Slashdot Mirror
Australia Says No to Internet Censorship
Brenton Fletcher writes "A nationwide protest rally against the internet censorship filter proposed by the Australian Labor Government was held today. Over 9,000 people were slated to attend. I was fortunate enough to go to the rally on the steps of Parliament House in Adelaide, South Australia. I heard speeches from the Digital Liberty Coalition, the Green Left Weekly, and other concerned members of the public." Reader mask.of.sanity adds a link to ComputerWorld's photo-heavy coverage of the gatherings.
[CENSORED] says [CENSORED] to [CENSORED]ship?
/b/ is going to be all over this story...
But "Australian Government Says Yes" The government always knows whats best and do not question their motives.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Removing the 'Passive' from passive-aggressive I see
By raising a big, public stink about it, all that has been done is to teach the politicians that they need to sneak this through the next time -- either by hiding it within some broader "anti-terrorism" or "think of the children" bill, or by passing it before the public can get wind of it. This is the main failure of legislative bodies -- a given bill can be put up for a vote repeatedly (maybe worded a bit differently) or integrated into something larger that is difficult to oppose. It can face any number of deaths in committee, or beat-downs when held to a vote, and it doesn't die. Yet it takes only one passing vote to put it on the books forever.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
Good news indeed. Now if they could only be more reasonable about Simpsons porn...
"OVER 9000!!!"
"If they are out there protesting, who's gonna feed the children they keep in their basements?"
http://nocleanfeed.com/ - i personally have not been and likely never will go to australia, but if you are a citizen, you would be hurting the rest of the world if you didn't help fight censorship. keep on trucking, aussies.
Incredible showing of people and protest. That % of people rallying behind anything is sure to make a change!
/. doesn't support that tag, pity really.
I'd type in the sarcastic font but
I haven't been back home for almost 5 years, but it saddens me to see that only 7000 people were in protest.
Come on, there was 1/2 a million for the anti Iraq rallies, I guess since the public couldn't stop the government on that one they just can't be bothered anymore.
I never realised Australia had a problem with an over controlling government until I moved to Europe.
Something has to be done before you all just give up all of your rights!
....... /
depend upon your defeatist attitude to make sure opposition is muted
i mean seriously, wtf: "all that has been done is to teach the politicians that they need to sneak this through the next time"
really? all of our representatives are programmed androids? they aren't people like you and me?
"Yet it takes only one passing vote to put it on the books forever"
forever? seriously?
look, your attitude is part of the problem
a legislature is a representation of the will of the people. does the people's will get warped? absolutely. does it get betrayed? absolutely. but not all the time, and not forever. if the right thing is ever going to get done, defeatist attitudes that accept bullshit, like yours, must be destroyed just as much as bad legislators need to be brought down
yeah, really: you're part of the problem
ultranegative, ultracynical attitudes are the beginning of acceptance of the crap you complain about
i don't accept this bullshit
by your words, YOU DO
change your retarded atittude, pronto
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Freedom isn't free. In order to be free, we need to fight terrorism. And how are we going to fight terrorism if we let people read whatever they want? Don't we need to censor things for their own good? Did Australia leave the British, ditching the Queen, just for they could have freedom of speech?
Oh wait.
What amuses me about this censorship is the fundamental lack of understanding of the Internet as it stands today.
There is a perception that it is websites that contain the kinds of material to be blocked, and for some countries, the conversations to prevent.
Whats wrong with this? Online games, that's what. Even at this early stage its possible for people to meet in groups online in games and talk.
mummorpegers are becoming more complex as time rolls on, and with them, the ways in which players can interact. My son does all his online chatting in game, or through things like steams speech comms.
Can these be censored? Not easily, if at all, about the best the can do is prevent swearing, and that assumes a list of pre-established stop words. Apply censorship more complex than swear filters to online games and you kill them, because the costs of administering the censorship would outstrip the money to be made, or dent it so much as to make it non viable.
