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South Australia Outlaws Anonymous Political Speech
Sabriel writes "If you're online in South Australia and want to comment about the upcoming state election, be prepared to hand over your real name and postcode first — because this month it becomes illegal to do so anonymously (even under a pseudonym). Media organizations must keep your details on file for six months and face 'fines of $5000 if they do not hand over this information to the Electoral Commissioner.' This abomination was passed with the support of both major parties (Labour and Liberal), and to quote its sponsor, Attorney-General Michael Atkinson, 'There is no impinging on freedom of speech, people are free to say what they wish as themselves, not as somebody else.' Apparently incapable of targeting a few impostors without resorting to 'nuke it from orbit' legislative tactics, Atkinson has forgotten that protecting anonymity is important to the democratic process; hopefully both major parties will get a reminder come the polls on March 20."
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/victory-atkinson-loosens-gag/story-e6frea6u-1225826104175
Attorney-General Michael Atkinson vows to repeal election internet censorship law amid reader furore
Slashdot's a little behind today, it seems.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
John Quiggin, a long-time blogger and Research Fellow in Economics and Political Science at the University of Queensland, doubted whether the laws were enforceable. "They can pass as draconian law as they like, but without the capacity to impose their own internet censorship it's going to be a dead lemon," he said. "Anyone who wants to can set up an anonymous blog. "It will be totally ineffectual with someone who sets up a Wordpress blog post in the US under a false name and publish whatever they want."
Ok, just finished reading TFA and in TFA they say that this law is set to expire right after the elections are over. That's such a blatant attempt to censor for specific electoral ends it isn't funny. If there were a genuine motivation here they'd have implemented it indefinitely. This doesn't seem that different than when some countries take over or close their media right before an election. Not cool.
Attorney-General Michael Atkinson has just vowed to repeal this law.
There was a Chanology raid in Sydney: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:COS_Raid_@_Sydney.jpg
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SA Attorney-General Michael Atkinson has been the driving force behind moves to ban certain computer games from Australia for a long time. This dude is just bad news.
There is an organisation called Gamers for Croydon, who are locked in a feud with him him and his policies.
gamers4croydon, have a political candidate who will be standing against Atkinson for the seat of Croydon (in Adelaide) next election.
If your interested in the politics of games, checkout their website at http://www.gamers4croydon.org/
They have a steam group also ;)
Ventura wasn't re-elected because he didn't want to be governor again. He didn't for re-election, so he obviously would not have won.
Learn something new.
You know the old joke, "I read my border entry form and didn't realise I had to be a criminal to qualify for entry to Australia!" - the reality is that everybody in Australia is a criminal, take your pick which laws you're breaking at any one time.
And yet the ironic thing is that South Australia is the only state not founded by convicts.
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
Both of those instances are not actually the introduction of anything new - they are simply cases of the law being applied as written.
I don't imagine the simpsons porn issue will change - afterall, which politician would want to soften an anti-child porn law?
But the video game issue is being actively challenged, and most of the country wants to change it, and it's just a matter of time until it is changed. The only reason it hasn't already been fixed is because of the bizarre rule that any changes to the classification system have to be agreed to by the Attorneys General of every state - and the S.A. Attorney General (the Michael Atkinson from this story, coincidentally) keeps digging in his heels and coming up with more and more ridiculous reasons why the change would be bad. However, he's unlikely to remain Attorney General after S.A's approaching election, so the problem will go away.
One thing to be careful of when judging the state of things in the other country, is that negative proposals or plans like this always generate headlines. The more important story, where the plan is cancelled, or defeated almost never does.
In this particular case, Atkinson has already ditched this plan, due to the massive public outcry - but you won't see a followup story saying that. So as a result someone that only reads headlines would have a very warped idea of the truth.
Advanced users are users too!
Isn't Atkinson the guy that believes videogames are satanic?
He uses Rape Lay (a game not even available in Australia) to push his efforts to get videogames banned.
Or something like that. I'm not an Aussie. :P