Slashdot Mirror
Smutty E-Mail Legal In Australia
spam-it-to-me-baby writes: "Welcome to Australia. Over the course of a few months, Aussies now can't gamble online locally, you soon may not be able to serve p0rn from a website, we have what could be the world's greatest luddite for an IT minister, but now we find there's nothing wrong legally with spreading a bit of bestiality via e-mail. Is something upside down Down Under?"
And what the hell is the US's obsession with calling us "down under"?!
You'll turn the world upside down if you call US down under!
Get a clue. Timothy (or, more accurately, spam-it-to-me-baby) is merely pointing out some factual information about Australian laws relating to the Internet.
It's not their fault that your country (which you love so much) has such a screwed set of laws. Face it, your government is rapidly becoming the laughing stock of the internet, and on-line ridicule like this can only help you in reversing such silly laws.
~Cederic
The sad thing is that I'm so used to Australia banning internet stuff that it took me a while to realize that heading said legal instead of illegal. The first few times I read it, I thought I SAW illegal.
It's sad that a country could build up a track record that strong.
"Let him go, Ralph. He knows what he's doing." --Otto Mann (simpsons)
States can ignore Federal laws (by passing their own variants)
You are incorrect. According to the Constitution of Australia, if a State has a law that is in conflict with a Federal law, the Federal law overrides the State law. If you're Australian, remember the recent mandatory sentencing debate? There are also some areas where states are constitutionally prohibited from passing laws. States cannot have their own armed forces, for example.
--
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
... precisely the same way that the US states are subserviant to the federal government. Each Australian State is effectively a sovereign entity (think of it as economic block) while the federal system tries to centralise certain activities (cough*taxes*cough). This creates some rather interesting political dynamics (e.g. vertical fiscal imbalances) in that States can ignore Federal laws (by passing their own variants) or create enough hue and cry that the federal government ends up back-pedelling. The good point is that there's diversity in the system, if you don't like laws in one state you can fairly easily relocate to another, or even Christmas Island which is a separate territory (which has fewer taxes). The downer is that some shanghinans get perpetuated, for example one premier (equivalent of US State Governor) in Queensland went straight to the Queen when trying the national hobby of rocking the boat.
What this means is that usually the government is too busy trying to sort out the mess in its own backyard to really bother the people that much (except for the recent introduction of GST which they've botched badly) so you can get away with some odd things. I believe someone mentioned that one of the world's biggest purchasers of SGI gear running a porn site is in Queensland which coincidenctally has one of the country's most conservative voters. Given the legal and economic stability and access to technology (some nice software hot spots around) it is not actually not a bad place to do IT work provided you focus on the export market and ignore the silly buggers down in the capital city.
LL
If Beastialty (or depictions thereof) are not illegal in a particular locale then passing it around is not. HOWEVER, if it is against the stated Terms of Use of the particular system it is passed on then administrative action would be neccessary, according to whatever diciplinary provisions that are made.
With all the latest hoopla about AU, it seems that the transition from Penal Colony to Modern Utopia is almost complete
Somebody's gotta go back and get us a shitload of dimes.
Trying to portay Australia as the home of bestiality.
Never believe in anything until it has been officially denied. -Otto von Bismarck
Government (and Utility, but this may change soon in California) workers are _very_ hard to fire. They basically have strict due process (called "Civil Service") protections against unfavorable personnel actions (like, i.e., firing). It's the same in most first-world countries, including the UK, the EU, the US, Canada, Australia, NZ, Japan, etc.
All they have to do is show up for their shift (not discernably drunk or stoned), stay awake (mostly) for eight hours, and they're guaranteed to keep their jobs, pretty much.
In the US, somewhere around 40% of employees work for Local, State, or Federal governments. Scary, isn't it? Most of them vote, too, which is one reason it's so hard to pass meaningful tax reductions. In the UK, EU, etc., the percentage is probably even higher. Of course the idiot kept his job. H*ll, he'll probably get a raise this year! You have to be around "civil servants" for a while to figure out that they aren't motivated by the same incentives that lead most enterprise employees to be useful, productive, effective, and efficient. Public workers usually evince none of these characteristics. (But exceptions do exist.) For the most part though, "civil service" rules need changing.
