Conroy Still Hell-Bent On Internet Filter

lukehopewell1 writes "In an interview for the ABC's PM program yesterday, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy said that there would be no conscience vote on the Australian government's proposed mandatory internet filter. 'Conscience votes go to matters to do with life and death in the [Australian] Labor Party,' Conroy said. The minister said that the filter debate was not about censorship, rather it centred around refused classification material — an issue up for review in parliament. 'I'm not sure that the censorship claim stacks up. This is about classification systems. At the moment in Australia, there is no conscience vote on refused classification for movies, TV, DVDs or book stores,' the minister said. Conroy then called on the newly installed Shadow Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull to justify his position on the filter to families concerned about child pornography. 'According to the latest information I have here from the [Australian Communications and Media Authority], there are 430 child pornography sites on the [World Wide Web] ... that are accessible to anyone...[Malcolm Turnbull] has to explain to Australian families that he is prepared to do nothing about blocking access to those sites,' Conroy added." I hope some Australian and UK readers can help the rest of us understand the significance of conscience votes, though Wikipedia helps.

Comments

big deal

[seanonymous]

The internet's just a fad, anyway.

Re:big deal

[MrNaz]

"[Malcolm Turnbull] has to explain to Australian families that he is prepared to do nothing about blocking access to those sites"

Is that so eh. Perhaps instead Malcolm Turnbull could explain to Steven Conroy what the Internet is, how it works, and why we all wish Conroy would just fuck off.

Re:big deal

[scotty.m]

How do we stop these spams and scams coming through the portal?!
Answer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-enBtKjgcU

Re:big deal

[commodore64_love]

"[Malcolm Turnbull] has to explain to Australian families that he is prepared to do nothing about blocking access to those sites,' Conroy added."
.

Families don't need me to block the sites. They can do it themselves by turning-on the SafeSearch on google and filtering on their browser or OS. Same way they can block dirty channels from their TV. Mr. Conroy, the fact you did not know that demonstrates you are incompetent for this job and should step down.

Re:big deal

[deek]

"[Malcolm Turnbull] has to explain to Australian families that he is prepared to do nothing about blocking access to those sites"

I am outraged that Stephen Conroy knows about these child pornography websites, and apparently has not reported it to police. It is the police that can organise to shut these websites down, since they are illegal in every country that I know of.

I can only assume that Stephen Conroy wants these websites kept available, to push his agenda of a compulsory internet filter. If I were of a conspiratorial persuasion, I may even secretly believe that Stephen Conroy had a hand in creating some of these websites. Now wouldn't that be a sensational news article.

Re:big deal

[dougmc]

I am outraged that Stephen Conroy knows about these child pornography websites, and apparently has not reported it to police

While I see what you did there, but just to channel Captain Obvious, it's quite likely that 1) these sites exist outside of Australia, where the laws actually permit them, or 2) don't actually exist. It's certainly not impossible that these sites don't exist, or don't contain child pornography at all (perhaps being somewhat close, but not quite there), etc.

It wouldn't be the first time a politician has made stuff up or stretched the truth or only told half the story to support their agenda.

Re:big deal

[Anonymous Coward]

I vote we put a bullet in Conroy's head, it's quick, cheap and effective.

Re:big deal

[akayani]

I wonder which issue on /. created the most requirement for the word 'fuck' this year. I suspect Conboy gets that award!

Still depends on Fielding?

[MichaelSmith]

Fielding will be gone in six months so maybe the policy will change then.

Re:Still depends on Fielding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fielding will be gone in six months so maybe the policy will change then.

Yeah, to be replaced by John Madigan of the Democratic Labor Party -- which is just another social conservatism party.

Different party name, basically same policies. We managed to replace one crazy with another just like him.

And what's even funnier is that both Fielding and Madigan are only getting voted in on preference deals. Virtually no one actually voted or wanted them. I will sleep better if the Green's get their way (which hopefully they should given they now have the balance of power) and change the rules related to preferences in the senate.

Re:Still depends on Fielding?

[vandan]

While I will rejoice in Fielding being dumped, I'm sceptical that Labor will backflip over this issue without being pressured. We'll see.

Re:Still depends on Fielding?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would the greens renounce preferences when their candidate in Tasmania was elected due to preferences?

Re:Still depends on Fielding?

[jgardner100]

Doesn't matter, the independants can vote anyway they want and the greens are against it. Senator Conroy's nasty little plans are dead in the water thanks to the last election.

Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Anonymous Coward]

... before you let them take your guns.

It's a bit late now.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[MichaelSmith]

Give me a copy of netbsd over a gun any day. The gun will just get you killed.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a copy of netbsd over a gun any day. The gun will just get you killed.

Tell it to Peter Lalor. It's deplorable how many Australians are so ignorant of our history. While armed conflict is something sane people prefer to avoid, it ought not be avoided at any cost. From time to time in our history ("our" being people with common law justice systems) we have found it necessary to resist the government with force. We tend to keep the (newly constrained) government rather than overthrow them, which is what gives us the continuity of common law. Our legal rights such as Habeas Corpus and our Constitutional monarchy with Westminster parliament was won by force of arms. Hopefully we've come far enough to never need to resort to that again, but it seems foolish to bet your life on it.

David Hicks was held for 5 years without trial with the approval of our government. Conroy wants to censor the internet. The ABCC has overturned the right to not incriminate yourself so you can be punished for silence. The "anti-biker" legislation is destroying the right to freely associate and also to know the evidence used against you and the right to face your accuser. With these legal changes in place it seems to me that some future government may very well use them to implement tyranny, regardless of any good intentions current politicians may have. Some time in the future it may very well require armed force to address this problem although the vast majority wouldn't say we are at that point now.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[MichaelSmith]

In an armed conflict with out own Government the very best we could hope for is a disaster like Afghanistan. There are many things bad in that country but two things which stand out for me are the direct impact on civilians, and the polarising of domestic politics (ie, the Taliban).

The Government side would with walk all over the armed opposition, or fight it out in the streets for years. I don't want to be around when either of those things happen, so I believe an armed conflict is the worst possible outcome.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking as a US citizen, I'm sure glad our founding fathers weren't such bleeding whiners.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[DarkKnightRadick]

No kidding.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[MichaelSmith]

US civil wars were fought at a time when small arms were pretty much all there were. Seriously, try it against nukes and UAVs. See how far you get.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Anonymous Coward]

Then we shall fight in the shade of a thousand suns.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[u17]

Nowadays governments are much more powerful, in terms of military might, access to information and control over a citizen. It might have become infeasible to try to forcefully overthrow one. The next step that empowers citizens might just as well be total nuclear war.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Anonymous Coward]

In an armed conflict with out own Government the very best we could hope for is a disaster like Afghanistan.

For you to say such a thing is a fine example of my statement: "It's deplorable how many Australians are so ignorant of our history.

Did you not recognise the name Peter Lalor? Could it be that you don't know what the Eureka Stockade was? A small group of poorly armed men took on the government and lost quickly and decisively and were acquitted at trial by jury nullification. Shortly after, Peter Lalor was elected to the Victorian Legislative Council. What we could expect from armed conflict with the government depends on the amount of popular support for our cause. Right now, if you tried it you'd be reported in the media as a terrorist and remembered as such. Given enough popular support the government wouldn't take you on, except it may take a minor conflict for the level of support to be clear to them.

I believe an armed conflict is the worst possible outcome.

A lot of people think perpetual servitude is worse than armed conflict. In fact a great deal of our cultural identity is related to that ideal. I respect your right to express your opinion but your view is not representative of the Australian population in general.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[blackraven14250]

Speaking as a US citizen, I'm sure glad our founding fathers weren't such bleeding whiners.

Well, he has a point. The US military would walk all over any armed opposition in any sort of typical battle.

What they wouldn't do is win a political war, since that's obviously their Achilles heel.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[arthurpaliden]

Guns will not do anything to protect you or your freedoms when the govenment can drop a smart bomb on you and your bunker from 30,000 feet. However, getting involved in the political process now will.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Anonymous Coward]

More importantly, with an all-volunteer force I think it's pretty unlikely that you could get the Army's cooperation in shooting U.S. citizens in a sort of Kent State situation--note that the people doing the shooting at Kent State were conscripts. We're not just talking about asymmetrical warfare here, we're talking about telling a soldier to shoot a citizen. That's a hard sell.

