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Australian Government Delays Internet Filter Legislation
An anonymous reader writes "It seems the Australian federal government is being forced to delay the introduction of its proposed and much-hated, much-maligned Internet filter. It will not be introduced in the next two sittings of parliament, which realistically delays it until after the next election. News on withdrawing the filter, which was a promise from the previous election, has disappointed lobbying groups such as the Australian Christian Lobby."
The Australian Christian Lobby can go fuck themselves sideways with a 40-foot barge pole. Fucking morons.
With the election looming and the popularity of the Labor party taking a dive the Government is dumping all sorts of unpopular policies including their much touted Emissions Trading Scheme, the disastrous Insulation Scheme and of course this ridiculous Internet filter. Of course if Australia votes them in again, they'll say they have a mandate for this filter but the opposition is pretty much a joke. *Sigh*
The opposition Liberal Party are finally getting their act together and the Labour Government doesn't want to feed them any issues to debate, so filtering is on hold.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
With any luck we can get this farcical idea shot down somehow before then... I just wish every day Joe and Jane understood the slippery slope that is censorship. Unfortunately the government lackeys and christian rights groups continue to scream "CHILDREN!!!" and "PEDOPHILIA!!!!" and no real logic ever comes into play. Oh well, I already have a remote box in Europe anyway... this won't effect me. I just feel bad for the technical illiterate folk who suffer. I wish it was OPT-IN.
Either way after the election Conroy will be shuffled off elsewhere to make life hell for others and nobody else on either side of goverment cares enough to put this through. A peace offering to a Godless pseudo-Christian NIMBY to get votes to pass has backfired with this filter and it won't be needed for grubby political numbers games soon.
Of course, the "election promise" wasn't actually mandatory. It required ISPs to offer a "clean feed" to their customers. The ACL are a bunch of moralizing extremists and shouldn't be given any more notice than the guys who believe George Bush is a space alien.
I had a sig once. It was lost in the great storm of '09.
1) Stephen Conroy is spot on when he says the internet shouldn't be treated any different to any other forms of media. It isn't a magical beast, it's just another form of media (albeit more accessible and chaotic).
So there's nothing fundamentally wrong with filtering it. I mean hell, it's already illegal to *host* this sort of content in Australia.
2) It might be abused, or it filter stuff you disagree with.
I disagree with filtering material on euthanasia. However this isn't an objection against the filter itself (I mean, I agree with filtering stuff on graffiti or terrorist), but simply against the choice of application.
3) The reason it will fail is exactly the reason it will work.
It will fail miserably because anyone can circumnavigate it.
But this is exactly what makes it hard to abuse. With oddly-moralized hackers up in arms, you can bet they'll seize on any abuses of the filter and plaster them embarresingly over the internet. So the government has a strong incentive to stick within their declared uses of the filter.
So the worst objection to the filter is simply that it could mostly be a waste of time... that said, it will evolve and change and may prove useful.
Elections in Australia happen every three years, no four. That means they will be this year.
Rudd knows just how unpopular the filter is, even if it only loses him 10% of the votes it's enough to scare him as he got in by a gnats wing in 2007.
The question is will Rudd shelve the plan or just carry on regardless after the next election. Personally I don't want to find out but I cant vote for that hyper religious nut-case, Tony Abbott as he'll probably turn around and do something worse so personally my vote is going either to the Greens or an independent against the filter.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
the usa has long been a world leader in hypocritical simplistic moralizing "christians"
don't be nosing in on our turf and our monopoly now
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Though I'm far from disappointed, this is the 3rd one this week! Last week it was the Emissions Trading Scheme nonsense, then the Health Care stuff, and now this. Seriously, what's up with the Rudd government?? It's turning out to be a "Dudd" government! Bring on an early double dissolution election and get this idiots out (not that the alternative is much better . . . ).
<rant>
Oh, and as to the Australian Christian Lobby and all those other extreme conservative political groups - don't mix religion with government! I'm Christian, but I don't think that should have anything to do with running a country. One of these days we'll end up like certain European countries and be forced to go to church every week!
</rant>
I'm not from Australia, but TFA really makes it sound like this is a disappointment to Australians. I'm hoping that this is actually GOOD news to most of you guys down under ?
Last week I was discussing the filter with a friend who is an intelligent and sensible, non-religious person. Unfortunately he had swallowed the whole "think of the children" argument and thought the filter was a good idea. When I put the standard negative arguments to him, he agreed that it wasn't as simple as he'd thought. Problem is, he's probably representative of a large majority of ordinary people with voting rights in Australia. It's imperative that the debate about the filter is kept up and every Australian citizen is brought up to speed, otherwise I fear that we'll end up having it simply because nobody really bothered to give it much thought.
