.
If you don't stand up for your rights they will be taken away one by one, until one day you wake up and you have no rights. Gun control is the popular thing these days because of the "everyone else is doing it so why shouldn't we?" attitude. After all, only criminals would carry guns right? Wrong!
There are three results from gun control. A) The general public is disarmed leaving them vulnerable to attack. B) Real criminals, who don't care about the law anyway will still have their guns giving them an advantage. C) An emboldened law enforcement community which doesn't have to worry about armed resistance to their presence.
As long as there are criminals, law enforcement has an excuse to demand more laws that take away the rights of citizens. Unless we stand up to those who would take our rights away we lose our freedom. Once lost, it is very difficult to get back. Those who would trade their freedoms for a little piece of mind are fools and will have neither.
-=darkphyber=-
There's no need to study history for this one, there's lots of current examples.
Africa is full of countries where the citizens are well armed and, guess what, it makes for a living hell.
But why go to Africa when you can go to LA? There are parts of US cities where gun ownership is very high and, guess what, it makes for a living hell.
Gun freaks talk about everyone's right to have a long range missile weapon but don't like to equate that to everyone having the right to commit long range (possibly mass) murder in the street. Nor do they like to make it too clear that what they mean by "everybody" is "everybody I like, lock the rest up". The German example is actually a good illustration of where the NRA would like to go: "we" all have guns and all the "pinkos" are locked up or gassed, so we can have great fun marching around in our natty uniforms/hunting deer/whatever while morality goes up in thick, oily smoke.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
What bloody use the NRA nutters think their guns would be against tanks and fighter-bombers is beyond me. What is clear is that if you give citizens guns they start killing each other, not overthowing the government. And when a really rotten government takes power it's frequently with the aid of lots of well-armed civilians who think they're going to get a slice of the pie for helping.
I assume the original poster has never heard of Africa where huge sections of the population are armed. Doesn't seem like Utopia to me.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
The loss of the right to bear arms is as valid for removal as the right to have sex with children and as valid for defense as the right to equality of treatment. Since all "rights" are made up by people, all are ripe to be reconsidered from time to time. I happen to think that the damage caused by the second amendment far outweighs any good it does. You can argue the issue but simply pointing to the constitution and saying "230 years ago there was a society that thought this was good and that's an end to it" is not a rational argument.
As to Africa, I wasn't talking about the well-publicised massacres but the general destabilising effect of widespread gun ownership on the various societies of that continent. But, to stick with the massacres, what tends to happen is that any "dangerous" targets are attacked with guns and then, to save money, "soft" targets get the club/machete treatment. In slightly better off parts of Africa, where the cost of bullets is not as important, the gun is used almost exclusivly, as in the recent example where the staff and pupils of a boarding school where killed in Algeria.
Presumably, you don't own any large stocks of the smallpox virus, do you think you should have the right to?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
It has nothing to do with those racist redneck "militias" who blew up the OKC federal building.
Wrong! Wow... I find it sad (but not surprising) when an australian doesn't even know the state of their own laws.
Listen up nerds - we all get so upset when we hear moronic legislators passing laws on computer technology that they clearly don't understand. Its happens all the time (witness clinton's digital signature bill), and we all cringe when we hear these legislators struggling to wrap their little minds around complicated topics.
Well, with all due respect, as someone who knows a great deal about firearms, I can tell that you don't know too much about firearms. Therefore, I request that you either A) educate yourself, preferrably through 1st hand experience, or B) refrain from pushing for legislation on topics which you don't know enough about.
A reasonable summary (found in 5 seconds of web searching) of what firearms were recently banned in AU is here. To directly correct your mis-statement, they banned semi-automatic (one bullet fired for every pull of the trigger) firearms, not fully automatic (= continuous stream of bullets) firearms. Fully automatic weapons have been highly regulated (6 month waiting period, when not effectively banned) in the US since 1934! And I suspect are even more restricted in australia.
Moving content offshore has proved to be a simple work-around to the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Act which empowers the Australian Broadcasting Authority to order content hosts to remove material rated "R" or worse. This legislation only applies to content hosted within Australia.
Unfortunatly, the proposed legislation in South Australia will apply to all residents of South Australia, whether the content is hosted in Australia or in outer Mongolia.