It may be the common outlook here on /. that members of the military are unthinking, ant-like drones, but in reality that's not the case. I suspect you'd have a pretty hard time convincing a 19-year-old kid to shoot an M-1s main gun at a group of farmers.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Anonymous Coward]

I think every industrialized county is slowly heading in that direction right now. Everyone seems very displeased with their power hungry governments.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[couchslug]

"Seriously, try it against nukes and UAVs. See how far you get."

Nukes aren't on the table.

UAVs? Go tell the Taliban they have lost and it's time to go home. :)

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

I imagine (hope) there are a LOT of US soldiers who would disobey a direct order to deploy a nuclear weapon against a civilian target in the United States, judging it to not be a lawful order.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Lonewolf666]

Imagine Afghanistan without a foreign occupation army that props up the government. I think the Karzai government would not be in power anymore without US support.

So yes, I think a universally despised government could lose. The bigger problem may be setting up a new, not totally corrupt government afterwards.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Wyatt Earp]

The US Civil War was the first "modern" war with the might of industrialization and machines pushing the destruction and casualty rates.

Machine guns, repeating rifles, giant mortars, spotting aircraft, submarines, armored warships, siege warfare, total war, concentration camps for prisoners, the Civil War had it all.

Were there to be an uprising in the US, nuclear weapons would never be used, like in the Civil War the large segments of the military would splinter off into the rebelling faction and the nuclear sites would simply be sat on by forces loyal to the Federal Government or Pentagon.

UAVs would be less effective in a US civil war now than they are in Iraq or Afghanistan, simply put the revolting faction knows where the UAVs are and could strike at their basing airfields. The UAV airfields are all in "Red" states (North Dakota, Arizona, Texas and Nevada) and the US is big, theres alot more territory with terrain less conductive to recon from the air.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Xaositecte]

why is this modded troll?

Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq are all hellholes we failed to walk over armed opposition in.

Current military forces WOULD be reluctant to kill civilians.

Political murders HAVE happened.

-----------------------

Only thing is, military members are moved around quite often (once every 2-4 years or so) between different bases in different areas of the world. This is partially to ensure they're not loyal to their individual commanders or states, but rather to the military as a whole.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[chihowa]

US civil wars were fought at a time when small arms were pretty much all there were. Seriously, try it against nukes and UAVs. See how far you get.

What? While it's no nuke, they had heavy artillery and conducted naval bombardment of cities and other targets. That's still some serious shit and not to be confused with small arms.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Anonymous Coward]

Nowadays governments are much more powerful, in terms of military might, access to information and control over a citizen. It might have become infeasible to try to forcefully overthrow one.

Don't forget the use of pictures and video footage. Even fairly ruthless governments seem to respond to pressure. Therefore in most cases you don't have to be able to actually win a full scale conflict against the government. I doubt most would be dictators would nuke the people they hoped to enslave. The people at the Eureka Stockade did not win the conflict and were never likely to. They did win the popular support and got their issues addressed. Public perception of the brutal response of the police was one of the things that caused that outcome.

It's like a schoolboy is sometimes better off to take a beating standing up for himself. Handing over his lunch money can SEEM like a better option because he can't win against those 3 bullies, right? If he fights back he will likely get hurt, but gain respect and never lose his money again. Those bullies can beat him, but they'll leave him after that so every boy doesn't learn that they can fight back, if 10 decided to fight back it's all over for the bullies. Same for the government. The last thing they want if to have the general population against them. They can fight a small percentage, but if 100% stop filling in their forms correctly the government is hosed.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[bigspring]

Machine guns, repeating rifles, giant mortars, spotting aircraft, submarines, armored warships, siege warfare, total war, concentration camps for prisoners, the Civil War had it all.

Wait... what?

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Anonymous Coward]

Balloons, I imagine.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Wyatt Earp]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balloon_(aircraft)#American_Civil_War

The Union used them the most, but the Confederacy used them some too

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[DarkKnightRadick]

Muslim terrorists seem to be doing pretty good with RPGs, AK-47s and guerrilla tactics.

Don't forget, the British army during the American Revolution was the best army in the world. The UK was the superpower and a bunch of under-trained, under-armed rebels beat them down (with some help from the French Navy (which has never seen a successful engagement since :p)).

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[blackraven14250]

why is this modded troll?

Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq are all hellholes we failed to walk over armed opposition in.

Because that's bullshit. The US kills anybody who's in the way. We won Vietnam, the war. We lost Vietnam, the minds of the Vietnamese people, due to our utter ruthlessness.

Seriously, name a single battle in Vietnam where the North Vietnamese had a major military success. We lost 58,000 men; the North Vietnamese lost over 1.1 million.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Falconhell]

Speaking as an Australian citizen, I am glad our society does not have every idiot armed with a gun.

Fact is the US public would never have a successful armed revolution as they are so divided politically.

The bizzaro dream that such could occur is just an excuse to allow overcompensating morons to have guns. Not for us thanks.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Falconhell]

Eureka stockade was a failed revolution of criminals against the govt.

I do not know even one person in .au who thinks a the general population should be armed.

It is YOU who have no idea of the opinion of the general pubic.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Anonymous Coward]

Eureka stockade was a failed revolution of criminals against the govt.

Failed? They achieved their objectives. The leader was elected to the legislature. That's some failure! By the way, those men were found not guilty by juries of their peers, by what authority do you declare them to be criminals?

I do not know even one person in .au who thinks a the general population should be armed.

Well I assure you there is more than one. The ABC's reporting of Queensland senate election results shows the initial allocation of votes includes 55,222 for the Liberal Democrats (LDP) whose policy is to legalise firearms ownership for self-defence including concealed carry and 42,669 for the Shooters and Fishers party. NSW had 95,752 for LDP and 96,638 for the Shooters and Fishers party. Victoria had 59,116 for LDP and 44,639 for Shooters and Fishers. SA 5,584 for LDP and 11,425 for Shooters and Fishers. WA 14,517 for LDP and 7,459 for Shooters and Fishers. NT 4,640 for Shooters and Fishers.

That is 230,191 votes for the LDP (pro concealed carry) and 207,470 for the Shooters and Fishers party in the initial allocation, more with preferences. Over 430,000 pro firearms votes.

It is YOU who have no idea of the opinion of the general pubic.

My reference to the public opinion was not intended to refer to my opinions on firearms, which I know are not mainstream. It was supposed to be specific on the issue of whether "armed conflict is the worst possible outcome". I should have expressed that better.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Lanteran]

perhaps not as an individual, but as many, many posters above have noted, once the gov't looses the general population, its all over for them. Soldiers aren't just mindless drones either- many of them will share the gen pop's views on proper government and join up with them.

Guns will not do anything to protect you or your freedoms (snip) However, getting involved in the political process now will.

I have one thing to ask: have you been here long?

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[arthurpaliden]

I try to visit from time to time when I get leave from Star Fleet.

Re:Maybe you should have held a 'conscience vote'

[Lucractius]

Speaking as an Australian citizen... I wouldn't mind constitutionally protected free speech.

430?

[YoshiDan]

430 sites? Surely there are more. It's not like a child porn site is going to go around advertising itself is it? God he's stupid.

Re:430?

[Anonymous Coward]

Never ascribe to stupidity that which can be explained by religion.

Re:430?

[JamesTRexx]

I bet if they would just publish the sitenames the problem would be dealt with quickly enough by online vigilantes.

Re:430?

[srjh]

Well since the blacklist contents is blacklisted itself, there's no way of knowing. When the list was leaked last year, there were about 1300 sites and not a single one of them contained any child pornography. Most of it was plain old adult content, with dentists, dog boarding kennels, caterers, poker websites, and anti-abortion sites making up the balance.

We know that most of the worst stuff on the net is much further underground, with P2P and private trading via email.

What limited child porn there is on the web specifically falls under only a handful of categories.

* Hacked websites. Supposedly this is why some of the sites appeared in error in the leaked list - they were "hacked by the Russian mob". An Aussie dentist website with a known hosting company had some child pornography buried under several "backslashes" (as Conroy put it) after being hacked. Instead of contacting the owner/host and getting their co-operation in removing the content and prosecuting those responsible, the whole site was just blacklisted without notifying anyone. The guy running it only found out when the list was leaked. A "just ban it" filter will only encourage laziness such as this when we should be policing it.