Then there's the fact that not all online games are run by conveniently visible corporations, a trend also likely to continue.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
The fewer countries we have trying this utter shit, the less likely other places are.
To the jackass who pushed for this: FUCK YOU. Go suck on Jesus' cock. We all know it's your secret fantasy, you fucking Christian nutter.
While they are at it, they should get rid of the stupid det portal. All it does is slow down the internet at schools. It hinders learning because you cannot go on almost ANY informative sites etc. so, to the aussie gov techies, refer to the above comment.
For those of you that don't understand the reference Tasmania is a state of Australia that is an island and shaped something like an upsidedown triangle. "Show us your map of Tassie" is slang and translates to "show us your pubic hair".
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Hey, I do have an answer for this -- sunset clauses. They should work both ways and be MANDATORY.
Propose measure X, with a sunset clause of five years. If it passes, it has to be re-passed after those five years or it goes away. On the flip side, if it makes it to a vote and is defeated, it CANNOT BE PROPOSED AGAIN for five years. This should stop legislators from trying to bite off more than they can chew. Laws confirmed to be a good idea can be given longer sunset clauses the second time around -- say up to some multiple of the original. If it can get passed a third time, then some "cap limit" such as 99 years would come into play.
But do you think the legislatures would actually want to DO this? It would require them to not only pass laws, but to examine and renew those that have already been passed... and that would be WORK!
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
"Over 9,000 people were slated to attend" Slated to attend? That's not even English, it's barely bad journalese. It seems to be a way to avoid saying "25 people attended, with 2 crappy banners, and nobody cares. We'd better make up some shit so we don't look totally ineffectual".
omg where do i start with this one. for a start, what the hell does the green left weekly mag have that's informative on isp filtering? I'm sorry i missed it though, it'd be nice to attend just to see them eating their words because they are the type that rabidly supported rudd during the election.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I missed news reports, but going off the story here and comments I'm disappointed in the focus.
I don't want the pollies to think this is only an issue for civil-liberarian fringe groups, greens, and porn consumers.
No, I wasn't there; I live 600km from the nearest held rally.
-- All your bass are below two Hz
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/11/28/1227491813497.html?page=fullpage You know it is bad when children's groups want clean feed as well.
A nationwide armed revolt and mass execution of government officials would have been a more proportionate response, but I suppose 9,000 people shaking their fists is a start.
[Parent comment omitted]
It's nice to see all you have to do to get a +5 Insightful on Slashdot these days is spew unrelated obscenities in a semi-literate fashion. Well done.
I'll bet that this whole thing really has little to do with "Christian nutters" as you so eloquently put it. To get the government to spend that kind of money on that kind of project just screams corporate lobbyists. The real targets of this "censorship" project is probably downloaded music, movies, and software. They can block torrents for movies and software as well as any unofficial music sites like AllOfMP3 (now defunct) and MP3Sparks (still online) -- all in the name of protecting the children.
The fact is, it is incredibly hard to effectively censor pornographic or other generally illicit websites. There are always exceptions to the contextual rules the filters try and use to determine what shouldn't be allowed and URL blacklists are completely worthless. Since the filtering is done at the ISP level, how are you supposed to bypass the filter so you can read that Wikipedia article? On the other hand, blacklists are easy and work great to block domains and IP addresses of the most popular torrent sites and trackers.
The whole thing smells like an attempt at continent-wide piracy prevention, Internet DRM, or whatever you call it. Don't be surprised when port 6969 all of a sudden stops working.
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
/)
.
A crowd of several hundred gathered at Stirling Gardens in Perth today to rally against the Australian Government's plans for mandatory censorship of the Internet. A Facebook page titled, Perth Australians against Internet Censorship, Say No to Mandatory Internet Filtering states that the Australian government was 'quietly going ahead with plans to filter all Australian's access to the internet in a manner similar to the People's Republic of China and Iran.' Protestors rally against internet censorship
A rally to protest against the Federal Government's plans to filter the internet is underway in Brisbane. About 200 people are at Brisbane Square in the CBD for the rally which is part of a national day of protest. They say the Government's proposals are internet censorship and will make the net slower. Brisbane protesters rally against web filter plans
I've seen bigger crowds line up to drop coins in the kettle for the Salvation Army.