Ok, so someone was using work computers to send personal email.... If there were rules about not sending personal email, you give the person a warning and move on. What was the big deal?
Kellogs Corn Flakes
Maybe replace with "The Warner Brother's Film Studio"....
"In the US, somewhere around 40% of employees work for Local, State, or Federal governments."
This is obviously bogus. Think about your friends - do anywhere near 40% of them work for the gov't? Do even 10%? No. This wasn't even true during the world wars - there had to be many people producing war materials for each person on the front (and war materials were produced largely by private companies). Think before you post.
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
So does that mean that all the Austrilan porn sites will now have to switch their servers from http to POP3?
Fuck I hate you Tim. Why dont you think before you post this shit? Beastiality ok in Australia? You're a prick.. this is my country you're talking about. Someone finally stands up and says people have a right to say whatever they want to each other whether it be over government computers or not and you post it as being backward. Grow up.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Think about your friends - do anywhere near 40% of them work for the gov't? Do even 10%?
Well if you count the military and govt. contract work, yes. Just because you might not think you know anyone who fits that description doesn't mean it isn't accurate. I live in the middle of one of the largest military areas in the nation and I'd say a lot more than 40% of the folks I know are paid by the govt. one way or another.
"Smear'd with gumms of glutenous heat, I touch..." - Comus, John Milton
The House Between - Original Sci-Fi Series
And exactly what government facilities were the woman and her german shepherd using?
duck!
(Yes, I read the story; just poking fun.)
The Web is like Usenet, but
the elephants are untrained.
I'm an Australian and have known about this for about a week now. This is not going to stop Australians from gambling, only they're going to gamble on sites overseas. The wierd thing is, Australian gambling sites may allow only overseas gamblers to gamble and not Australians. Where's the logic in that? This was the exact point made by one of the owners of an Australian gambling site. He also said that it''s not going to make much difference because about 90% of his revenue comes from outside Australia. I'm glad theregister said what they said.
Are we still in April Fools day mode? I mean, looking at the date evidently isn't enough, based on earlier stories today...
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
(What? Those are the citizens?)
--
--
I like to watch.
When I read about Australian gov't decisions, I wonder if a lot of schizophrenia genes got spread about as a result of being a former prison colony.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
As an American living in a hi tech area on the east coast (RTP), we are getting taxed heavily, don't have health care paid for by the taxation, and the public transportation we do have is pathetic.
Some argue that the public transportation is pathetic because everyone takes cars, I believe everyone uses the car because the public transportation doesn't run to convenient locations on a convenient reliable schedule. But none of that matters,
because we're still taxed into 'barely getting by' status, and not seeing either of the benefits that you mention to justify such taxation.
Insurance works when your work provides it as a benefit, and if it doesn't, you're free to shop around to get the best coverage for your money. If you weren't taxed so heavily, you could afford better insurance. If the insurance companies wanted your business they'd invent a plan that fit into your budget. It's called lessaiz-faire economics, go and learn it. No one owes you these things, least of all a government funded on the backs of everyone else.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
Insurance is simply betting- I bet that I might get sick and require expensive care. The insurance company bets I won't and that they'll profit off the bet.
HMOs are much more sinister, being that they get to choose the doctors and coach the doctors as to what treatments are permissible.
When I lived in Israel, I noticed that they do have a form of health care for all, but taxation is done far differently. They don't have a sales tax, and state tax/federal taxes don't hit one time a year, but instead are taken monthly from the paycheck and from the monthly property tax.
Here in the states, I have good medical insurance (and yes, I've had the misfortune of needing to use it, thanks) and of my bi-monthly salary of 2,479.20, I get to take home $1,661.75. And this is without your federal health care and a useless to non-existant public transportation system.
Thanks but no thanks, I'd like to start seeing more of the money I'm supposedly being paid.
The title of this thread is "Taxation's not simply bad," to which I answer, while nothing in modern Government is simple, taxation is bad.
