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US-Australia Tensions Rise Over Net Filter
daria42 writes "Tensions between the US Government and its counterpart in Australia appear to be rising over Australia's proposal to filter the internet for objectionable content. The US government has raised its concerns over what it sees as potential censorship directly with the Australian Government. However, last night, Australia's Communications Minister Stephen Conroy denied he had had any approach from US State Department officials."
"We can censor you but you can not censor us, we can hide info to you but you can not hide info to us." --United States of America
One branch is expressing concerns about our lovely Internet filter while the other is trying to ram ACTA down our throats.
BOTH will have an effect on free speech... neither of them we want.
Successfully filtering the net is impossible - that's been proven time and time again. If either one of them realized this simple truth then they'd know that their statements are somewhat nonsensical.
Normally I disagree with USA foreign policy, but in this case I welcome US government sticking its nose in where it's not welcome. On behalf of all (thinking) Australians, thank you USA for standing up to our government and this facist policy. http://stephenconroy.com.au/
Please don't send a Word document when a text file will do the job.
...how both so-called "free" countries will crack down upon China for filtering the internet on what they claim to be important free-speech-issues, but in the same time will not hesitate to implement rather identical measures at home.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Agreed. The USA needs to be more direct, as clearly their current approach isn't working if Stephen wasn't even aware until he read it in the paper.
I would love for the USA to make as big a deal out of this as possible.
Invasion. p/.It's obvious hat Australia is controlled by a repressive regime and we have no choice but to invade and install a Democracy!
This news isn't on the scale of Google redirecting mainland Chinese search results to Google.cn but has more in common than Senator Conroy here in Australia would like people to think. Wait, no, that isn't even right, he's openly compared the proposed Great Firewall of Australia to the filters in China.
When Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Federal Labor won the last election and Barack Obama and the Democrats won the elections in the US, Australian newspapers reported their first meetings as being one with kindred spirits, in much of the same way as George Bush and John Howard. This filter is perhaps the first large(ish) crack in this relationship, and I'm really hoping the Americans kick up as much of a fuss about Australia's laws as China's if the filter in Australia goes through.
The problem for the voting public here is in our version of the two party system, the opposition are considered the more conservative party, and its new Christian far-right leader Tony Abbott has been fairly silent on the whole issue. One can imagine he supports it in spirit but doesn't want to seem as though he's agreeing with Labor. Either way, we're royally stuffed.
In the meantime if you're an Aussie, don't forget the Electronic Frontiers Australia is accepting donations for their Open Internet campaign.
Cheers, ~ Ruben
Certain countries, including Australia support the Cultural Exception
I lived in France for 20 years, also a supporter of this, I wish we did in UK. In France, it meant that the continuous diet of brainless, braindead violent programmes and 'rich people behaving nauseously' (Beverly Hills xxxxxx) were present, but in limited quantity, There were and are a lot of local cops shows, Julie Lescaut, for example, more connected with the indigenous culture.
Finally, I have family in the West Indies and when the island switched from BBC to US channels (anecdotally, but many people said it) violence increased.
I know I'll get a lot of hate for posting this, but there is a category of cultural toxic waste and it does modify behaviour, however much we wish it didn't.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
Today in The Age: Government goes to war with Google over net censorship
Senator Conroy has conceded that greater transparency is needed in terms of how content ends up on the blacklist, but last night he again refused to make the blacklist itself public, saying it would provide people instant access to the banned material.
Okay Stephen here is how it works: every time an Australian hits the black list they post the URL on a wiki somewhere so if anybody needs some porn or the libaral party website or whatever they just follow the link from there and access it through a russian VPN? Simple? Okay.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I really hope that the US put a lot of pressure on our Australian government to try and prevent this draconian Mandatory Internet Censorship. If it goes ahead in Australia, it will pave the way for many more developed Western countries. This is a serious attack on our freedom. There's not much left we can do at the moment - the internet community is kicking up a fuss, most polls & votes are >94% AGAINST the censorship, the US gov, google, local telcos, ISP's and all the technical experts are advising AGAINST it, but ignorant Senator Conroy and the government keep pushing ahead to censor the internet. If it goes ahead it will be bad news for everyone. The more people that support us on this VERY important issue, the better. Slashdot + its community probably have the potential to help make a difference. Please USA, and the entire international online community, show your support on this in any way you can!
The Sydney Morning Herald had an informal web poll today with 3 choices: In Favour of filtering, Against filtering, Indifferent. Last I looked at it 96% had voted against! That's overwhelming. You usually get lots of indifferent here. How this sad man Stephen Conroy can claim to be a representative of the people is beyond me. He is clearly acting against their interests and against their wishes. He's one of few politicians here that's gotten public death threats (not that I could ever condone something as stupid as a death threat). Since he would seek to push ahead despite this he should be sacked. I have no idea if there's a legal provision for it in the Australian constitution (and I doubt there is) but there ought to be.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Seriously, shove these Aussie stories up your ass. We're fucking sick of the sight of them. Go beg for attention elsewhere.
This is slashdot.org, not slashdot.org.us
Please don't send a Word document when a text file will do the job.
Many others? Possibly, but not all federal parties in Australia are supporting it: http://shockseat.com/communications/internet-filtering-scheme
However, last night, Australia's Communications Minister Stephen Conroy denied he had had any approach from US State Department Officials."
Filter must already be working then
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Against all my instincts, I find myself for the right of governments to filter, as long as they are 'legitimate' governments.
The issue is that while you might be quite happy for a legitimate government to filter, they can quickly become an illegitimate government, perhaps especially because they control the filters and will filter any evidence of their illegitimacy from the public at large.
The biggest issue governments have is that there's no heirarchy to the internet - they can't speak to the owner of the internet like they could with newspapers or TV networks or radio networks - and that lack of a single point, or even a limited set of points of control freaks most governments out. Spin is awful hard to get out there when you need to spin hundreds instead of a handful.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Don't you hate to see the children fighting?