* Trolling attempts. There was a rather unfortunate case a few months ago of a certain imageboard trolling the facebook memorial of a murdered eight-year-old girl by flooding it with gore, bestiality and child porn. Not a lot really needs to be said about the perpetrators here, I think most will reach the same conclusion. It was jumped on by the censorphiles in Australia, but even in the best case, classification of websites takes months (I know, I've tested the submission process). Legislation is probably years in the future, and certain to fail with the current parliament. Sites like Facebook would actually be exempted because "high traffic" websites would break the filter and embarrass the government. Rather than the filtering approach, Facebook removed the images themselves in a matter of hours (and the police would have if they didn't), and the guy who did it was eventually prosecuted. Good riddance.

* Honeypots/sting operations. I think Conroy's even said he'll exempt sites from the filter if the filter would interfere with a police investigation. People dumb enough to access/post child porn on the open web deserve to be caught. With the proxying of the filters making online forensics more difficult, and policing resources being diverted to an idiotic waste, this is yet another example the filter will only make worse.

And that's without even mentioning the fact that the filter is being sold as a child-safe filter. The government has already dumped its "voluntary filters for parents" program, and has left almost all hardcore material accessible under the filter because blocking it all is obviously impossible.

Every time I think about this plan, it makes me furious. It's the main issue I voted against the government on last month, and I wouldn't be surprised if enough people joined me to have cost them their majority. But the independents hand the reins back to the ALP and it's full-steam ahead with the filter despite no-one outside of the ALP supporting it, the ALP being in minority in both houses of parliament, significant elements within the party opposing it, and ALP members only likely to vote for it because they will be expelled from the party if they don't. (That's basically what a conscience vote is for those who aren't familiar - a "we won't kick you out of the party if you don't vote for this" vote. By refusing one, anyone who doesn't toe the line is out of the party. The ALP is extremely strict on this.)

Re:430?

[gandhi_2]

I'm not sure the "I was helping to slashdot it" defense will work out in court, bud.

Re:430?

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you have something to actually refute the arguments made or did you just want to say "please think of the children"?

My guess would be that he's right, not in his assessment that real child porn web sites don't exist -- I'm sure they do -- but in saying that most of the stuff gets delivered via other means than www..

Re:430?

[monkyyy]

everyone knows this

Re:430?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of it was plain old adult content, with dentists, dog boarding kennels, caterers, poker websites, and anti-abortion sites making up the balance.

I got some accidental inside information from a religious political lobbyist some years ago when this furor began... he was happy to get anything done to filter the net. But the religious lobbyists don't have that much clout .. he pretty much provided his perspective on legislation that happened to fall into his area of knowledge or got laws tweaked here and there to fill loopholes, that sort of thing.

The real reason that the lower house members listened to this suggestion was because the casino operators sided with the religious lobbyists to try to stop off-shore internet gambling, which is of course losing them loads of cash and losing the government loads of tax revenue.

If this filter were to be implemented (which appears to be next to impossible at this point) the first additions to the list would be every identifiable offshore gambling website. The 'child porn' is just to raise public outrage / support and imo the rest of the sites just added to the list as white noise to hide it's purpose. I'm guessing here that the secure gambling connections to offshore sites would be a damn site more difficult (impossible?) to pass through a proxy and that the average on-line gambler may not even bother to try ... just hop in the car, and go to the casino.

Re:430?

[Anonymous Coward]

"That's basically what a conscience vote is for those who aren't familiar - a "we won't kick you out of the party if you don't vote for this" vote. By refusing one, anyone who doesn't toe the line is out of the party. The ALP is extremely strict on this."

But exactly how strict can they afford to be at this stage? If they kick any ALP member out for not towing the line, they'll lose government. (Even with the support of the greens and all independents the ALP holds government by 1 seat.) And the independents and the greens have not given support to the filter AFAIK. They have merely stated their intention to side with the ALP on budget and no confidence votes. But a mandatory filter system would require enabling legislation.

Re:430?

[Anonymous Coward]

You, sir, are a retard.

Re:430?

[totally bogus dude]

I'm guessing here that the secure gambling connections to offshore sites would be a damn site more difficult (impossible?) to pass through a proxy

No harder than any other site; but obviously the people who think the proposed filter will do anything at all are banking on the majority of people never trying to circumvent it.

Re:430?

[TwistedPants]

Also - think of the cost! I believe it was around $42 million set aside to implement such a filter - a hair over $100k per site. Are you really telling me that there is value in this? Are you really telling me that you could not put $100k under a police investigation per site in order to shut some of them down? I'm aware there was already funding for the AFP included in the initial proposals; but if you are going to do something, why not do it right? Give $42 million to those that can actually prosecute the offenders in some % of cases.

Re:430?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have the time available then please take what you have said in your post above, formalise the writing, and post/email it to the opinion section of every major newspaper in Australia..

It would go a long way to help educate the public.

Re:430?

[Anonymous Coward]

We also know that most of the worst drugs on the street are sold much further underground.

How do we know this? Clearly the only explanation is that I am a member of some king of drug distribution racket.

Re:430?

[scdeimos]

I'm guessing here that the secure gambling connections to offshore sites would be a damn site more difficult (impossible?) to pass through a proxy and that the average on-line gambler may not even bother to try ... just hop in the car, and go to the casino.

It's very simple to block SSL sites. Though SSL connections are encrypted once they are established, clients still have to pass a "CONNECT domain.com:443 HTTP/1.x" request through the proxy to create a tunnel. If the domain is in the proxy's blacklist it can just respond with a "forbidden" instead of establishing the tunnel.

Of course it was already demonstrated in the filter trials that the system can be bypassed trivially.

Re:430?

[JamesTRexx]

You expect to be sued for that by someone providing child porn?

Re:430?

[smolloy]

I think he expects to be tried & imprisoned when an IP linked to him is found accessing such sites, and he's saying that online vigilantism will probably appear to be quite a weak defence.

Re:430?

[divisionbyzero]

I wonder why there is such a disconnect between the ALP and its constituents? I wonder if they understand that their position on this issue may have cost them their majority (among other things like the refusal to follow-up on environmental promises)? Conroy should have been sacked with Rudd (or re-assigned as the case may be since he's now Minister of Foreign Affairs). How do you get it through their thick heads that they are losing votes? We have the same problem in 'America. All of these Attorneys General think that they are gaining votes for shutting down Craigslist's Adult Section but really they are losing votes. I certainly won't vote to re-elect my Attorney General based on this one issue. Her opponent could be a stuffed doll and I still wouldn't vote for her.

Re:430?

[SteveFoerster]

That's basically what a conscience vote is for those who aren't familiar - a "we won't kick you out of the party if you don't vote for this" vote. By refusing one, anyone who doesn't toe the line is out of the party. The ALP is extremely strict on this.

Considering that they have a majority of one, and that's with the help of the independents, are they really in a position to kick out anyone, no matter how obstreperous? Alternatively, can MPs cross the aisle in Australia?

Re:430?

[Schadrach]

Presuming there is in fact significant trading of child pornography on the internet (something that most talking about this topic seem to take as a given), then try to locate a child pornography website on the open web. It's not exactly trivial to do so.

Whereas the "more underground" includes things like P2P (as bad as many P2P files are mislabeled, I'm surprised that child porn marked as something else is as rare as it seems to be) and FreeNet (for whom "there is child pornography on the network and I can't censor it" is one of the primary arguments against, so I assume there must be -- never tried it myself).

Re:430?

[scotty.m]

Government won't publish the list... but WikiLeaks will. This: http://www.wikileaks.org/wiki/Leaked_Australian_blacklist_reveals_banned_sites
WikiLeaks even got several mentions on the list! (though probably not for cp)

Re:430?

[commodore64_love]

Never ascribe to religion that which can be explained by avarice and ambition (love of money and love of power). Religion is a convenient tool but if it did not exist, leaders would use something else instead (like race, color, or creed).

Re:430?

[bsDaemon]

they have intellectual property to protect, too. don't forget -- we have to stop filesharing services because they provide movies, music and kiddy pr0n. the *aa says so, so they must be lumping it in as protected content.

Re:430?

[commodore64_love]

Normally I would click on that link, but I just learned the local police are breaking into people's homes and scanning their PCs for child porn (they call it a "crackdown"), so I think I'll pass.

I wonder what they do when they encounter someone with Mac or Linux OS? "Sir my software won't run." "Hmmm. That's suspicious. Let's arrest him on grounds that he's hacker running his own custom system. I bet he's up to all kinds of nefarious things."

Re:430?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that wrongy categorized content.