No, the senator pushing for this is the "family" party. The majority party, in order to get his support, decided to go with him on this... to my understanding, anyway...
I thought I was going to have to endure an entire day on Slashdot without the obligatory Australian story and almost committed suicide, but Timothy came through for me at the last moment!
Bless you, little Timmy! The whole world needs to discover just how great and important we are, which is why everybody is so lucky to have you and kdawson leading the Aussie cheer on Slashdot!
I'll bet that this whole thing really has little to do with "Christian nutters" as you so eloquently put it.
The whole 'censor the internet' thing has been a vote-grab by Labor to pander to the permanently-morally-outraged socially conervatives, who became increasingly more visible during the last decade.
It is exacerbated by the balance of power being held by "Christian nutters".
While I would never suggest the whole "corporate lobbying" thing doesn't happen in Australia, it is nowhere near as widespread and blatant as the US.
In short, yes, it is the "Christian nutters" who are responsible.
It's always amusing to see how people fail to see that there isn't really any difference in how you call your god and that they are taking their big invisible friends far too important when they start attacking other religions...
A good education is a bit like a STD - it makes you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and gives you a desire to spread it.
Actually, the current Government (Australian Labor Party) does not have a majority in the senate, requiring the co-operation of a Family First (christian) senator to pass other legislation. So yes, religion probably DOES have a lot to do with it.
Also, the filter is only http - no P2P is being blocked (how can they?) and presumably https will not be blocked (as they will not be able to see the traffic).
- Chuq
... Australia says "No [expletive deleted] way!" to Internet censorship.
Have gnu, will travel.
Our liveleak friend is looking at 15 yrs for reposting the "swinging baby" video in australia... I hope they stop ARGO before he lands in jail... http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=769_1228810670
This is totally to do with "Christian nutters", in particular one Senator Steve Fielding from Family First Party (i.e. the Christian Right). Other party site here. He holds the balance of power in the Senate and this is totally about getting his vote so as to enable the sitting government to get their legislation through. There are plenty of press [pdf] releases [pdf] on these sites to demonstrate their position and lobbying [pdf].
Big Media may be lobbying and pushing, but this is nothing to do with what is happening here in Australia with regards to the current push for filtering.
Don't tailgate - the end is near!
No, the senator pushing for this is the "family" party. The majority party, in order to get his support, decided to go with him on this... to my understanding, anyway...
Your understanding is incorrect. This is ALP's baby - though it's true that Family First would like to ban "hard-core pornography" altogether. Libs are not much better (and are only likely to oppose it for their own political reasons - there's no driving principle of free speech, etc)
This has less to do with "religious nutters" (of any persuasion) and more to do with control. The problem with politicians (on all sides), is that they just love to control people... they'll say they believe in freedom of choice, but only if you make what they consider the "right" choices.
Even people opposed to the censorship law include socialist mobs like Green Left Weekly... hardly a pro-freedom movement.
oh, and I thought they were in fact censoring "Christian nutters" from the unaware youth.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
New sig! Thanks!
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
I am Australian and I do not accept internet censorship lightly although I was unable to attend the protest. Krudd (Kevin Rudd) wants to copy china and maybe he even has plans to stop people talking about the government in the future too.
I believe we need freedom of speech in our democracy we have a echelon(well one i know of), spooks (people posing as children to catch pedophiles) which most other countries have but we've seen ads on television about it. And well last I knew the AFP where allowed to break into your computer without a warrant if you fall into a certain category.
So there are enough crazy measures in place without the need for "Australia's Great Firewall".
That's all.