Not only that, but the police can start a prosecution before the content in question has even been officially classified by the Office of Film and Literature classification. So if your friendly neighberhood pleeceman decides your website isn't fit for children, they can charge you, and have you in court for this, before they even bother to get the content classified.
Some choice quotes come to mind, such as "Help! Help! I'm being repressed!" and "Don't fool yourself, we're living in a dictatorship!"
All over the world, stories like this are creeping out. Here in the UK, although not censorship, the RIP bill certainly impinges on your privacy. In Southern Australia, it appear to be actual censorship.... Why oh why is this happening. Is it the current generation in power at the moment. They grew up before the computer revolution and are now faced with a BIG unknown as regards the internet etc etc... or is it something else... time to get thinking...what can you do to help avoid this sort of thing, who can you annoy, who is your govenmental representative... I think this is not the last of this sort of thing we will hear about
Sorry for being a reactionary conservative prick, but I think that there is such a thing as obscene material, and would not have a particularly high opinion of anyone that thought pictures of, say, an 8 year old orphan being forced to have anal sex should be defended on some pathetic "free speech" principle
Well then why define it as Obscene? Obscene for a lot of people, means porn, actually it says so in the dictionnary. On the other hand pictures of 8 year olds having sex is CRIMINAL, got nothing to do with Obscene. If the Australian government wants to ban, kill, arest, CRIMINAL sites and their owners I would be more than happy to applaud them.
Sure there might be several very legitimate subjects that get squashed, but the fact that most of the internet consists of Porn is a rather embarrassing statement about the Human Civilization today
I guess you're one of those who don't need porn and don't want sex. Most of the Internet consists of Porn because people like porn. What's so embarrassing about Sex? Actually a lot of technology advancments have been driven by Sex.
when does sex stop
:)
Soon, eventually pollution will help the next generations stop having that Obscene thing we call Sex
up until the 1960's was removing aboriginal babies from their parents and placing them in "white" homes "for their own good"?
In America, we have these rights constitutionaly protected (in theory, at least). We have a number of groups (ACLU, for example) dedicated to fighting for those rights. On the political frount, what do you Aussies have? Just curious.
The Internet is generally stupid
It's not just in Aussie it seems to be everywhere, in the US, Canada, UK, etc...
It seems to me that this generation is trying to tell all others that they only know what's good for us. Now that they are in a position of power they wish to control everything. i.e.
Napster: I find Ma Bell was as instrumental as Napster in helping people violate copyright laws.
DeCSS: Same point as above. Why should I not be able to make private copies of DVD's I can do it with VHS. I mean I bought a copy of the vedeo why not ensure that I will be able to watch it in the future.
VW.NEt What does it have to do with cars? For everyone with the initials of VW I'd be very worried.
ereferee.com In this one I can see the point that the online mag tried to mimic the print Mag Referee, but the word referee should never have been allowed as a trade mark within the sporting comunity. SH_T I should trade mark player or team and demand royalties from every one who uses these two words.
These are just a few points wihich I have seen here on /., I can go on forever on stupid issues like these....
DRM? No thanks, I'll just get it somewhere else...
....move to north Austrailia ( or another state). I guessing that your government collects taxes. If enough people leave the state, the state looses money & sees the error of it's ways. Of course this is kinda an extreme way to prove a point, but if there is no other solution, I would move.
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
I collected the emails by hand, trawling through the government website. Federal politicians need to take an interest in laws regarding the internet. As it is, it's hard to have different laws in each country for it, let alone in each bloody state.
You might want to consider emailing the following government ministers, departments and other officals.