-Is "barely legal" really legal or how can you see some girl os over a trivial age.
-Is the limit 16 18 or 21 years old for child porn?
-If no age is mentioned?
-How about drawn content (4chan/7chan)
-Or CG created images.
-Or any other site that thinks that showing naked people is no by definition sexual(Breast implant, Breast cancer, naturist).

I can see they do not want to vote about it. The discussion is very easy to pollute. Because by setting limits on what is now allowed they are allowing some other.

Re:430?

[DavidRawling]

Yes, MPs are physically able to cross the floor. However, unless a particular vote is agreed to be a conscience vote (namely, "vote on this item according to your own conscience") MPs are expected to vote according to their party viewpoint. Failure to do so is what the GP meant with the MP facing expulsion from the party.

Re:430?

[dangitman]

I just cannot believe that people are taking my comment seriously. Are people around here so humor impaired that they didn't realize it was a joke?

Re:430?

[Attila Dimedici]

Mor importantly, does he really think that out of the millions of websites that 430 is a significant number? The Shadow Communications Minister Malcom Turnbull should point out that Conroy wants to spend millions to create a filter to ostensibly block approximately 0.0002% of the web. This is a conservative estimate, 430 is probably a much smaller percent of the total number of webpages than that (I based it on Netcrafts estimate from January 2009), however, since Conroy would probably claim that 430 is only a fraction of the child porn sites on the web, it should be close enough for argument. Turnbull should then point out a handful of the risks that are greater than this (such as drowning while taking a bath--.01%) and ask if Conroy wants to outlaw taking a bath next.

Re:430?

[MBGMorden]

Nah, they're just doing what idiots do: stringing together lots of negative things with no care as to truth or even compatibility.

One of the funniest comments (funny because it was said completely seriously) I read on the web was someone attacking a particular political figure. I can't even remember the figure's name, but someone responded with:

"Who cares what thinks? He's a communist and an anarchist!"

You might not like either, but I'm pretty sure communist and anarchist are mutually exclusive positions :D.

Re:430?

[bsDaemon]

Or, from Ferris Bueller's Day Off: "I do have a test today, that wasn't bullshit. It's on European socialism. I mean, really, what's the point? I'm not European. I don't plan on being European. So who gives a crap if they're socialists? They could be fascist anarchists, it still doesn't change the fact that I don't own a car. "

Re:430?

[MightyMartian]

So they are what is referred to in many Westminster parliaments as free or unwhipped votes. I agree that within just a one seat majority and with a number of those seats being independents propping the government up, there's no way the Prime Minister would force a whipped vote over something like this.

In such situations, it's also not uncommon for a government to get rid of an unpopular policy previously trumpeted by letting it go to an unwhipped vote, knowing that it will be defeated. That way, the Minister can say "Hey, I tried, but Parliament wouldn't let me... Them bastards." Rather akin to US legislators intentionally passing bills they know won't survive a constitutional challenge, just so they can say they tried.

Re:430?

[el3mentary]

We also know that most of the worst drugs on the street are sold much further underground.

To the Subway!

Darknets

[Anonymous Coward]

If this scheme ever gets off the ground, I'm going turn every machine I have admin privileges on into a Freenet node, just to spite them.

Boo! Hiss!

Don't filter

[Anonymous Coward]

Let the pedo's login in so you can catch the fuckers!!!

Re:Don't filter

[AHuxley]

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/fight-to-filter-out-evil-leaves-bad-guys-to-do-their-worst-20100514-v4cq.html
They cut funding to the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Team, a unit of the Australian Federal Police.
The filter is pure faith based pay back.

Total control

[Anonymous Coward]

I swear child porn is the big boogyman to control the internet just as 911 was the big fear monger event to justify totally immoral wars against countries that had nothing to do with the event....

Re:Total control

[monkyyy]

oil is not very different from riaa ppl swimming in money both only lasts so long and need to be replaced with clean energy and artists swimming

Re:Total control

[phantomfive]

It works because it is a real problem. Child porn is a bad thing. 9/11 was a bad thing. There are real terrorists out there who want to kill Americans. Whenever there is a threat, or a serious problem, there will always be hucksters and power-seekers trying to take advantage of other's misery for their own benefit, or to push their own agenda. That's what happened during the McCarthy era: there were actually Russian spies, and McCarthy played on that fear.

That's why it's so important to not believe every person who can describe the problem, but rather look at their proposed solutions and see if they actually help, or will take you somewhere you don't want to go. Because for any given problem, someone who is offering a solution is trying to twist it for their own benefit.

Re:Total control

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just go all the way and require all Australians to hide under their beds all day long? Who knows, they might witness a car accident, or get mugged, or get hit by a meteorite...

Re:Total control

[Anonymous Coward]

It works because it is a real problem. Child porn is a bad thing.

It isn't a real problem. Child porn isn't bad -- child molestation/abuse is. The porn itself are just images/videos, and trying to filter it will change nothing.

Re:Total control

[Richard_at_work]

It works because it is a real problem. Child porn is a bad thing.

While child porn is extremely bad, preventing access to it will not protect Australian families from pedophiles at all - infact, with one method of release denied to them (and no, thats not me condoning access to child porn), they could become more dangerous toward Australian families.

Re:Total control

[shilly]

You've made an assertion, but you need evidence to stack it up. You could equally well assert that preventing access will indeed protect Australian families, because people's paedophilic urges are stoked, not released, by viewing the material. More fundamentally, for child porn to be made, children have to be sexually abused.

Re:Total control

[Schadrach]

More specifically, the production of child porn is bad.

I've always wondered on this topic, why the law is the way it is. It seems to me that child porn is evidence of a crime being committed. Why not simply render production, sale, purchase, and distribution illegal but not possession and actually encourage anyone that ends up with it in their possession to provide it to police, in order to help identify and rescue the victims thereof? It just seems like the manpower/funds freed up by doing that might allow some actual good to be done.

Make the economic side of child porn as difficult as possible and see what happens. I know back when it was legal there were only a handful of companies that did it even then, Color Climax being the most notorious. Even they barely sold anything that was entirely kiddy porn because it wouldn't sell, so their more common scenario was to add in an underage actor into an otherwise mostly vanilla scene -- and even that wasn't *that* common.

It makes me think there's not a huge economic incentive to kiddy porn, so the question becomes why does it get created? After all, explicitly filming evidence of your crimes seems like an unbelievably stupid thing to do, then turning around and distributing it on the internet seems even dumber.

Re:Total control

[Drakkenmensch]

"Think of the CHILDREN! Won't somebody PLEAAAAAAASE think of the CHILDREN!!!" -Helen Lovejoy

Re:Total control

[commodore64_love]

>>>It works because it is a real problem. Child porn is a bad thing. 9/11 was a bad thing. There are real terrorists out there who want to kill Americans.

I am more likely to get hit be a meteorite, than to encounter a terrorist or child pornographer. These are NOT real problems. Real problems are how to pay the bills, or navigate to work without a car accident, or how to keep the boss happy.

Re:Total control

[Richard_at_work]

So you really think that once they cannot get access to content on the internet, *all* pedophiles in Australia will immediately stop being pedophiles and get on with their lives? Now that's optimism!

What is more likely to happen is that local pedophile rings will increase in Australia, individual pedophiles will group together to find a release for their urges and thus more Australian children will be subject to degredation and harm as the child porn will now have to be locally produced (easier than smuggling it in) and change hands physically rather than over the internet (like the 'good' old days).

Also, just because they hide it behind an internet filter doesn't mean the material ceases to exist - the site in Thailand will still exist, and still cause children to be sexually abused whether Australia blocks access or not, the filter hasn't prevented anything in that case.

Re:Total control

[shilly]

No, I don't think that. I said
1) You need evidence
2) Absent evidence, it's possible to make a counter-argument. I then demonstrated what a counter-argument might look like.
You missed the point, and laid out an inference from what I said that is clearly absurd -- a pointless strawman.

We can debate, fact-free, about which assertion is more likely, but the facts are what matters.

What is undeniable -- what is a fact -- is that to make child porn, requires harming children. What we do about it, is less clear.

I also note, with some unease, that you seem to be arguing that it is preferable for non-Australian children to be harmed than for Australian children to be harmed. I hope that you are being sloppy in your thinking and are not actually being racist in that way.