The grass isn't always greener on the other side. Take the time to water your own grass and it can be just as green.
Either way this sort of ill-conceived idea is discredited even further, and hopefully more governments will take heed and NOT consider it.
No way, it teaches school kids about proxies. :P
Ezekiel 23:20
One of the reasons for poor turn-out is that I have not seen even ONE news report, nor newspaper article on this. The only information regarding this has purely been on slashdot, computerworld, and a couple of youtube videos. How can people protest something if they don't know what is going on? I certain that there are many other people who would protest this, but they don't even know that it is happening behind their backs
According to news.com.au, the attendance in Sydney was about 300, so you'd assume nationwide it was closer to 1,000.
It was also raining, which didn't help.
I was thinking along the same lines earlier this week: Graffiti On The Men's Room Wall The geek writes himself out of the political equation when no one has to take him seriously as an adult.
Internet censorship like this isn't just internet censorship.
The internet isn't a thing - a single service - it's the end result of a whole bunch of private and public networks voluntarily choosing to use common protocols and volunatrily choosing to let certain groups administer some limited aspects (IP space, name space, etc).
The government making it law that this must be censored is the government saying :You are not allowed to establish digital communication with anyone else unless it's passed through our filters, and we decide what data goes and stays.
This remains true no matter how pretty you dress it up.
The nutters that pretend to be Christian unfortunately are the difference between the government getting laws passed or not. This makes politicians nervous that their own backsides may not be on their parlimentary seats after the next election if they don't do something about it - and that's about the most powerful force in politics.
We've imported a bit of US pentacostalism (despite being excommunicated as a nation by Oral Roberts) but then got it wrong and given it an even more unfortunate twist with cults like Magnificant Meal and Exclusive Bretheren. The EB in paticular put a huge amount of effort into the last two elections. That is the "corporate lobbyist" you are loooking for.
Personally I think it was seen as a quick way to appease some single issue nutters which got badly out of control. Anything with secret rules and secret lists is anti-democratic in my opinion, and I really think we should be worrying about the people doing horrible things to children a lot more than worrying about pictures (which is bizzarely beconming the greater crime).
your government, worm, is an extension of your will, REALLY
It's not my fucking government, monkey boy.
Since the filtering is done at the ISP level, how are you supposed to bypass the filter so you can read that Wikipedia article?
Well, you have a number of options really. You can always use one of those proxies the kids at school use to access whatever social networking site they use. Sure, they'll attempt to block them all, but it's quite an impossible task, what with new ones popping up every couple of minuets or so.
You can always set up a VPN or tunnel through with SSH. I believe you can get access to an offshore server for a couple of dollars a month.
I guess you could always get a friend overseas to email you the page as well, and while I'm not sure if the filter will filter email content, they could always chuck it in a .rar or something and encrypt it. There's also nothing to stop them printing it out, putting it in an envelope and mailing it to you (at least, not yet anyway).
Okay, so the last two options are a bit shit in terms of convenience, but the point is that if you want the blocked content bad enough then there will still be a way for you to get it.
and presumably https will not be blocked (as they will not be able to see the traffic).
It could be if they use evil products like the ssl inspection engine of Webwasher which breaks the entire trust chain...
On the other hand, the Sydney Morning Herald reports nothing on this.
I was at the Melbourne event and I'd be surprised if there were more than a couple of hundred others there. Again, the weather was terrible and I suspect that put all but the most die-hard supporters off.
I was still kind of shocked at the level of apathy though. Perhaps, as geeks, we haven't done as good of a job of making Joe Public aware of the issues involved as we should have. Or maybe Joe Public has bought the "think-of-the-children" line or just doesn't care. Whatever the reason it makes me sad to think I'm in a minority for standing up against this thing.
Tag: Chanfags.
Yup, they plan to :)
Anything http or https (via man-in-the-middle attacks) will be filtered.
...
An upside-down triangle? What does that even mean?