richard.alston@dcita.gov.au, W.Truss.MP@aph.gov.au, W.Tuckey.MP@aph.gov.au, senator.troeth@aph.gov.au, senator.ellison@aph.gov.au, Peter.McGauran.MP@aph.gov.au, senator.campbell@aph.gov.au, Peter.Reith.MP@aph.gov.au, Bruce.Scott.MP@aph.gov.au, B.Nelson.MP@aph.gov.au, D.Kemp.MP@aph.gov.au, T.Worth.MP@aph.gov.au, Tony.Abbott.MP@aph.gov.au, Mal.Brough.MP@aph.gov.au, Ian.Macfarlane.MP@aph.gov.au, S.Stone.MP@aph.gov.au, Larry.Anthony.MP@aph.gov.au, John.Fahey.MP@aph.gov.au, senator.abetz@aph.gov.au, P.Slipper.MP@aph.gov.au, A.Downer.MP@aph.gov.au, Mark.Vaile.MP@aph.gov.au, Michael.Wooldridge.MP@aph.gov.au, Bronwyn.Bishop.MP@aph.gov.au, senator.tambling@aph.gov.au, senator.minchin@aph.gov.au, Jackie.Kelly.MP@aph.gov.au, Warren.Entsch.MP@aph.gov.au, senator.heffernan@aph.gov.au, John.Anderson.MP@aph.gov.au, senator.ian.macdonald@aph.gov.au, senator.boswell@aph.gov.au, senator.rod.kemp@aph.gov.au, Joe.Hockey.MP@aph.gov.au
Seriously, the AU government has no idea how to implement censorship. If this will be anything like their last attempt at censorship, it will be a farce.
The international community is a pack of socialists. The rights you are describing there are "positive" rights, like a "right" to housing and medical care. These are NOT fundamental human rights, in spite of what a bunch of commies at the UN think. Negative rights are fundamental. They basically include the right to be left alone, and the right to be secure in your property. Negative rights are the true rights. A posititve right that takes away a negative right (government taxes to give universal health care coverage, taxes to give a job to someone else, etc.) is a true rights violation, because it had to violate my right to be left alone and be secure in my property in order to satisfy someone else's needs. No one else loses when I keep my negative rights intact. If I just sit on my property and keep to myself, you lose nothing because I do that. Even if I'm obnoxious and type the word Nigger here a lot, you suffer nothing but momentary irritation. When my local government feels the need to knock on my door and collect taxes from me to pay Billy Jo Jim Bob in Louisiana to build a road through the swamp that goes nowhere just to give him a job, then my rights are violated. Taxes are legitimate, but only just barely. Obviously we need some taxes to handle government affairs that secure our negative rights. But when the governement starts collecting taxes, they get addicted to it. Taxes are the source of their power, and it's very hard for them to stop spending your money. The temptation to create, say a national endowment for the arts, or buy expensive aircraft that doesn't work, or spend on any other kind of boondoggle, becomes irresistable in the kinds of political atmospheres these people operate in. This is what drives congressmen to call tax cuts "spending". They have become so used to spending your money on anything they like, they consider it their own. So the UHDR may say housing and medical care are rights, but they are not. My neighbor does not have the "right" to force me to pick up a hammer and build his house for him, nor to take care of him when he's sick. I may feel sympathy, I may donate to charity or help my neighbor willingly, but there is no right there to force me or to pay for his troubles. But there is a right to own a gun. Owning it helps you shoot your neighbor when he comes over with a gun to demand universal health coverage ;)
Everyone else are subjects.
You are right about the right wing dolts. They do love their censorship, and it is very tiresome. When they are elected, you trade them for left wing dolts, who love to tax and ban guns. Both are authoritarians with different agendas, and both are equally obnoxious. As Jefferson put it "It is the natural order of things for government to gain ground, and liberty to lose it."
I disagree. The electoral college was part of the compromise between population vs. states when the constitution was signed. Small states, if you will recall, wanted representation in the federal government to be based on statehood, while populous states wanted it to be on population. Thus the senate and the house. The college is an extension of this compromise. the number of electors a state has is equal to the number of representatives it has, plus two for the senators. While the population of a state has the greates influence in determining the presidency, in certain very narrow elections, like we just had, the extra two votes per state begin to matter. This forces a candidate to travel around the country and gain support from a wide variety of regions, not just New York city and California. We witnessed this effect in this election, and the result was right and proper. Bush got support from most of the states, while Gore got it from a few large population centers. The constitutional compromise has favored population vs. region in most elections--this time it was the regional concerns that won out.
Wow, what a wonderful series of comments. I wonder how long it'll be before they disappear mysteriously.
Due to the rather strict censorship laws currently in force on Slashdot.
Glad to oblige
The South Australia Boobie Patrol needs you!