By the way, you have assumed that the causality is [Thai] child-porn suppliers exist ==> [Australian] consumers use them. In fact, there is an obvious feedback loop -- the more consumers there are, the more suppliers enter the market. And thus the more abuse occurs. You also have failed to address the possibility that using child-porn will stimulate urges, rather than release them.

Re:Total control

[Richard_at_work]

My evidence is history itself - you really think there were no pedophiles before the internet came into existence? How do you think they operated then?

I have also assumed no 'causality' - you miss the fact that you are *not* removing consumers from the market, you are simply segmenting them in the market from their suppliers. What that does to the Thai suppliers is outside the discussion here, its what those 'consumers' do after their supply is removed - do they simply give up on the whole child porn aspect? In a perfect world, yes, but then again in a perfect world they wouldn't exist in the first place.

Some casual 'consumers' may certainly give up their hobby, but equally there will be those that go elsewhere for their fix - where do you think that their new supply will come from, when they can no longer go outside the country on the internet for their porn? Certainly there will be other channels, and domestically made child porn is one of them.

I also find it amusing that, while we are discussing the harm that comes to Australian children here, you assume that I care not a bit for non-Australian children - nothing further from the truth could be had. And I also resent your implication that I prefer any child to be harmed.

Once again, we come back to what this discussion is all about - whether the filter protects the Australian family. It doesn't, and all of my posts demonstrate that.

In the first case, it doesn't remove any suppliers from the market place - they exist outside of the remit of this filter and thus have a larger market. The argument that if you remove the customer base you reduce the suppliers market is false - many times this has been tried with prostitution and it has failed in every country thus far. They existed before the internet, and they were world wide then.

In the second case, it doesn't necessarily remove any consumers from the market place - it simply restricts their supply. What they do after that is of question.

Thirdly, it may indeed foist more harm on the Australian family as those consumers that cannot get their fix from external sources now have to turn to internal sources to fulfill their desires. Some of that internal supply may be smuggled in as before, but equally some may be domestically produced material that would never have been produced otherwise.

Re:Total control

[alexo]

More specifically, the production of child porn is bad.

I would not have taken issue with this statement if stick-figure drawings could not be (legally!) classified as CP.

Re:Total control

[Anonymous Coward]

Another angle to this - If Minister Conroy knows of 430 pedophile sites, why not use them as honeypots and monitor access to these sites from Australia, then investigate those accessing them?

Re:Total control

[shilly]

Are you being deliberately fuckwitted? The assertion that you made was that "preventing access to it will not protect Australian families from pedophiles at all". Merely alluding to the fact that pedophiles existed prior to the internet does not constitute evidence to support this assertion. That evidence simply shows that the internet is not a necessity for paedophilia. It doesn't falsify the hypothesis that more paedophilia has occurred in Australia because the ready availability of child porn via the internet has stoked the vile urges of paedophiles. (Note, I am not saying this is the case, merely that it is just as valid a hypothesis as yours.)

I am not saying that your argument is inherently implausible, just that evidence is required. And "history itself" is a teensy bit unspecific.

Re:Total control

[Richard_at_work]

It does get quite difficult to have a mature conversation with someone who insults you all the time....

You once again miss the fact that this internet filter will not reduce the number of pedophiles behind the filter at all, it doesn't lock any up, it doesn't restrict movements of any, it doesn't offer treatment for any - it just cuts them off from their supply, cold turkey, no help offered at all.

I am also not claiming anything about how the internet has changed the behaviours or habits of pedophiles.

Once again, I am saying that the original statement made in the article, "[Malcolm Turnbull] has to explain to Australian families that he is prepared to do nothing about blocking access to those sites,' Conroy added." is false because it does NOTHING about the pedophiles.

The ones that were going to abuse will still abuse. The ones that cannot get their fix via the internet may go one of several ways - they may stop or return to regular porn, they may turn to domestically produced child porn, or they may start abusing themselves. It depends on their degree of fixation.

The filter will not stop those that were going to abuse anyway. The Australian family were always going to be harmed. The Australian family is harmed.

The filter will not stop those that were not going to abuse, but will now abuse. The Australian family were not going to be harmed. The Australian family is harmed.

The filter will not stop those that were not going to abuse, and will not abuse. The Australian family were never going to be harmed.

If the fact that child porn is 'readily available' on the internet does indeed 'stoke the vile urges of paedophiles', you still miss the fact that removing access to that ready supply does not instantly reduce the amount of pedophiles down to whatever it might have been otherwise - there will still be pedophiles that have liked what they acquired a taste for and can never go back to a normal life. Those won't go away, and they may go on to abuse directly.

so?

[monkyyy]

if the internet gets censored a 2nd underground one would pop up one with heavy encryption and no police power

Conscience votes

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally in Australia, party discipline and solidarity is such that any member going against the party line on a vote is taboo and noteworthy - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_floor#Voting_against_party_lines . If the party allows a conscience vote, then they don't lay down a policy on how they expect members to vote - so they can vote whichever way they want.

Re:Conscience votes

[Nursie]

In a parliamentary democracy, non-conscience votes are an abomination, IMHO.

You vote for your local representative, they are supposed to represent the needs of their constituents to parliament. In the UK there's the Whip, in Aus a similar party line thing. what this means is that a few people at the top decide policy and it then gets pushed through on the threat of kicking dissenters out of the party.

It's so anti-democratic it hurts.

Re:Conscience votes

[Slotty]

Worst part is policy isn't even dictated by representatives. It's dictated by media frenzy or party hollowmen. The ABC's hollowmen is actually a very realistic representation of governance.... Just not as funny

Re:Conscience votes

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I agree with non-conscience voting but the parties expect your reasoning for choosing your local member is different to what you say.

People, in general, vote for one party or another. Not for the personal beliefs of their local member. Most people have never met or even seen significant campaigning from their local member. Therefore, if a person is voting for a party, they expect their member to believe and vote the same as their party (rather than the other way around).

If you truly want someone in parliament to vote based on local issues, you should vote for an independent. This is the key difference an independent holds over party-aligned politicians.

Re:Conscience votes

[Zumbs]

Where I live, people most often vote for a party, not a person. It is quite seldom that they know that much about the personal beliefs of the local members on the party list. It should also be noted that the only thing stopping someone from breaking party line is that they can be excluded from their party. Depending on the situation their career in politics may also end at the next exection, but they do not lose their seat until a new parliament is elected. Indeed, since the last parliamentary election 3 years ago, 3% of the elected representatives have left their party for another (or for being independent).

Re:Conscience votes

[teh kurisu]

I can't speak for Australia, but in the UK there's generally no sanction for voting against your party unless a three-line whip is issued.

I think most votes are covered by single-line whips, where the party line is spelled out but you don't have to vote that way, vote at all or even attend. The Public Whip logs the incidence of rebellion for each MP.

The fact is that most MPs vote with their party of their own free will, rather than under duress.

Re:Conscience votes

[Anonymous Coward]

To be fair, it's no more anti-democratic than the two party system itself. The vast majority of ALP voters don't want the filter, and voted ALP simply because they believe in its other policies (eg against the conservatives' "WorkChoices" policy).

Re:Conscience votes

[Vintermann]

Especially in states like Australia, where you vote by ranking a list of maybe 50 candidates, it's ridiculous to expect citizens to study the individual preferences of every single candidate. Candidates join parties (of which Australia has pretty much as many as they care to) in order to signal where they stand on the issues. The parties also implicitly say which issues are "conscience issues" to them, in which case it's the voter's responsibility to research the individual candidates' position.

Compared to the US/UK, in Australia, politicians can choose their parties very freely. So the opportunity for party leadership to push policies on unwilling representatives is pretty limited.

Re:Conscience votes

[kingturkey]

So there's no official sanctions, e.g. removal of positions or expulsion from the party, but surely an MP with ambition (almost all) would strongly consider the unofficial penalties before crossing the floor. Surely when the ministerial positions are being handed out, being a "team player" would be a strong factor in the decisions.

Re:Conscience votes

[iainl]

Indeed. When the UK uses a "conscience vote", we mean that there is no whip at all - there isn't a party line to rebel against.

Re:Conscience votes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just another reasons why FPTP is completely broken in the UK.

What's the point in a system where you vote for a local representive if:

- The local representative doesn't have support of even close to the majority of their constituency

- The local representative doesn't closely represent the views of their constituency

- Even if the local representative is representative of their constituency, they follow the party line which may go against the will of the constituency

Yet the argument of having a local representative is the mainstay of the argument to maintain the hardly democratic FPTP system.