By convention:
Therefore, a triangular land mass is "right side up" when pointing north and "umop apisdn" when pointing south.
what a piece of shit
if enough people have that attitude, all countries rot, except for one, which then rots under the weight of all you spineless freeloading scumbags piling on
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
your government is your responsibility
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Turn out was disappointing. The Brisbane protest was probably the most successful, but of the thousand people on Facebook who said they'd attend only a hundred turned up. Kudos to those who did.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/queensland/rally-rejects-rudds-internet-filter/2008/12/13/1228585168416.html
The Sydney rally was a disaster. Poorly organized, it was supposed to start at 11AM but didn't start till 11:40AM. When they did it was a very poor speech by of all people some wannabe-politician from the "Sex Party", and by some dufus with a guitar who thought this was going to be his break into the music world. Those few who attended just wandered off.
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=1102985&p=35
> there was 1/2 a million for the anti Iraq rallies, I guess since the public couldn't stop the government on that one they just can't be bothered anymore.
True. The people got out and protested but the then Howard government ignored them. The people said "well, what can you do?", went home and re-elected Howard anyway. LOL Western Two-party Democracy.
But back to the protests... the organizers of the Sydney one should be shot. I went to a few of a the war rallies after the big one and they were a poor effort: organized by students whose egos were overblown at their now found (and very short lived) celebrity. If they try these anti-censorship rallies again, they need some decent organizers. Get rid of the hangers on like marginal parties no one will ever vote for and any wannabe musician who is friends of the organizer. Get someone from the Greens or even the Liberal Party to speak. My enemy's enemy is my friend if you will. This was an opportunity lost through sheer ego. Sure the Greens/Liberals would have got on board if anyone asked them. Next time get EFA: they've got far more experience at lobbying than the Sex Party clowns do.
I noticed the protests received marginal coverage from the mainstream media (at least for the Sydney protest their lack of coverage was deserved). They're probably hoping the net dies anyway.
Sure, maybe a little, but only the downsides of a bad proxy.
The pictures don't show Brisbane's protest... I went there and can honestly say less than 150 people were there, about 30 of whom looked more like pedophiles than nerds. Wasn't much of a surprise to see no one on the streets taking a handout from them. Worst still, I stood 10 meters from the people speaking and failed to hear them over the sound of a band playing 100m away. Really, a gathering of nerds and they couldn't come up with anything more than a dodgy working megaphone?
Sad to say I was embarrassed to actually be seen around a lot of these people. Some looked as though they needed less internet and more RL, I'm a nerd myself who runs a indie game company but also understand the needs of outside activities. I have to say that poor hygiene, dirty clothes and obese nerds give nerds a bad image. Where are the nerds sporting abs and a nice set of teeth not ravaged by coke? I'm all alone?
If I had the time I would have created a much more positive and organized protest, but I just don't have the time and so chose not to. Perhaps the Brisbane organizer(s) should have thought the same and let someone else take the job.
Remember the following facts.
Prime Minister Rudd is a Fundamentalist Christian.
The previous Prime Minister, John Howard, was a "devout" (read - fundamentalist) Christian.
The previous government's Health Minister was a Christian fundamentalist, who refused to allow the "morning after" pill to be prescribed, even to women who had suffered rape. He even admitted that the ban was because of his religious beliefs.
It was the Howard government which first started talking about this idea.
The (so-called) Family First party is a front for the extreme Christian fundamentalist groups. Its primary sponsors are the Churches of Christ and the Assemblies of God, two of the most rat-baggy fundamentalist denominations in Australia.
There have recently been a series of current affairs programs showing that the extremist Christian group, the Exclusive Brethren, have been actively interfering in Australian politics at all levels. The are one of the major financial contributors to all major parties.
While politicians are required to reveal any financial matters which may lead to a conflict of interest, they are not required to declare any religious or ideological matters which may lead to a conflict of interest.
