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Australian Censorship Legislation
danny writes: "Legislation is before the New South Wales (Australia) state parliament that would make it
a criminal offense to publish material unsuitable
for children online. Other states will be passing similar laws,
as this is part of a uniform national approach. So please
help us stop this! Note: earlier Federal legislation in Australia covered Internet Service Providers, not end-users. But this law follows that in attempting to directly transfer the film censorship system to the Net - one has to wonder how many of the politicians involved actually use the Net."
Or is it more of an attempt to latch on to something that they can demonize to make voters feel more at ease? I mean seriously, it seems it would be absurd for them to tell us we couldn't say on the street anything that was deemed unsuitable for children. What about swearing in a room with kids? Bad manners perhaps but not a legislative matter at all, most would agree.
The internet is treated differently because it is a new thing that most politicians don't understand. People have been talking with their mouths for years. But look... "Big internet new and scary. Ugh. The internet is power-mad. She want take moral perogative away from parents." It is a lot easier for people to blame what's new and mysterious (to some anyway). I can't stand it when people go off about kids being exposed to internet porn. Kids have been swiping their parents' stag flicks and magazines for such a long time it may as well have become herreditary tradition. And the pipe bombs? Please. Apparently legislators never went to school (at least not a public one).
However, they have signed on board the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that everyone has the right of freedom of expression (artile 19). The proposed law seems to seriously hinder that right as a non-unanimous decision of a bunch of minority-view cencors can deem you guilty and slap a nice $5,500 fine on you.
Again, I wonder the relavance to the location of the server. This is not clear under the proposed law. Could anyone be guilty anywere? Will I receive a $5,500 "bill" from the NSW government concerning my website? Or will I just be arrested whenever I visit Australia?
Those in power always want that the general population be as clueless as possible, so that they don't pose as a threat.
The internet is the worst thing that can happen to many governments - free exchange of information, people educating themselves, etc.
Rule 1. Never rely on secondary sources.
Rule 2. Refer to Rule 1.
The only practical way to insure that the majority of the "people" want a law is to ditch the representative government model and go to one person - one vote and make voting mandatory. And guess what... that isn't practical.
Kierthos
Australia has 1 vote per person, a directly elected representative house and a proportionally elected house and voting is mandatory.
krenskeoz
With due respect, I have to concur with krenskeoz on this one.
Australia certainly manages to have both compulsorary voting and (close to) one vote - one person. This may come as a surprise to other democracies - I understand it to be one of the few in the world that requires voting. But certainly it is practical, we manage just fine.
It is more likely that it does not suit the current parties in the US to expand the voting base by making it requisite, nor to equalise the votes of a californian to say, that of west virginia. Indeed, it makes it much cheaper to run your campaign if you don't have to concentrate much on many states.
Michael
There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.