Australian Government Backing Down On Censorship

Combat Wombat sends the news that the government in Australia has begun waffling on whether country-wide Internet censorship will be mandatory. "The Rudd Government has indicated that it may back away from its mandatory Internet filtering plan. Communications Minister Stephen Conroy today told a Senate estimates committee that the filtering scheme could be implemented by a voluntary industry code. ... [The shadow communications minister] said he had never heard of a voluntary mandatory system. ... Senator Conroy's statement is a departure from the internet filtering policy Labor took into the October 2007 election to make it mandatory for ISPs to block offensive and illegal content." The censorship plan, which has been called "worse than Iran," was bypassed even before trials started. A minister's defection may have effectively blocked any chance of implementation.

Comments

!victory

[sakdoctor]

Keeping back dumb censorship plans, in otherwise democratic countries, is an eternal struggle.

Re:!victory

[qpawn]

Agreed. There was no need for it in the first place. Sometimes politics is like when you dangle a person over a cliff, but then pull them back up and act like the hero.

Re:!victory

[Shakrai]

Keeping our civil rights, in otherwise democratic countries, is an eternal struggle.

Fixed that for you. I don't think anyone can look at the "War on Drugs", gun control or just the expansion of Government in general and say that it's only free speech that we need to worry about.

Re:!victory

[Shakrai]

Sometimes politics is like when you dangle a person over a cliff, but then pull them back up and act like the hero.

Reminds me of the old joke about "moderate" Democrats and Republicans:

A moderate is someone who throws you a ten foot rope when you are fifteen feet offshore and later tells all of his friends that he went more than halfway.

Re:!victory

[Shakrai]

Why do you think a non-expanding government is a fundamental human right?

Because an expanded government starts to stick it's nose into things that should be outside of it's mandate. A good example would be policies designed to protect us from ourselves. Seat belt laws, vice taxes on tobacco/booze, obesity taxes, laws that criminalize you if you put certain substances into your body, etc, etc, etc.

We are supposed to be citizens, not children that need to be fussed over to make sure we are taking good care of ourselves. As far as I'm concerned if my behaviors harm no one but myself they really aren't any business of the Government. And please don't give me some bullshit rationalization like "obesity drives up costs for everyone" -- that's only true when government forces "charity" down our throats and I personally want no part of "charity" that comes with strings attached.

Re:!victory

[fractoid]

Suspected terrorists are not prisoners of war. The "war on terror" is a fabrication which can be extended indefinitely as long as there is one nutjob on the planet who has the United States in their sights.

Who didn't see this coming?

[rastilin]

You knew it would happen.
I knew it would happen.
Things that live under rocks on the floor of the Pacific Ocean knew it would happen.


Something like this won't get off the ground as long as there are people willing to fight against it, and we've got no shortage of those around here.

Re:Who didn't see this coming?

[kestasjk]

You knew it would happen.

I knew it would happen.

Things that live under rocks on the floor of the Pacific Ocean knew it would happen.


Something like this won't get off the ground as long as there are people willing to fight against it, and we've got no shortage of those around here.

Not really.. It has been very close to getting through, even recently there was a TV show about it and it gave a definite impression of an idea which is unpopular but will go through.

Remember it was (I think still is?) actually implemented on several small ISPs, and I won't be happy until I hear a definitive no; watered down filtering isn't a victory, an opt-out clause isn't a victory, and it could still well end up that way.

Also I don't know about "people willing to fight it" being the real reason. In the TV show debate about the internet filter (and in mainstream online news forums) the audience were largely in favor of censorship, but it was the glaring impracticality that swung it slightly in the opposition's favor.
Maybe the debate audience was a biased sample, but there really wasn't (and isn't) the fierce opposition to the filter that would make a senator do a U-turn.

Yeah, great... try that in the UK

[tygerstripes]

I'm really pleased to read this story, but sadly I think the only reason this "backing down" has come about is because the politicians in question were so bare-faced and blunt with the proposals in the first place. I suspect that has a lot to do with the character and nature of Australians in general. I may get criticised for stereotyping, but most Australians of my acquaintance take pride in the blunt honesty prevalent in their culture, so I don't think I'm out of line.

Unfortunately this culture of an honest (if ineffective and ill-considered) approach to government implementation of web-filtering - and indeed of all privacy-crushing legislation - is rather rarer elsewhere. I'd love to see our ministers "back down" from the measures being artfully and insidiously emplaced under the auspices of all sorts of other harmless- or necessary-sounding legislation, but I just don't see it happening.

I'm not saying Australia is the land of enlightenment and open government or anything, but somehow the top-coat of bullshit and whitewash over there seems to be somewhat shallower on the whole.

Good on yer, Oz. Now please, expose some of the hypocrisy and skullduggery going on in the rest of the developed world for what it is - an ingrained attempt at tightening power and control over the voting public.

Re:Yeah, great... try that in the UK

[ewe2]

I'm another Australian.

Unfortunately it's mere incompetence. They actually want to have all the fun "security" bells and whistles you have in the UK, they're just hopeless at getting it through without being noticed. Our politicians are no less sneaky and dishonest than anywhere else, but perhaps the apparatus to hide such intentions isn't as well developed here. We don't have that grand tradition of bill riders as in the US or the UK in our legislative conventions, so far.

The tradition we do have is assigning problematic (read: politically ambitious) ministers to a complicated technology-based portfolio where they can make fools of themselves while their rivals go on to bungling something else. The opposition did something good for a change and appointed the politically astute Nick Minchin as shadow minister and he's been ripping truck-sized holes in Senator Conroy's plans from day one.

The fatal mistake Conroy made was not to make sure this couldn't be done by bypassing legislation and farming it out to a statutory body beyond the reach of public opinion. And even that body is incompetent at censorship, so it's truly is a case of don't ascribe to malice what is adequately explained by idiocy.

What bothers me most is how difficult it was to get the story out in the media, its been relegated to tech pages and my efforts to raise the alarm among my non-techy friends met with disinterest. This isn't going to go away, they will try it again.

Re:Yeah, great... try that in the UK

[adamkennedy]

> I suspect that has a lot to do with the character and nature of Australians in general.
> I may get criticised for stereotyping, but most Australians of my acquaintance take
> pride in the blunt honesty prevalent in their culture, so I don't think I'm out of line.

Speaking as an Australian, I'd say that it's not because the honourable minister is blunt and straight forward, it's just that he's a bloody idiot.