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AU Government Censors Document On Planned Web Snooping
MrPPS writes "The Australian Government plans to force ISPs to record and retain all citizens' communications traffic. The Sydney Morning Herald requested that the proposed policy documents be released under Freedom of Information laws. What they received was a document that was 90% censored, in order to prevent 'premature unnecessary debate.' More discussion on the Greyhat Security site. Here is the redacted document (PDF, 3.6 MB)."
Having to work for you bastards, it really shouldn't be any surprise to me that you'd want to pull a dick move like this on your own citizens. I hope they vote all of your skanky asses right out of office.
aka democracy.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
The only realistic vote in Australia seems to be a vote for the Australian Sex Party.
The other parties seem totally infested by moralism and corruption.
To prevent "premature unnecessary debate" --- gotta give them credit that at least they're not lying about their motivations, unlike using "national security" to keep ACTA negotiations secret.
Pesky democracy. Let us pass the bill, then you can debate it.
If the people of Australia ever needed proof that their government now regards them as "subjects" in the most pejorative sense of the term now that they are largely unarmed and defenseless against the state, openly talking about "premature unnecessary debate" should do it.
printed, blacked out, and scanned. Hopefully someone sends the full doc to wikileaks.
For curbing "premature unnecessary debate", Australian Government, meet Barbara Streisand...
What possible reason is it in anyone's best interest to spend mountains of treasure to create a massive archive of every single internet transaction apart from the people who sell hard drives.
How much electricity will be needed to run this server farm? .... well, what exactly. More prosecutions? Public officials whacking off to citizens' cyber sex chat transcripts?
Exactly what evidence is there that this archive will result in
What will the start up and long term fiscal costs be?
What safeguards are there to prevent this archive by being used only in the prevention of serious crimes.
What is the audit system to be to ensure that it won't be abused?
Is this a reboot I hadn't heard of?
We've got an election three weeks away where voters will have the opportunity to throw out Julia Gillard. Gillard is Rudd's deputy who knifed him in the back to take his job, yet was party to all his unpopular decisions. She is continuing to support the web filter (though deferred implementing it until after the election).
In the other corner is Tony Abbott, a conservative catholic who is also pro-web filter (see earlier comments in Slashdot).
These are the two major parties in Australia. Their policies are so similar it's hard to tell them apart. One of them will win. What sort of a choice is this?
At which point do you feel that the Australian public should be consulted for the real facts and opinions?
If you think that the child pornography hysteria that fuelled these actions was noble, I don't see what you consider so ugly about these inevitable conclusions. Rotten causes leads to rotten effects.
May the Maths Be with you!
The only realistic vote in Australia seems to be a vote for the Australian Sex Party.
The other parties seem totally infested by moralism and corruption.
You can't vote for a party that has already been banned (by the Internet filters).
Electronic Frontiers Australia, which the Australian government has labeled an extremist organization, says;
We have to turn the age-old question back on the government: if you don't have anything to hide, then you shouldn't be worried about people having insight into the consultation.
Of course the government has excuses for its hypocrisy; if it makes more laws then there will be more criminals, and an educated criminal is a threat to society; so the goal of the government is to try to keep people ignorant. Ignorance is Strength.
Couldn't be the "Obongo" bit, or the off-topic, incendiary nature of the post that got him that, could it? Nah, it's gotta be the raging hard-on everyone has for Obama, and not the fact that someone correctly noted that the post was not designed to spark intelligent discourse, but instead to inflame and derail.
Canada: The US's more awesome sibling.
Unfortunately the Labour Party (Current Federal Government) seems to be strongly influenced by people who have the attitude of "We must protect the Children" or "We know what is best for this county" or some such "Holy than thou" ideas.
I think the labour party is doing this because of the rise of the christian right in Australia. Labour will never will votes from family first, and pandering to moral authoritarianism (a conservative platform) will alienate the labour base.
I'm just going to consume pop-corn and laugh.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
I just saw this website which takes on these issues using a labour catchphrase - http://www.movingaustraliaforward.com/
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
Actually, the preferences system is about as fair and as democratic as it can get. The only time it seems to fail is when a party you voted for passes preferences to another party that you personally wouldn't have endorsed. The thing is, you can choose to allocate your preferences yourself, or elect the party to do it for you. Ultimately it always comes down to your choice, and if you give away your voting preference rights to someone else, you've only yourself to blame if you don't like the choices, or can't be bothered filling out the ballot forms properly. It's up to the individual to check that they filled the ballot papers out properly, and if you make a mistake, you are entitled to destroy the ballot paper you ruined and get a fresh one.
So in actual fact, passing preferences empowers the voter, and empowers the minor parties because in the case of a party, they can make deals to trade for power. For example, the Geens are really aiming to get as much control over the senate as they can. They know that they won't get the balance of power in the lower house, so they deal away their preferences with the Labour party in order to gain concessions, and to boost their profile so that in following elections, they have more publicly allocated campaign funding and a greater appeal to the public because their visibility is greater.
Where our system does fail us, is in that we have a perception that we are voting for a person to lead our country, but as recent events have shown, we are only voting in members to represent ourselves locally, and it is up to the parliament to determine who should represent it, usually decided entirely by the party in power at the time. So while many thought they had elected Kevin Rudd to lead us, they had forgotten they had only voted for their party member and by default granted that party member the right to vote on the constituents' behalf who the Prime Minister would be. For mine, I'd prefer a third form where you could list your preferences for preferred head of state. PM/President/whatever, to avoid the sort of political shenanigans that occurred so recently.
The two-party majority system that we seem to have is really the fault of the people. If you REALLY want the system to change, you need to use your vote to signal that change, not simply vote for the person you think would win anyway, or vote for the opposition simply to get the incumbents out of power. Your individual vote might not seem like much, but if everyone votes sensibly then the combination turns out to be truly powerful thing, and a responsibility that shouldn't be treated so lightly, especially when you know that there are so many places in the world without our freedoms. So you can moan as much as you like about the alleged unfairness of your system, but count yourself lucky that you actually have the right to do so, and if you want to protect that right, you need to vote to do so.
Oh, and if you think our system is so undemocratic, compare this to the system used in the USA, where only a handful of states actually wield the power to change the government because they get more "votes" than the other states, and where the individual cannot allocate a preference vote if their preferred candidate doesn't win. Yes, our last few governments have a lot to answer for, and yes, we seem to be losing our rights all the time... and yes, that is the collective fault of the public who voted the bastards in! And yet, in spite of all of that I still feel like we are the lucky country (yes, I've lived in MUCH worse), and if you really want to change things, you have the right and the individual responsibility to do so.