All ours (and presumably the Australian system) does is is hand effective 100% of power to the party elite in the ruling party most the time. It means that the entire country's policy is being dictated by the 10 - 20 people in cabinet and the PM regardless of what the vast majority of the country want. It's only by some freak twist of public opinion at a set point in time that the UK (and again, Australia too now presumably) isn't living under a dictatorial clique again right now like it has been for the last few decades thanks to the checks and balances a coalition inherently brings.

Re:Conscience votes

[Xiroth]

I'd beg to differ, to be honest. Voting for your representative rather than your party sounds nice, and in fact before the previous election I supported the idea. Unfortunately, having that situation turn into a reality (3 independents now hold the balance of power here in Australia) has shown what that leads to: pork and unreliable ability to deliver the policies that the party was elected on. I hear a lot of Americans complain about the incompetence of their government; have you ever considered that perhaps it's because of the every-man-for-himself style of legislative body you have? Where every representative has to spend all of their time trying to wrangle things for their seats, as otherwise their seats would get nothing? What if all money spent in a state was purely on the basis of nation-wide policy, rather than individual bits of cash added into legislation purely to benefit the representative's chances of being voted back in? Maybe you wouldn't have so much ineffectiveness in your government

I'm not saying that our system doesn't have problems - far from it, and in many ways the US does it better. But I think that legislating for a whole nation rather than just bits of is a much better fit for a federal legislative body.

Re:Conscience votes

[Anonymous Coward]

In a parliamentary democracy, non-conscience votes are an abomination, IMHO.

You vote for your local representative, they are supposed to represent the needs of their constituents to parliament. In the UK there's the Whip, in Aus a similar party line thing. what this means is that a few people at the top decide policy and it then gets pushed through on the threat of kicking dissenters out of the party.

It's so anti-democratic it hurts.

In a parliamentary democracy (PD) you do vote for the local rep, but it's usually because they're part of a particular party.

If you want a free-for-all, move to the US and use their Congressional system. In which case every single Congresscritter can be sniped by lobbyists with "contributions". Whereas in a PD the people "at the top" do make a lot of decisions, but it's a lot easier to keep an eye on things because there are fewer people to watch. Any major policy change is easier to keep track of, as it comes from Cabinet.

When the UK parliament first got going there weren't any parties, and things were quite chaotic from what I know of the history, e.g., everyone and their uncle would try to pass or amend a budget bill to get money to their own riding, so spending would be all over the place and uncontrolled—kind of like what happens in Congress with ear marks.

Re:Conscience votes

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, where I live it's similar... this is due to US media making people more aware of the US system of election than the Commonwealth system where you vote for your local rep. Thus, while elections are set up to empower the people, the perception that they are set up to empower the parties skews election results. I think we need to have some reality TV shows featuring commonwealth-style elections to help educate the public....

I prefer

[agendi]

Internet still hell bent on filtering Conroy.

Re:I prefer

[dkf]

Internet still hell bent on filtering Conroy.

Bonus points if you can persuade any Australian filter to put in the websites of both Conroy and his party.

Not really unexpected

[glowworm]

It has always been the case where Senator Conroy has desired this filter, he has long been a pawn of the Australian Christian Lobby. Before the recent elections the party he belongs to, Labor (a middle left party), could have passed it on their numbers alone, however the recent election puts Labor into a minority government position. Even with the Labor parties internal rules saying that all members must vote to the party line they are simply outnumbered, everyone else in government is on record as being against the plan. Now there is nothing to say that Labor can't strike a deal with the opposition party and the independents who make up the majority of the government, say tie it being passed to not putting a price on carbon, but I think the chances of that are slim. A minority government is a very tenuous hold on power. As far as a conscience vote, all other parties are free to vote how they like, members of the Labor party are the only ones tied to the official party line, however for things like Gay Adoption (recently passed) and Abortion (passed quite a few years ago) those rules are relaxed.

Re:Not really unexpected

[MichaelSmith]

members of the Labor party are the only ones tied to the official party line

Thats not true. Every party tries to keep their members voting the party line.

Re:Not really unexpected

[glowworm]

Yes tries, but Labor is the only one where the members need to agree to always support the caucus decision upon joining.

The Liberals and Greens and of course the independents are able to step outside the party line if they really need to, when they do this it is called crossing the floor.

Quite recently Liberals have been crossing the floor to vote for climate change laws.

http://www.google.com.au/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=&=&q=liberal+cross+the+floor

No matter matter what the issue a Labor MP is not allowed to cross the floor unless he has been given a conscience vote. He must vote as caucus directs or lose membership.

Re:Not really unexpected

[TapeCutter]

"Before the recent elections the party he belongs to, Labor (a middle left party), could have passed it on their numbers alone"

No, before the election the libs + greens had the numbers and the inclination to block it in the senate, that situation has not changed. When the libs were in power they were the ones pushing for a mandatory filter and labor + greens were blocking it in the senate. It's never really been a serious proposal, it's a political distraction aimed at certain independent senators, an endless "Yes Minister" style inquiry that has been going on now for a decade with the libs and labor occasionally changing roles from good cop to bad cop.

There is no chance in hell the inquires will ever come to a conclusion since that would mean both major parties would have to give up the carrot/stick they use to placate the christian right and their nutjob senator(s).

I'm actually looking forward to Downer's answer, he's more than a match for Conroy.

Re:Not really unexpected

[TapeCutter]

Opps, I meant Turnbull, not that idiot Downer.

Re:Not really unexpected

[dbIII]

Conscience votes from the Liberals and Nationals are very rare. While they can in theory cross the floor on any issue, in practice they get disendorsed so that somebody else will take their seat next time or they get thrown out of the party entirely. Consider how many ex-coalition independants there are in both State and Federal Australian politics. Don't you think they would have stayed in a party that let them speak their mind?
It's ironic that the only other conscience vote I remember in the last decade was to tell Tony Abbott to stop playing pretend Catholic games to raise his profile with religious voters and instead do his job as health minister.

Re:Not really unexpected

[Anonymous Coward]

The ALP is not "middle left", and they haven't been anywhere near the middle left in recent times. They are right-conservative, just not as conservative the the Coalition. Let's look from the left. We have the Greens, which are actually on the left. To the right of them we have the Australian Democrats, which are centrist. To the right of the Democrats is the ALP. QED

Re:Not really unexpected

[Michael Wardle]

"When the libs were in power they were the ones pushing for a mandatory filter".

AFAIR their policy was to offer free net filtering software for people to install on their PC if they chose.

In what sense was that mandatory?

Re:Not really unexpected

[Anonymous Coward]

The Australian Labor Party is not a left-leaning party.

Re:Not really unexpected

[TapeCutter]

Yes that's what was eventually passed into law under the Howard government. However the libs originally pushed for a mandatory filter and conducted Conroy style trials of the software, labor and the greens would not let the mandatory clause pass the senate. The libs then dropped the mandatory clause and all parties agreed to the current situation where it is mandatory for ISP's to offer the free opt-in filter. About 5% of Aussie internet connections currently use the free filter, not sure if that figure counts government computers where it's compulsory to use it (ie: schools, libraries, etc)

Scare Mongering

[muphin]

Child Porn is the new "terrorist" if you dont attack them you support them.
considering the ISPS are VOLUNTARILY blocking these sites, there is no reason for the filter.
Filter is just an excuse for a hidden agenda for slow and gradual control of information, if its there people will abuse it, ask any psychologist.

No Conscience?

[Crypto Gnome]

Senator Conroy is a religious fanatic, according to any modern definition of the term. This is POLITICS BY FAITH, and if that's what I want well there are OTHER countries for that.

This policy is ABSOLUTE INSANITY, and if I wanted a country run by a religious NUTBAG then there are also other countries for that.

His policy of deliberate insanity *almost* lost his party THE ENTIRE ELECTION, and now we have a government balanced on a knife-edge (ie more than likely, crippled beyond your worst nightmares).

This kind of rampant lunacy only succeeds in countries where only the criminals (and fed gov police enforcement) have guns.

Re:No Conscience?

[fabs64]

I would say this policy was net-neutral and potentially net-positive at the election for the government. The number of people who voted for the Liberals rather than Green with Labor preference or Labor outright because of this policy would be miniscule. The number of christians who were swayed to stick with Labor because of it would be very small but likely larger than the first group.

It's a stupid policy and it's dead on the water, just quit with the hyperbolic screaming, you already won.

Re:No Conscience?