IMO, the major risk I see is using this to prevent access to any (insert name of religion) sites other than Christian sites, which would actually be illegal under the Australian Constitution. It would not be the first time an attempt has been made to circumvent the freedom of religion provisions, (and it most certainly won't be the last).
Pleased to meet you mister troll
BM3
Something that Anonymous and Scientologists both agree on!
Fuckwit.
If you are going to call out the social conservatives for trying to censor sexual content, you have also acknowledge the liberal movement to control violent content. These two groups are two sides of the same coin, no matter who is in power, they push their own version of control. What this will lead to is social conservative controls when they are in power and liberal controls when they are in power. It ends in all content being controlled. The solution is to put people in power who, no matter what side of the "line" they are on will support individual rights and liberty. Blaming the efforts to control the internet on any single group is unwise, labeling is dangerous in this situation. What we need to do is single out the individual people that are pushing tighter control and go after them, replace them and show the rest that this is a dangerous bandwagon to jump on.
You don't understand politics, do you?
An experiment moreover funded and carried out by Australians. An experiment which the world at large can and should watch. And why not? It's free of charge. Let's face it: there is no actual downside to this experiment.
Therefore I urge Australia's parliamentarians not to let the protests from obvious anarchists and lawbreakers put them off-course, and to implement the strictest possible Internet filtering without delay. You know ... to protect innocent Australians and their families from the dangers, smut, and immorality that lurks in the darkest recesses of the Internet. It's all about the kiddies after all.
Oh yes, and I'm buying some popcorn today to watch the show.
FUCK YOU!
Or is that too Australian for you too?
It's an English word.
A real one;
A poor way to report, maybe, but it is completely correct English.
But you probably speak merkin.
Your facts are hardly facts.
I've never heard John Howard claim to be a Christian, although he holds conservative values, and cultivated Christian groups.
Tony Abbott, the previous Health Minister, is a Roman Catholic, not a fundamentalist Christian.
The Churches of Christ and the Assemblies of God are hardly "extreme" Christian fundamentalist churches.
And anyway, why shouldn't religious groups contribute to political parties, just like any other group?
Great Windows SFTP Server!
Surely you're exaggerating... sounds like it was less of a disaster and more of a train wreck! I'm conservative (US conservative, not sure where that falls on the Australian political spectrum) and reading that made me cringe!
As a college student, the largest problem I have with politically active 'organizers' is that they want to be involved with politics. Regardless of where they fall on their political leanings, they all have this in common. I think ego is part of the package. The other part is the absolute inability to accomplish much. The talk always goes something like this:
"So, what, you're organizing a rally?"
"Yeah, we've got a band and everything!"
"So, did you write a speech or something, invite a well known speaker?"
"Well, no... but we did get a band! It's gonna' rock. See you there?"
"Yeah. Sure. I'm clearing my calendar as soon as I get home."
It's like open source, it's all well and good to discuss the ideals of it, but it's much more effective to just shut up and write some code or donate to a project.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
And anyway, why shouldn't religious groups contribute to political parties, just like any other group?
Because people who believe in completely asinine shit dreamed up by scientifically ignorant folks three thousand years ago simply because a) it's what their parents believed, b) some narrow sliver of the dogma fills a spiritual need in them, and/or c) it is politically convenient to do so, are arguably dangerously irrational and should be barred from influencing government?
Seriously, this ancient religion shit is a cancer. There's nothing wrong with spirituality, but when you start getting your moral lessons from a collection of iron-age fairy tales, you're not behaving in a civilized manner. I know, something like 80% of people are "believers" in one ridiculous ancient religion or another, and that (for example) you can't get elected President in the US unless you profess a belief in the Almighty God of the Christians, but that doesn't make it right. In this country we even have some states that have allowed religious definitions of sin and marriage to be codified into law via constitutional amendment. Some day in the future, people are going to look at the stuff our [politicians|judges|*] say about believing in God's word as guiding principle the same way we look at the Inquisition's belief in witchcraft.