I hope this doesn't overshadow the upcoming legislative changes regarding software patents. There's pretty much no activism on this right now:
swpat.org is a publicly editable wiki, help welcome.
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
Moderate Parent down due to link spam.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
>Australian Christian Lobby
You mean the Australian Taliban.
We have the same here. They call themselves Southern Baptist and Dominionists.
--
BMO
A few of the Aussies here have mentioned their disappointment with Rudd and greater dislike of the opposition, and have expressed their intention to vote dreen or independant.
If you wish to keep legislation such as this from passing its important to understand how the Australian government works.
firstly there is the Upper House: parliament. Here you find the Prime minister, Ministers and back benchers. Voting for anyone other than either of the two major parties here is basicly a wasted vote. In most cases the winning party will always have enough seats here to propose anything they like and see it pass. I suggest voting for the major party you find least objectionable.
The Lower House: The Senate, is where the postions of minor parties/independents are most powerfull. It is here that legislation such as the internet filter stand the best chance of being stopped. Many years ago the Australian Democrats held a significant proportion of seats here. Never aiming for the upper house, they focused on the senate with the tag line of 'keeping the bastards honest'. Today that power is held by the Greens and the Family First party, each equaly scary depending upon your own personal views (damn hippies vs Christian nutjobs). If you are disillusioned with Labor, and intend to vote Green, doing so in the senate will have the greatest impact.
You shall know him by his Sig
Here's a graphic to go with the protests about this:
http://user.interface.org.nz/~gringer/pics/censor_blacker.png
Ask me about repetitive DNA
I'm against internet filtering as much as most Slashdotters, but the evidence is that most Australians want a filter. Have a look here: http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/internet-filter-survey-results This was a survey carried out by a program aimed at young hip tech-savy viewers and yet their survey showed that 80% of responders agree that filtering is a good idea. The filter would be democracy in action, it is we who are the vocal minority in opposing it not the Australian Christian Lobby in supporting it.
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes.
I for one am against any sort of filter because it is necessarily a regulation on ISPs and I prefer the government stay out of my private business transactions. However, I can imagine some people would like a filter and the best way to supply that filter may well be to do it at the ISP level. A government "mandated" filter should be a mandate on ISPs, not on end users. If I want to opt out, it should be as simple as calling my ISP and saying "I don't want that", or better yet, a web interface to turn it off.
Consider an analogy. Here in Australia we have beaches, and people go to swim in them. They even take their kids to swim in them. Long ago it was decided that putting up nets to stop sharks from eating the little kiddies was a good idea. The adults didn't mind either. For a while there was even a mandate that all beaches have shark nets. Eventually this was determined to be too much work, so the shark nets are only available on some beaches and they're clearly marked as such. There's no law against going swimming on a beach that doesn't have a shark net, and there's no law against swimming out past the shark net.
How can we implement a shark net for the Internet that is cheap and effective for people who want it? That's incredibly easy. For a start, you can blacklist via host name.. just distribute a list of "shark" hostnames to everyone who runs a DNS. You can even mandate that any DNS which is run for the benefit of the public have the list installed, but allow ISPs to run a DNS which is not filtered for those who don't want it. If you really want the list to be secret (and there's arguments on both sides for why it should or shouldn't be secret) then the government should run the filtered DNS servers. Depending on load, there could even by just one filtered DNS server, and all the ISP-level DNS servers would be for local host resolution, and they just set their upstream resolver to the government's servers.
If that sounds complicated to you, don't worry, it's not. This is so simple to set up that I expect it was originally suggested as the way to go and refused... because governments can never do anything simple.
How we know is more important than what we know.
( I am from New Zealand). NZ get many of its policies and laws from Australia. This is for practical reasons to allow free flow of travel, trade, financial trade etc.We got internet filtering a few months ago on the back of Australia's impending filter.
I suggest every reader votes against the current National Govt at the next elections coming up and tells anyone they can that they vote they way they do against fascist control and censorship.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
I talked to my federal MP about this and he says in his 12 years in parliament, he has never seen such a vocal and mobilised electorate.
This issue has been re-introduced into parliament by the government a number of times.
It shows that despite this widespread unpopularity of it, how extremist the Christians (Rudd, Conroy) running Labour are.
And now the Liberals too.
They even wanted to censor http://www.exitinternational.net/ .
Ha,
That's it exactly. We have to pick an arsehole.
My point with the Greens (or Independents for that matter, I'd vote for) is that helping them get a few more seats takes those seats away from the big parties. Right now Rudd needs the Greens and both independents in the senate to overrule the opposition. This has stopped Rudd from ordering the ETS and Clean Feed by edict.