[Anonymous Coward]

This kind of rampant lunacy only succeeds in countries where only the criminals (and fed gov police enforcement) have guns.

Because shooting people would make crazy people less crazy? Or because shooting other people would make stupid voters not be stupid?

There's something missing from your statement, and I believe it's "logic".

Re:No Conscience?

[dangitman]

This kind of rampant lunacy only succeeds in countries where only the criminals (and fed gov police enforcement) have guns.

In the USA everybody has (or is able to have) guns, yet we have much more rampant lunacy going on among our politicians. I've yet to see guns stop any of it.

Re:No Conscience?

[internettoughguy]

This kind of rampant lunacy only succeeds in countries where only the criminals (and fed gov police enforcement) have guns.

What the fuck has that got to do with anything? Unless you would resort martyrdom to stop this filter; in which case need to redo your cost benefit analysis :).

Re:No Conscience?

[MaskedSlacker]

Really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinated_American_politicians

Re:No Conscience?

[dangitman]

Really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinated_American_politicians [wikipedia.org]

And how did that stop any of the lunacy in politics? Many of the assassinations are the direct result of lunatics.

Re:No Conscience?

[MaskedSlacker]

Do you have ANY idea what would have happened if William McKinley had been allowed to live? Dear God man! Think of the colonial empire we would have amassed! Won't someone think of the irradiated atolls?!?!

Re:No Conscience?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah no one has ever thought freedom of speech was worth fighting to the death for. At least I haven't read about it if they did...

Re:No Conscience?

[teh kurisu]

This is POLITICS BY FAITH, and if that's what I want well there are OTHER countries for that.

This kind of rampant lunacy only succeeds in countries where only the criminals (and fed gov police enforcement) have guns.

Are you trying to say that faith-based politics and gun ownership are mutually exclusive? Because I can think of a few notable exceptions.

Re:No Conscience?

[TapeCutter]

"His policy of deliberate insanity *almost* lost his party THE ENTIRE ELECTION"

No, this issue wasn't even on the radar of mainstream voters. Those people who know anything about the politics behind it know that it has been going on for over a decade now and will never be passed into law. It's rhetoric just like every US president since Nixon has called for "independence from foriegn oil" but has done jack shit about it, every Aussie PM since Keating has called for "cleaning up the net" but has done jack shit about it. If there was any political will behind the rhetoric then we would have had a mandatory filter back in the 90's when the libs first proposed it.

"This kind of rampant lunacy only succeeds in countries where only the criminals (and fed gov police enforcement) have guns."

Yeah right, guns have definitely prevented rampant lunacy from taking over US politics. /sarcasm

Re:No Conscience?

[TapeCutter]

AFAIK Australia has had one politician assasinated and that was over some petty personal dispute. Our politicans are not affraid to walk the streets or go for a morning jog on their own and that's exactly how most Aussies want to keep it. When a democratically elected politcian needs a small army to go out in public and do their job then as far as I'm concerned that country has serious problems.

Re:No Conscience?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps the amount of people voting based on this policy were miniscule, from your perspective. From mine, it was a huge determinant. Most people I know voted for Liberal because of this, and some even voted below the line with supporters of it at the end, and parties against it at the top. So I wouldn't be so quick to make that judgement, though I wouldn't expect this to be the same for most people.

Also, keep the screaming, keep the pressure, we've capitulated on too much of this sort of stuff before. We need to build a culture against it. As it is, people still don't understand, and often err on the side of being for it.

We've got a lot of other laws like this that I'd like to see gone.

Re:No Conscience?

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need guns. You need education and democracy (Maybe the current form of indirect representation is not good enough? Maybe you want to directly represent yourself? It is feasible by now, you know...)

Re:No Conscience?

[WillDraven]

In the USA everybody has (or is able to have) guns,

Not legally. I'm banned from owning guns for my entire life because I was convicted for giving a friend of mine a nickel bag of pot when I was 16. Anybody convicted of a felony (and almost everything is a felony these days) is banned from owning a gun.

Re:No Conscience?

[dangitman]

Not legally. I'm banned from owning guns for my entire life because I was convicted for giving a friend of mine a nickel bag of pot when I was 16. Anybody convicted of a felony (and almost everything is a felony these days) is banned from owning a gun.

You could easily get one if you wanted to, despite being "banned from guns.".

Re:No Conscience?

[skydyr]

If you ever change your mind, it'd probably be quite easy to get that pardoned or expunged.

Re:No Conscience?

[WillDraven]

Yeah, as soon as I can avoid any interaction with law enforcement for around 15 years and then drop a couple hundred dollars (at least) on a lawyer to do it for me. While I hope I'll be in the position to do this one day for many it is not an option.

Re:No Conscience?

[WillDraven]

And if I ever got caught with it I would lose my kids and spend a few years in a federal penitentiary.

Re:No Conscience?

[gknoy]

as soon as I can avoid any interaction with law enforcement for around 15 years and then drop a couple hundred dollars (at least) on a lawyer to do it for me.

Avoiding interaction with law enforcement: I assume you mean don't get arrested for anything, and don't get speeding tickets/etc, right? Is this all that difficult to do? Living ethically and in a low-profile manner (e.g., obeying speed limits, paying taxes) seems like it would make this pretty easy -- wouldn't you already be behaving this way?

Drop a few hundred on a lawyer: Really? This is peanuts compared to having your criminal record altered. If anything, consider it as additional cost of buying your first gun - you'd already be spending money on instruction, hardware, ammo, and possibly range membership. A one-time fee to a lawyer is a drop in the bucket.

Re:No Conscience?

[WillDraven]

Let us not conflate living ethically and living legally. I won't go into specifics on a public forum for obvious reasons, but it is not uncommon in todays legal environment to find oneself in situations where doing the right thing is not doing the legal thing.

Re:No Conscience?

[jyx]

No, this issue wasn't even on the radar of mainstream voters

We have a discussion panel program called Q&A over here. Before the election the good senator Conroy appeared with a buch of other people to face the quesion and answers session. The filter attracted over 2000 questions - the largest ever - just about all of them asking 'WTF?'.

So I think that this was on the radar for most people, even if in the form 'my nerd friend says its shit and the guy is a luddite'. The fact that the ministers and government had put on their blinkers and screaming 'la la la cant here you we know best' put them smack bang in the same mindset that the previous government was when they were kicked out.

AND THE BASTARDS STILL HAVEN'T GOT THE HUMILITY OR THE GUTS TO SAY WE WERE WRONG ON THIS, LETS WORK OUT A BETTER WAY OF KEEPING KIDS SAFE!!!! What the hell is wrong with these people.

Re:No Conscience?

[TapeCutter]

Yep, you, me and a couple of thousand others may watch QandA, nightline, etc, but if TV ratings are anything to go by then the vast majority of voters watch A Current Affair, etc. Those people will never hear Malcom Fraser rip into Abbot and the liberals, they will never hear Fielding admit to being a creationist and they will only be vaugely aware that Conroy exists.

Re:No Conscience?

[Lucractius]

True... so thank god the Chasers were drumming up those ratings and shoving it to Conroy and the other nut bags.

Why not shut the sites down instead?

[pesc]

'According to the latest information I have here from the [Australian Communications and Media Authority], there are 430 child pornography sites on the [World Wide Web] ... that are accessible to anyone...[Malcolm Turnbull] has to explain to Australian families that he is prepared to do nothing about blocking access to those sites,' Conroy added.

Maybe Conroy could explain to Australian families why hanging a blanket in front of the sites is better than shutting the sites down and prosecute the operators? Especially since it is so easy to peer behind the blanket by using a proxy, or alternate DNS resolver, etc, etc.

Are all those sites operating from countries where child pornography is legal? Which countries and sits are we talking about?

Re:Why not shut the sites down instead?

[MichaelSmith]

Because the sites are not in Australia. Having said that free webmail services seem to be major channels for hosting porn so maybe a filter will have to block billions of yahoo mail URLs.

Re:Why not shut the sites down instead?

[AHuxley]

Some would be protected under US/EU free speech laws??
Others would have been 'used'/'hacked' servers noted in the past??

Re:Why not shut the sites down instead?

[pesc]

I think that "430 child pornography sites" is a bluff. I'm calling it. What sites? Which countries? Did the Australian authorities contact the police in those countries? What happened? Did they give up and are calling for blankets?

It needs to be asked since international lobbying groups are exploiting "child pornography" to establish censorship as being normal on the internet.