Anyone of a rational bent interested in a good examination of the dangers of religion, even as practiced by "moderates", pick up a copy of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason by Sam Harris. It's very good.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
From Australian gov i session:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tH35CVig3fQ
FRA: STFU GTFO
You don't understand politics, do you?
Because I recognise socialism as anti-freedom?
You know what they say, If you're not a socialist when you're a teenager, you don't have a heart - but if you're still a socialist when you're 30, you don't have a brain.
The previous Prime Minister, John Howard, was a "devout" (read - fundamentalist) Christian.
Really? I'm one of those you might characterise as a fundimentalist Christian. Based on your description I think the word you might be looking for is committed rather than fundimentalist.
Howard was and is a pew warmer. His committment as a Christian is largely a product of the time he grew up in.
meh
*Yes 1984 fans, Australia's Communications Minister is the one responsible for interfering with everybody's communication.
The above post was nothing more than flamebait. The whole point of a liberal democracy is that it is the citizens who choose who runs the government. If the citizens happen to be religious then they should have the right to choose religious people to lead their country.
Like it or not, much of western society was born out of the religious ideologies of our forefathers in both Great Brittan and the US. Much of the law that protects our liberties now was born out of passages from the Bible (look up the "snail in ginger beer" court case for a prominent example).
Provided that the leaders of a country make good, pragmatic decisions then who cares? The problem for Australia at the moment is that the opposition are lame ducks and Kevin Rudd is essentially running the show (though others such as Gillard have a very strong voice - and she most definitely is not a religious person).
This internet filter is a horrid idea but let's not forget who to blame. It's not the Christian groups, it's not the Liberal party, it's the Labor party. Running into the last election both sides promised an OPTIONAL filter, not a mandatory one. The ALP have pulled a fast one on the citizens of Australia by attempting to make it mandatory (and including far more than just illegal material).
The real problem is that there isn't enough public awareness of the issue, 9/10 people I talk to STILL don't know about the internet filter. This has been going on for several months now and still there are people blissfully ignorant to the governments plans. These protests were planned more to promote awareness than to get the government shaking in their boots. I was at the rally in Hobart (it got rained out and postponed till this weekend) and it was mostly just people handing out pamphlets with information about the proposal.
I attended the Brisbane rally. It was a total failure, and NOT due to the lack of people. It was a total failure for many other reasons.
1) The people who showed up were the people who mostly knew how to bypass the filter anyway. They were young people who were all probably heavy internet users. There was not the "ordinary" Jo and Jane who are in their middle ages with two teenage kids. Noone cares about youth protests, except when they turn violent.
2) There were far too many wierdos and oddballs there. People dressed in fancy dress is completely inappropriate for a protest about infringements on civil liberties.
3) Certain Left political groups hijacked the rally for their own ends. It really killed any credibility that the protest had, because noone listens to or likes the "Green Socialist Party" or any of the other extreme left wing groups. Australia is a conservative country, political messages should be tailored to the conservative majority.
4) There was no clear explanation in the signage of why it was such a bad idea. No mention of the internet filter being a way for government to control religious material (if the Christian movement is so damn powerful, explain to them the downsides of the filter from their point of view). The only media reports I heard about it explained not why it was a bad idea, but only that smart people could get around it.
5) The pamphlets were poorly printed. The information on them was great but they weren't well copied. I had one side upside down on mine. Not the best look.
I went, attended and was not surprised that the turnout was so small. It was the busy Christmas season and noone knew about the protest. I imagine that some were scared of being associated with people who could be seen as supporting child porn (from an uninformed person's perspective) as well.
Overall if the internet filter is to be stopped, it needs to be explained to the people who voted in Rudd, the swinging voters. The vast majority of the swing to Rudd was in suburbia, in the seats with the highest concentration of Christians. It is these people you must convince of the folly of the filter. Explaining technical limitations will not do that.