Part of how we got to this position is that the law stopped being used to only make rulings on property and property rights, and began to be used for legislating social change. I contend that while this may have led to a few good results, it has also led to much abuse and distortion of truth. The end does not justify the means.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
I do however wish that Mr Alston hire someone with a brain before making statements that lead to unenforcable laws. Sh*t even a Marketing drone could tell you some of these laws sound implausible (ok ..maybe not a marketing drone). Australia needs more support for IT companies to whaul themselves out of the crap they have fallen into, not more stupid laws for people to laugh at.
--
Jon - TheSpork
IIRC, this isn't quite true. The Labor (left-wing) party will probably vote as a bloc against the bill, true. The sting in the tail comes from the Democrats (centrist) and other party-goers...
At least one Democrat (whose name escapes me - can anyone clear this up?) has said he'll support the bill, on the grounds that Internet gambling is draining money from the pockets of middle- and lower-class Australia and must be stopped. (I'm not going to *touch* the reasoning behind this.) Bob Brown (Australian Greens: he's IIRC pretty conservative on social issues) may well support the legislation as well. Len Harris (One Nation, hysterically right-wing) I don't know about.
Let's take a worst-case scenario (from our POV). All of the minority parties vote for the bill, and that unknown Democrat breaks party lines to vote for the bill.
Doing the math (simple majority, 76 senators)...
39 votes are needed to pass the bill.
Liberal(31), National(3), CLP(1) coalition: 35 senators
Bob Brown (Greens): 1
Len Harris (PHON): 1
Brian Harradine (Ind.): 1
Unknown Democrat: 1
That's 39 votes in the Senate. The bill passes into law.
I repeat, I don't know if this is anywhere near fact - but it's a pretty scary theory.
Joshua Giersch
In my e-mail, it's not "whom", it's "hoo".
At least 40% of my paycheck is going to the government in some way: income tax, social security, state income tax, state sales tax, excise taxes, property tax. If it's not mostly paying for civil serpents, then where is it going?
As far as I can tell, the Oz legislature keeps proposing these inane things, they draw all sorts of criticism, then mostly they die in committee. But the idiot notions die very quietly, rather than embarrass the idiot who proposed them. By contrast, in the USA they append stuff like this to an unrelated bill at the end of the session, it gets passed by Senators and Congressmen who haven't even read it, and then six months later there's a public stink about it -- if we're lucky. Seems like the Ozzies might have it over us; even if their legislature often sounds like one of Molly Ivins commentaries on the (incredibly stupid, according to her anyway) Texas legislature, at least the Ozzies get a chance to comment on the BS before it gets voted on...
(1) Gambling debts are in no way legally enforceable. (2) Enforce the extortion laws, so they don't do very well at collecting illegally.
Salieri writes, "Ever notice how it's sometimes very difficult to tell which is the real or relevant link in the article write-up? Perhaps the editors can distinguish where the main attraction is." He then clicks preview to make sure the links work.
--------------------------------
In any workplace people should be allowed to mail stuff to each other, as long as it doesn't eat up too much work time. Public workers are human too, and some of them actually like to mail a joke or a funny picture to a co-worker every once and a while. This even saves time because you can relax a couple of minutes when you have some humor when working, after which you are more productive. If you expect people to work 8 hour (with lunch/coffee break) and expect them to pay full attention/concentration this full period without a minute of fun every once and a while, you start talking about slavery.
This tax paying thing is just like the typical hypocrite American reaction: we pay taxes and they shouldn't waste it. This is true in essence, but it doesn't mean you can deny a public worker any form of humor. Most programmers like funny stuff in the mail every once in a while, and so do government workers.
This is my first point. My second point is that the fact that bestiality is mentioned, as if this makes it worse. Also starts to look like the typical Americal reaction: violence is no problem, anything that has to do with sex is wrong/illegal/filthy/etc..
The person who told this story can A. not see that public workers are human too and B. doesn't see difference between bestiality and really illegal stuff. Therefore I (and any sane person) cannot take him seriously. It's just so clearly a populistic viewpoint ("look: we cannot do this and they can do this other thing which I personally find vulgar and therefore it must be made punishable to do it"). Sad, really.
Get a wobbly bit of cardboard out and sing.... Tie me Kangaroo down sport Tie me Kangaroo down.....
----------------------------------------------
The best lack all conviction
While the worst are full of passionate intensity
{YEATS}