Slashdot Mirror
Australia Air Travelers' Laptops To Be Searched For Porn
bluetoad writes "Australian customs officers have been given the power to search incoming travelers' laptops and mobile phones for porn. Passengers must declare whether they are carrying pornography on their Incoming Passenger Card. The Australian government is also planning to implement an Internet filter. Once these powers are in places, who knows how they will be used."
In the US this kind of thing would usually be blamed on politicians pandering to the Christian right. Are there really a lot of fundies in Australia too? I always thought it was a very laid back sort of country.
Yes. Pictures of women over 18 with small breasts are illegal on the grounds that it is "virtual child pornography":
http://www.somebodythinkofthechildren.com/australia-bans-small-breasts/
Drawings of girls under 18 are banned because that too is virtual child pornography:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/01/simpsons-powerpuff-girls-porn-nets-jail-time-for-australian.ars
Basically then if they want to arrest you I'm sure they could find something in your porn collection that's illegal, whether its a girl with small breasts or some cartoon porn.
Much like Canada they're very concerned with "virtual" things down there and far less concerned about real crimes. No doubt they'll be banning virtual murder and virtual dangerous driving in computer games next.
He probably meant "The West" as in "Locales of Westernized Culture", of which Oz is included.
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
TFA is a bit of a beat-up. Basically, it's just clarifying that customs officers have the right to search your laptop. Just as they do in most other countries (including the US).
The justification in this case is twofold:
- Child porn (yes the old 'think of the children');
- Commercial quantities of regular porn (porn is legal to own and view in Australia, but it is illegal to sell it outside of specific areas and circumstances)
So this is targeted at people bringing in 50 shrinkwrapped XXX DVDs or child porn, rather than average joe who took some nude shots of his wife while on vacation overseas. You don't honestly think Customs has the time or resources to search everyone's laptop. I mean, EVERYONE travels with one these days. Half the time if you don't look suspicious and haven't declared anything they don't even bother putting you through the scanner ... they just say "go on through".
Another case of Australia seeming to have scary laws on paper, but which in reality will have no real effect. They are just there so that there's a legal justification for a search of a laptop in extreme cases (previously I don't think there was a justification for this since the Customs laws hadn't been updated in a while).
You try casually walking into a bank with a ford mustang concealed on your person before donning a clown mask and sticking the place up..
The actions of a few bad apples does not make the device itself dangerous. I could rob that bank with a knife or baseball bat if I was so inclined. Do you regard those items as dangerous?
Fact is, a gun's primary (and arguably only real) function is to shoot (at) people
I guess you've never heard of the shooting sports or hunting?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
I guess you've never heard of the shooting sports [wikipedia.org] or hunting?
Handguns (with some exceptions, of course) are not typically used for either of those things.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
Actually, competitive pistol-shooting is quite popular is some circles. Including the Olympic Games.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
You should never do shit like: "tar -czvf archive.tgz ~/porndir;rm -rf ~/porndir". If the tar command fails (out of space, no permission and so on) you will lose your entire porn collection! Use && instead of ;