Legislation of this type usually wraps itself in the idea of "protecting children." But this law surely is just an attempt to get a patronage job for some Australian Senator's porn-hungry nephew.
Or perhaps it is a merchandising play. Imagine the gross revenues for "Official South Australia Porn Inspector" T-shirts. It boggles the mind.
Hey South Australia, take a look at this
The majority of porn sites have no original photos, and exist primarily because the porn site operators think they can make a few bucks on advertising. It speaks more to greed than to lust. But as far as whether it's "embarrassing" or not, it's hardly surprising that the lowest common denominator will proliferate most widely -- it's practically a tautology.
If tomorrow I can not post photographs of Less than artistic nudes - do I have Free Speech?
There are arguments that can be made as to why we shouldn't be allowed to have pornography; and if those arguments are reasonable, censorship of pornography is reasonable. (eg, child porn laws) But simply outlawing porn "because we say so" is not only silly but (in the US) unconstitutional.
As far as a common sense check for legislation goes... In the US, Congress can go ahead and pass any censorship law they want (and have done so in at least one instance.) It is up to the Supreme Court to nullify it if it is unconstitutional -- politicians may realize full well that a bill will not pass constitutional muster, but they vote for it anyway to score political points with their constituents. In a system in which legislators will vote for a bill which is clearly unconstitutional, a "common sense" check is superfluous...
On the other hand, bills which are not intended primarily as political gestures undergo common sense checks as a matter of course... Or perhaps I just have too much faith in the political process. In any case I'm just glad we have the First Amendment...
Get a bunch of people into a posse, march on the governmental offices, with guns drawn - oh wait - they took away THAT right years ago... How about: ...with axes and knives drawn, and physically remove the politicians who will sign this new law?
In general, modern problems have medieval solutions...
I think that people concerned to keep the internet operable as a medium for ideas exchange should start to redefine the internet, by subsets of the internet, with a different base of dns servers, and every subset should require everyone that attach to it to sign a license: a license in which they agree that all content they release onto it becomes public domain (and that they have the rights to all material they release), a license where everyone agrees to deep crosslinking, a license where people state that they are old enough to view censored material, and maybe even a license where people state that the computer on this network may be hacked by anyone. Licenses would be orthogonal, you don't have to sign it - unless you want to be part of that network.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
As the mass media is such an important part of a country's identity, I'm afraid that to a large extent there isn't any choice. It may only be one factor, but it's an important one.
But that wasn't really my point; it's more that free speech doesn't exist anywhere in practice. Further, I am not of the opinion that free speech is a defendable principle unless you are willing to put clauses upon it. Things such as slander and obscenity shouldn't be allowed - and indeed they're not - and the real debate is, how do we apply restrictions?
Although I disagree with what appears to be a rather large blanket definition in the case of South Australia, it seems that holding people responsible for what they post, and not the ISP, carrier, or host site, is the correct approach. The burden of proof would lie with the prosecution like in any other case.
There are related issues such as privacy, but all other things being equal, I have no problem with the concept that it should be illegal to post illegal material onto the web
No need to feel sorry for yourself, if you're offering condolences to those affected by stupidity. You'll know you have plenty of company.
If you read the article, you'll notice that the ISP, the carrier, the host, all are not responsible. If they're not responsible, they don't need to filter.
Seeing as insults seem to the order of the day, how on earth did small-brained eejits who can't read or apply logic develop the self-impression that they were more intelligent than the government? They may not be able to understand the technology, but you seem to have trouble reading a newspaper.
As for sensible ways to implement it, there is one. If there is a complaint that an individual is posting illegal content to the internet, and investigation shows that this is true, then arrest and charge them. Note there are many ways to do this, that don't all involve the Internet. Or are you too affected by stupidity to think of alternatives?
Seeing as people are as usual flying off the handle and making statements without basis in fact, but merely derived from their own stereotypical opinions (an accusation fairly similar to that often aimed at the legislators), it's worthwhile pointing out a few facts about the article:
There is no mention of software. There is no mention of filtering. There is no mention of thought control. There is no mention of enforcement by ISPs.