The current distribution of the senate is Coalition 37, Labor 32, Green 5, Xenophon (No Pokies) 1, Fielding (Family First) 1. What I'd like to see happen is the Greens get another seat or two (and for Fielding to bugger off) so Labor remains below the coalition without preferential votes. For our non-Westminsterian viewers, Labour won because they received the preference of the Greens and Independents and "Pokies" is an Aussie term for slot machines.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
They were interfering with Google's ad crawlers and the US government's monitoring activities.. Veerrry interesting, but shtupid!
For justice, we must go to Don Corleone
I propose a new law, no citizen shall be allowed to vote until he can recite Yes Minister (and its sequel) from memory, word perfect and discuss each episode in detail.
for the uneducated:
Humphrey: You know what happens: nice young lady comes up to you. Obviously you want to create a good impression, you don't want to look a fool, do you? So she starts asking you some questions: " Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Do you think there is a lack of discipline in our Comprehensive schools?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Do you think they respond to a challenge?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Would you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?"
Bernard: Oh...well, I suppose I might be.
Humphrey: "Yes or no?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: Of course you would, Bernard. After all you told her you can't say no to that. So they don't mention the first five questions and they publish the last one.
Bernard: Is that really what they do?
Humphrey: Well, not the reputable ones no, but there aren't many of those. So alternatively the young lady can get the opposite result.
Bernard: How?
Humphrey: "Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Are you worried about the growth of armaments?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: "Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?"
Bernard: Yes
Humphrey: There you are, you see Bernard. The perfect balanced sample.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I really like the shark net analogy but black lists don't work because all I have to do is add a new to the internet and the poor kiddies might get exposed. And there are an awful lot of new sites getting added every day. If the aim is to create a safe internet then you should create a white list of safe sites. But even then the moment one gets hacked the plan fails. It gets even worse when you consider the likes of google or youtube. As it happens kiddy porn is much to valuable (and risky) to place on the open internet anyway - it is hidden behind paywalls and encrypted networks. But then this internet filter was never about this. Which is the chief reason to be alarmed.
He very loudly trumpets his Catholicism but he got the "Mad Monk" nickname by acting like Rasputin.
He goes with whatever will get him attention and is far more a primal political animal on heat than any sort of moral figure.
You also have less disposable income, so therefore who is going to buy what's being made?
It would be wise to remember that the same people who would stop you from viewing an adult film may be back next year to complain about a book, or even a TV program. If you can be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you can be told what to say or think. Defend your constitutionally protected rights. No one else will do it for you. Thank you.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that the Australian government will build a new $43 billion national broadband network, connecting 90% of homes to 100-megabit fibre internet. "We believe that fast broadband is absolutely essential for our nation's future", he said.
"Telstra has raised issues with the amount of bandwidth usage this will produce, given we're still hooked to America by tin cans and string, but our Great Firewall of Australia Internet filtering project should keep usage down to reasonable levels at near-dialup speeds. We promise you won't go over your download cap."
The Great Firewall will reliably block all illegal material, child pornography, terrorism and unAustralian thoughts.
"Not only are the contents of the list illegal," said Senator Stephen Conroy, " but revealing the list is also illegal, and so is linking to someone linking to someone claiming to reveal the list. So we're blocking Google Search. Having to use Anzwers should keep usage right down."
Calling it, the "single largest infrastructure decision in Australia's history," Mr Rudd said the project would employ up to 37,000 people a year monitoring citizens' net access, reading their email and correcting spelling errors in their football forum posts.
A consultative process will determine the regulatory framework for the network. "We're considering getting Senator Fielding to do it personally," said Senator Conroy, "since he's the dickhead who demanded the censorship in return for his votes. Hopefully it'll melt his brain. Bloody balance of power. At least Xenophon's bloody sane."
http://rocknerd.co.uk
This is a good time to remember Perry Barlow's wonderful Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.
Somebody should send a copy to the Australian Christian Lobby ;)
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
Democracy is worth giving up some rights for. One of the best quotes in GTA IV
There exist devout Christians who are strongly anti-censorship. I proudly consider Jesus my Savior, but I got news for you: I spoke up against the Great Firewall Reef. And I live in the US.* I'm fairly conservative in most areas, but I hold the libertarian belief that gay people should be able to get married, kids should be able to do drugs, and everyone should be allowed to look at pornography without government intervention, so long as nobody is harmed. (To avoid ambiguity, my statement on porn of course excludes child porn, which harms the child in the process of making it. Derp.)
I'd love to see a society that is entirely free of pornography, and became as such without government intervention. That's never going to happen, so my realistic approach is "why bother." I just avoid it myself, and when friends ask me about it, I give them my honest opinion that it is completely pointless to fap to a 90KB JPEG. (EWWWW! Is that a compression artifact on her tit!?!??) Real sex is better.
* Due to our economy being boned Australia is one place I am open to moving to eventually.