Slashdot Mirror
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.
Keeping back dumb censorship plans, in otherwise democratic countries, is an eternal struggle.
This is why Westminster-style governments should never have a senate majority.
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Xenophon used to support the filter but he withdrew support some time ago.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
This idiotic plan is not killed and dead. The Labor government in general, and Senator Stephen Conroy in particular, have been taken aback by the strength of the opposition. The article noted in the summary only covers some of the incompetent answers given to hard questioning by the main Opposition party and one of the minority parties.
Trials are still being underway involving 4 tiny ISPs, one medium ISP, one Christadelphian ISP and one large ISP majority owned by Singtel.
There is no engineering, vendor neutral specification giving trial design criteria or testing methodology as the basis for the trials. There is no requirement for the ISPs to disclose which method of censorship they selected. The ISPs have been supported to the tune of $AU300,000 but there is still a $AU887,000 consultancy contract for the testing and reporting of on a system to block up to 10,000 URLs. The IWF annual report lists between 1100-1300 sites blocked by their system. Rumour has it that much of the testing in the small ISPs is using equipment from the same censorware vendor but this is not confirmed as several censorware vendors have been lobbying for the windfalls. Watchdog, using the NetClean system was involved in some separate testing undertaken by another ISP, Exetel. The Exetel trial received a great deal of criticism in the Australian internet community and Exetel customers. The trial has not been cancelled and neither has the testing consultancy.
Any assumption that the scheme will disappear is premature.
A list of 1000s of banned films and publications is still in existence. The censorship regime has become more and more repressive over the last 10 years. Realistically the entire basis of censorship needs serious review. It is managed by more than one government authority under several different pieces of legislation. The proposed censorship of the internet is under the control of the telecommunications authority which is yet another government authority.
You would have to try very hard to find a more incompetent approach to anything to do with IT, networking or civil liberties all in the same package.
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.
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Tell you what, on behalf of a vast majority of Australians I invite you to keep him.
Not picking on you personally but the average slashdotter is pretty gullible when it comes to machiavellian politics. This was no mistake, politicians often adopt a cause in order to kill it. Conroy deliberately killed the trails and legislation by including Fielding's anti-abortion supporters on the blacklist. I and many other Aussies predicted this outcome, not because we are particularly astute, mearly because we saw the same thing happen with the last government.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.