A lot of the posts are along the lines of, "Automatic filtering is impossible. Those idiots don't understand the technology." While going purely on the facts in the linked article, a fair reply to this would be, "There's no mention of filtering, and ISPs, carriers and hosts are specifically not targeted by the new laws - that's stated in black and white. You idiots can't even read - where do you get off insulting our lack of understanding!" Besides, it's seems clear to me that technology does not have as great effect on principles and law as tech-heads might think. Just because you've found a method whereby you won't be caught doesn't make it legal or ethical.
It's also worth mentioning that freedom of speech is not a right that Australians have, or for that matter anyone outside of the US (and of the evidence of the average bland, conservative mainstream output of the American media, it could be argued that they drastically fail to appreciate the principle anyway).
People are blindly assuming that the definition of what is obscene is going to be automatically decided by some algorithm somewhere. Well, maybe it is, but it's not stated anywhere. And the fact that ISPs and hosts will not be held responsible tends to suggest that this in unlikely to be the case. Australia has always struck me as pretty reasonable about such things - it will be the courts who decide what is and isn't obscene, which is the way it has always been.
Sorry for being a reactionary conservative prick, but I think that there is such a thing as obscene material, and would not have a particularly high opinion of anyone that thought pictures of, say, an 8 year old orphan being forced to have anal sex should be defended on some pathetic "free speech" principle. I'm willing to bet that was not what the writers of the US Constitution had in mind.
On the premise that some material should therefore be made illegal, how do you stop it? You say, and I agree, that filtering software doesn't work. But if someone is proven to have posted such material, then they should be convicted. In principle at least, this can be passed into law. Further more, such proof is a very different matter to automatic and fail safe filtering.
It remains consistent and practical to acknowledge the fact that the Internet/cyberspace changes the rules, therefore posting to host on the internet can just as easily be treated as an export situation. Anyone within the territory concerned therefore posts at their own risk - they are clearly breaking the law. Tax havens and permanent exiles have been around for centuries, so it really isn't anything new for people to move somewhere that their acts are not liable to prosecution.
There are points to worry about in the article - there is no clear definition of what is "permissable" material. For example, pornography Playboy/Playgirl style is to my mind difficult to criticise, in the sense that it's above board, and the abuses (there must be some) are likely to be no worse than you might get in some sweat shop with an abusive boss - i.e. individual people might get prosecuted but you can't ban pictures of naked people. Those cases involving genuine abuse are more questionable, and the you've got child porn which is completely unacceptable. So there are lines to be drawn, especially when the law as it seems to be outlined in the article then throws even more things under the "banned" label, such as this post for discussing such material.
But if you're only argument is mindless bleatings of "thought control" and "you just don't understand the technology" you're not going to get anywhere. You only appear hysterical and illogical - and remarkably biased. Going by the theory, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem," then by failing to make relevant arguments you're as much to blame as the people that pass the law.
And to think one of my long term goals was to move to Australia....
And the thing of it is, it's still very subjective. One cop might find something objectionable that, say his partner might not. And what are the guidelines? Oh sure, XXX-rated pr0n is obviously "unsuitable" for minors, but what about web pages on breast cancer (which is always brought up during comments on web filters), or web pages on gun safety? Would those "incite criminal activity" and thus by outlawed?
Good grief... what some politicians will do to "protect the young".
Kierthos
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
freedom of speech is not protected in the australian constitution. in fact, very little is
It's not the depth of the water thats the problem. It's the current that kills you.
I'm tempted to get a whole load of dead-tree pr0n and post it via Snail Mail to the backers of this bill. Do you reckon they'd try to close down post offices if they knew that the oh-so-innocent postal system was being used that way? Maybe they'd try and introduce a law to check all mail passing through SA.
Or maybe politicians should just let us get on with our lives without treating us like children who have to be protected from the big, bad world outside.
Why do I suddenly see a buch of Aussie servers moving out of the country?
This sig intentionally left blank.
Personally, I feel that most 'Christian' web sites are obscene. Somehow I doubt that those will be censored.
Sometime you have to wonder... do they actually know what the Internet is? Can someone tell me if South Australia is actually some kind of giant cave? There isn't enough censors on earth to go rate all the "interenet content" out there. Would it kill them to call it the Office of Internet, Film and Literature Classification since the Internet is such a menace.
Child porn? Okay, I don't remember this kind of stuff NOT being mentioned everytime someone want to censor something. How about a site that teaches people to double park? And some other dumb laws!
====
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
Unless the other state follow suit (which I believe is actually the "worrysome" part of this bill) the actual impact of this has to be pretty insignificant. Oz should effectively be choked already by the censorship laws - except I have not heard of more then a few sites that have been queried. Then again Australia is genally more open minded then a good part of the rest of the world.
--
Jon - TheSpork
Wow, out of mouth o' babes.... Of course! From what we enjoy in the US to what is 'enjoyed' in China. Yes indeed, a society is defined by what limits it sets on freedoms.
The freedom to bear arms is no more a basic freedom than the freedom to have sex with children, and both were considered fine by the framers of the constitution (using the modern definition of child). It so happens that the second freedom has been eroded since that time but so what? Society has changed.
I rather doubt that those who lived in 1776 condoned sexual congress with children. I imagine that any sex out of wedlock was considered Wrong.
While marriage at what we would consider young took place, it was not enshrined in the Constitution. The second amendment was applied just after the 'freedom of speech' as Important to the survival of the fledgling republic. I don't think the order is accidental. Have you actually read anything that Jefferson, Washington, Adams or the other wrote on the subject? Perhaps you ought to examine the Federalist Papers.
Pay attention: the right to bear arms is an amendment to the Constitution. The age at which people can be married is a cultural more reflected by prevailing law. They are not equivalent 'rights' and your comparison is a disingenuous obfuscation of the issues. But to further the argument effectively requires a little slight-of-hand, doesn't it?
The loss of the right to bear arms is as valid for removal as the right to have sex with children and as valid for defense as the right to equality of treatment.
More false logic but great rhetoric! There never has been a 'right' to have sex with children. So are you still beating your wife? Similarly valid statements. Both offer a false a assumption framed as a given fact. Very naughty. No soup for you!
Further you equate the validity of the loss of TRTBA to the validity of the right to equality of treatment? I agree that a cornerstone principle of our republic is that we are all equal in the eyes of the law. That is to say, we all enjoy equal protection and are equally responsible for our misdeeds. (Except for certain recent presidents, of course: some are more equal than others, eh?) I assume that this is what you mean by that vague equality of treatment phrase.
I do not agree with your equation, however. Again, in an ad hominem sort of way, this is not a logically valid statement. You do not discuss the merits of your argument but rather equate your argument to one we all presumably already accept as valid. You argue A is good because B is good although there is no connection between the two. Very naughty indeed; no soup for you, nor ice cream!
Since all "rights" are made up by people, all are ripe to be reconsidered from time to time. I happen to think that the damage caused by the second amendment far outweighs any good it does. You can argue the issue but simply pointing to the constitution and saying "230 years ago there was a society that thought this was good and that's an end to it" is not a rational argument.
Perhaps we should reconsider your right to speak your mind. Don't like it? Well, you're getting smarter already. I'm curious which 'rights' you'd like to have us revisit? The freedom of speech? The right to a speedy trial? Due Process rights? Which? Tell me, and in doing so tell me what you are about.
While laws are formulated by 'people' to ostensibly protect enumerated rights, your comments lead me to a central problem that we face today: the relationship between government and the governed has been turned inside out.
The Constitution delineates what the national government is permitted to do. If it's not explicitly permitted, it is forbidden to engage in it. The 'rights' cited by you and elsewhere are not 'granted' to us. They already exist. The Constitution redundantly states that the government may not infringe of the rights listed. The issue is, as has been pointed out by another worthy, whether the government is allowed to restrict them or passes laws to protect them. It most certainly does NOT grant them.
What you must understand is that the government was never granted the power to regulate any of the things the rights listed protect and therefore could not legally do so whether the amendments existed or not. We the citizens may do what we will unless it is explicitly not legal. The Constitution does not grant the national government the power to regulate speech, therefore it can never do so. In short, the Constitution tells the government what it may do, while those who love power would have us believe that it merely tells government what it may not do. This is a very important distinction.
This was a danger anticipated by Alexander Hamilton:
In short, the Constitution does not grant the national government the power to restrict the ownership of firearms; therefore it may not do so. This is, of course, to protect me from the likes of you and your 'well intentioned' bretheran.
News flash: we do not live in a Democracy. We live in a Constitutional Republic which is a democratic institution in that we elect our representatives to exercise their judgement on our behalf and not to hop to our every whim. The majority does not Rule. The Majority exercise their will through their elected officials who must act in accordance with the Constitution and not do what ever most of the people want.
Be grateful for that; for tomorrow the Majority might decide that It doesn't like you or those like you. And then round you up and exterminate you. And while it would be the logical fruit of your political inclinations, I would not wish it on you.
-tarkas
'A lie if repeated often enough, becomes the truth.' - Goebbels
George Washington
And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. ... The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson
If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all forms of positive government.
Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 28)
Whereas civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize ... the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.
Tench Coxe
Who are the militia? They consist of the whole people, except a few public officers.
George Mason
To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.
Richard Henry Lee
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
I think there was something like boarding schools where we took native kids and tried to teach them to be white.
Watching Cowboy Bebop in my jammies, eating a bowl of Shreddies.
My first response to this load of horse puckey is "Oh, please!" My second response is, "Someone mod this guy down!" Maybe Flamebait, or Troll to start with. Is there a category for "Flagrant Factual Misstatement"?
Anyone who thinks that Canada's hate crime laws are draconian and anti-Christian should try to live here for awhile. By the way, sir, the reason our government doesn't take kindly to religious schools with far-fetched ideas is that we actually do, contrary to US accepted practice, actually have some kind of country-wide educational standards (which means no entry exams for college or university, among other things). It's not a question of "what the government [allegedly] wants you to believe," and anyone who says that is a whacko and a liar.
As to our version of the FCC (called the CRTC), well, if you think their version of "censorship" (which also helps to keep people like Ernst Zundel and Wolfgang Droege (see Project Nizkor for more details) from being Canada's answer to Art Bell...among other public liabilities.
On the other hand, we have a public education system that's actually pretty good, and the Air Farce AND This Hour Has 22 Minutes. So I guess living in a horrrible anti-Christian Communist pogrom-laden country like Canada isn't so bad after all...
I'm not a geek, I'm just a clever script.
young, committed men and women with a dream of leading the future of internet technology!
Skills: Strong stomach, being able to "recognize pornography when one sees it," penchant for censorship.
Seriously, aussies, if your friend says he or she is taking the Censor job, cut them off and then h4x0r them.
and no, this cannot be done with nanny-ware, we have seen in many other stories how this software is so inaccurate that it would not withstand any substantial constitutional test in any country.
Goat sex free since 2001
www.oflc.com.au
The Office of Film and Literature Classification welcomes your feedback.
Other distiguihsed mebers are Singapore, China, Sauid Arabia and a score of other countries where the goverment knows waht is better for you.
Congrats.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
selective block out a geographical region? I don't mean in the traditional sense where the region in question is filtering incoming data. I mean is it possible to "blackout" a region from the rest of the world? I'm don't have the education but surely there must be a way to let governments know that "the people" can "limit" their power. So South Australia would get zero content from outside South Australia. If there was enough cooperation and someone could do somehting about AOL... ok maybe I'm dreaming.
My other sig is a Haiku
> In the US, Congress can go ahead and pass any
> censorship law they want (and have done so in at
> least one instance.) It is up to the Supreme
> Court to nullify it if it is unconstitutional
We need a constitutional ammendment that if such a thing happens, the house master-at-arms punches every congresscritter who voted for such a measure right in the face.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
The freedom of speech is outlawed after the government seizes firearms from its citizens. It is an attitude. The citizens are not responsible adults and must be herded like sheep following the bellweather. Yeah, I know that someone will mark this one as flamebait, but please, please, study history. It happened in Germany in 1936, it will happen again and again so long as people chant the mantra of the insane: "This time is different...".
Sex is heriditary, if your parents didn't have it chances are good you won't either.
I am an East-German White. But to appease your concerns, I don't have any spawnling, yet.
Just because I can imagine doing a hippopotamus, doesn't mean I'd like to do it.
>How is crime after citizens gave up guns About the same. Big semi-automatic weapons were fairly rare here before the gun laws, and sawn off shotguns (the weapon of choice in armed holdups) have always been illegal here. Used syringes are used in holdups too. Guns have never been a really big deal here. No one's attempted to hit our heads of state with anything more than an egg since Federation.
Australia always seemed to me like a sane country.
There is no sensible way to implement this, but since when did sensible enter into what a government does...
My condolences to all those effected by this stupidity:(
Synchronized cocks!
so now that the goverment is going to be controlling all external forms of intrest controlled in privacy when do all the magazines get sesored when do all the guns get taken away when do they start breading soldiers, when does sex stop and free though end, and when were talking about that when does my pizza get here, or did it get supeanad by the supreme court for sleeping with bill cliton
Any government that passes laws like this will use them to silence opposition. I run an anti-gov site that is a discussion board, and .au would be able to block it because of it's content. It is an open discussion, so people can link to what they like in comments. Sometimes people link to adult content... we can't controll that, but it would get us banned. Especially since we are critical of the government anyway.
Republicans are Nazis. LetsRiot!
I personally think that they can't succeed when it comes to the Internet. It's not like anyone can take overall control of the whole thing. Short of closing it down for general public use, which would surely not happen, regulation cannot succeed.
i live in SA, i believe the govt. cannot do a bloody thing about censoring stuff. i also believe that the govt. know this - they may be out of touch with reality at times, but they aren't completely stupid. the govt have done this to get on the good side of some of the more _conservative_ voters out there.
Saudi Arabia has unbeilivable censorship laws. My uncle worked there for a while and brought back a readers digest, any pics with womens arms or legs or anything else that would not be cover in the country show, had them all blacked out, and articles they did not agree with scatched out or torn out compeletly.
But, we get the society we deserve.
Just too bad that *everyone* gets something that *others* deserve, too.
Will work for bandwidth
I can buy magazines full of guns and knives and other 'offensive weapons'. I can buy newsletters produced by far-left political groups. I can buy pro-abortion and pro-euthenasia newsletters. All offensive to some people.
I can publish these items on paper if I wish. But heaven forbid if i publish or view them on the internet!
Sound crazy? It is, and this is just one of the many crazy legislations and laws my Government has made - enough to convince me to leave South Australia.
actually he's not lying. The Australian goverment is based on a mix of the westminster system in britian and the USA system. As such their constitution is a very weak generalized document and most of their goverment is ran on custom. Additionally their is no bill of rights or anything about rights at all. However most australians know very little about their own goverment (due to it being taking out of education) so they assume that its just like america and they have the right to free speech and such.
I don't live there but I visit often, as often as the weekend before last and your post almost reads like you were following me around.
I was silly enough to expect to be able to puchase supermarket food and drink after the rest of the mall had shut on a Thursday evening, and the next night on my way back up Main North Road to my motel I went into a shopping complex which seemed to have lost half its other shops in the shadow of its Coles.
Even though I had earlier driven past hoardes of departing Adelaide High School students, I still cannot discern any meningful difference in strength and distortion between those two "Onkaparinga Bridge" sentences.
One of my reasons for coming over was to visit a great aunt in a generously appointed hospital. Although reasonably bright, she was one of those on the right who the pollies of our now lame duck Liberal governments seek to appeal to, but she won't be voting again.
But I still get frustrated with how Adelaide is so down on itself, when it is far and away the most livable of Australia's five major cities, especially if you overlook the water supply. Sure what had been intended to be factory worker housing has been given over to welfare-dependent single mothers who are manufacturing candidates for youth suicide, and the saga of the Multi Function Polis is fodder for comedians, but these are minor distractions on the lovely setting and extensive tracts of elegant affordable accomodations.
Hey, Port even thrashed the erstwhile invincible Bombers on Saturday night, so never count on a miserable future.
On the original topic of the censorship regime, I don't really expect the Blair clones who are taking over the reigns here will give any priority to bringing The Law into closer correspondence with reality, so whatever chilling effect these laws might have will probably persist.
-- Our systemic servants do not good masters make.
Well we aren't much better. Some kid wrote an article in some college newspaper which was basically an open letter to Jesus asking him to kill George Bush and he got a visit from the secret service. I mean come on... Jesus is fictional, how the hell is he going to kill Bush?
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.