Read this:
http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2010/04/27/ifpis-child-porn-strategy/

Do these lobbying groups operate in Australia?

What do Australian families think about commercial entities exploiting child pornography?

Re:Why not shut the sites down instead?

[koiransuklaa]

It's still a lousy excuse for not doing the actual work.

When the Finnish block list leaked (for the first time) it turned out a lot of the sites were actually hosted in countries where child porn is illegal (and where you could actually assume the police might act on it). Guess what the Finnish police did? They just slapped the sites on their secret list, and did not inform the police in the countries where the crime was being committed.

Re:Why not shut the sites down instead?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a bluff, but please, let's get real.

430 out of how many BILLIONS of websites around here?

Re:Why not shut the sites down instead?

[Jason Levine]

My question for Conroy concerning the 430 child pornography sites would be this: If you know about 430 child pornography sites, why aren't you pushing to get them shut down and instead are trying to do the equivalent of covering everyone's eyes? Shouldn't you just get those sites shut down?

Yes, I know they may be out of Conroy's reach, but phrasing the question like that makes it seem like Conroy's trying to ignore these sites instead of fixing the problem. Much like he falsely equated opposing the filter to being pro-child porn.

Re:Why not shut the sites down instead?

[Johnno74]

It's still a lousy excuse for not doing the actual work.

When the Finnish block list leaked (for the first time) it turned out a lot of the sites were actually hosted in countries where child porn is illegal (and where you could actually assume the police might act on it). Guess what the Finnish police did? They just slapped the sites on their secret list, and did not inform the police in the countries where the crime was being committed.

Yep, and lets not also forget that a LOT of the sites had nothing do do with child porn. And some dude did an analysis of the sites and listed the results on his blog. Not the actual sites, just out of x sides, y were child porn, z were gay porn, etc etc. This proved the "quality" of the blacklist was fairly shakey at best.

And guess what? His site was then added to the blacklist

Re:Why not shut the sites down instead?

[Lucractius]

And this is exactly why i voted for the Australian Sex Party.
I dont want any of this filter crap.

Problem is its a de-facto 2 party tyranny over her in Australia.
One party has a nut bag in charge, the other a nut bag in a senior position causing a major problem.

Re:Why not shut the sites down instead?

[Lucractius]

I'm pretty sure you cant host child porn in the USA & hide behind the 1st amendment.

Dear Australian government

[Anonymous Coward]

I have reason to believe that a computer in the office of one Mr. Stephen Conroy is connected to child pornography. Mr. Conroy himself claims to know of 430 sites "that are accessible to anyone", and it is likely that his computer contains a list of these sites. People accessing his website might stumble across links to these sites by mistake, and be exposed to disgusting images.

As a strong opponent of child pornography, I implore you to add his website to the blocked list. Thank you in advance.

Signed,
A Concerned Netizen

Fix it, don't hide it!

[freman]

He's hell bent on hiding sites that contain child abuse material...

That doesn't prevent a child getting abused.
That doesn't help the child already abused to create the content.

Who the fk knows what these sites are anyway?

Sick bastards are going to work around his filter quicker than he can think.

How about, policing, work within the international community to have these sites removed and keep up the pressure.

If he put half the budget and pressure on law enforcement as he is putting on stringing a tarp over the crime scene he'd actually have a hope of getting somewhere!

FIX IT! DO NOT HIDE IT!

Hasn't got the Numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Who cares what he still thinks? He hasn't got the numbers in either House of Parliament to get any Bill passed.

Re:Hasn't got the Numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

> Who cares what he still thinks? He hasn't got the numbers in either House of Parliament to get any Bill passed.

Well, his party has made deals in order to form a minority government. If a consensus can be reached over any particular Bill, then indeed it could be passed.

Fortunately, for the case of the utter insanity of Conroy's Internet Censorship Bill, such consensus is wildly unlikely.

Conroy's Internet Censorship Bill is as good as dead for the forseeable future.

Re:Hasn't got the Numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Conscience vote or not, they won't have the numbers. They're only pushing this simply because they can't backflip because it'll make them look bad, they'd rather go ahead and fail and blame the Coalition then to stop prematurely citing not having the numbers. Now, I'm Australian but I'm started to feel for non-Australians on Slashdot about this reoccurring story. Nothing new has occurred other than confirming that a Conscience vote won't be done (which any Australian political half wit already knew, I don't even know who brought it up quite honestly) why is this issue still an issue given he hasn't got the votes? Let it die already or at least die until he decides he announces the Bill at least.

Re:Hasn't got the Numbers

[SJ2000]

Neither the Greens or all of the Independents support the filter. He does not have the numbers.

Re:Hasn't got the Numbers

[Techman83]

And the opposition are busy "opposing", so they aren't going to support anything the government wants to do.

Re:Hasn't got the Numbers

[Cimexus]

Mod parent up.

Conroy can scream at anyone who will listen and stamp his little feet as much as he likes. He's made it clear that he basically knows the policy is doomed, but it's like a personal crusade to him and he won't let it go.

The filter is dead for a number reasons, not least of which is that it is now a mathematical impossibility for it to pass either house of Parliament.

Strongly recommend that people (especially those outside of Australia who aren't up to speed on things here) read this: http://michaelwyres.com/2010/09/another-nail-in-the-filter-coffin/ - good article summarising why, although we should remain vigilant, the anti-filter side has won (admittedly since the anti-filter side comprises >90% of the population this isn't surprising!)

Re:Hasn't got the Numbers

[kingturkey]

True, but the Liberals and Nationals have plenty of religious nutjobs that don't understand technology and why this is a gigantic fail as well (e.g. their leader), so I wouldn't rule out a deal being made, and Labor and the Libs obviously have the numbers to pass it together.

Re:Hasn't got the Numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

"but it's like a personal crusade to him and he won't let it go."

Not really. He's just a career politician. Remember, after narrowly wining the election the prime minister rewarded him with increased responsibilities in the new cabinet. Politicians are like lawyers, except they'll argue for whatever position gives them more power, instead of more money.

Re:Hasn't got the Numbers

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the Coalition have already announced they won't be supporting it.

Re:Hasn't got the Numbers

[Lucractius]

Commonwealth Of Australia Constitution Act
Chapter I. The Parliament.
Part IV - Both Houses of the Parliament

44. Any person who -

(i.) Is under any acknowledgement of allegiance, obedience, or adherence to a foreign power, or is a subject or a citizen or entitled to the rights or privileges of a subject or citizen of a foreign power: or

(ii.) Is attainted of treason, or has been convicted and is under sentence, or subject to be sentenced, for any offence punishable under the law of the Commonwealth or of a State by imprisonment for one year or longer: or

(iii.) Is an undischarged bankrupt or insolvent: or

(iv.) Holds any office of profit under the Crown, or any pension payable during the pleasure of the Crown out of any of the revenues of the Commonwealth: or

(v.) Has any direct or indirect pecuniary interest in any agreement with the Public Service of the Commonwealth otherwise than as a member and in common with the other members of an incorporated company consisting of more than twenty-five persons:

shall be incapable of being chosen or of sitting as a senator or a member of the House of Representatives.

But sub-section iv. does not apply to the office of any of the Queen's Ministers of State for the Commonwealth, or of any of the Queen's Ministers for a State, or to the receipt of pay, half pay, or a pension, by any person as an officer or member of the Queen's navy or army, or to the receipt of pay as an officer or member of the naval or military forces of the Commonwealth by any person whose services are not wholly employed by the Commonwealth.

^^^^^
Consider this a blueprint on how to legally force Conroy out of his job.

If only it were easy to bankrupt him.

No speed impact

[Anonymous Coward]

In the the interview in question, he claims that the filter will not have any impact on speed (he names a few countries as examples):

"In Finland, in Sweden, in a range of western countries, a filter is in place today and 80, 90, 95 per cent of citizens in those countries when they use the internet go through that filter. It has no impact on speed and anybody who makes a claim that it has an impact on speed is misleading people. If you want to be a strict engineer, it's 170th of the blink of an eye but no noticeable effect for an end user. So there is no impact and the accuracy is 100 per cent. "

Anyone got any stats on this?

Re:No speed impact

[MichaelSmith]

I think this came up before and I believe that in those countries the blocked site returns a page saying that it has been blocked, just like bluecoat in my workplace. You can use information on that page to find out why the page has been blocked.

The proposed Australian system seems to be set up to pretend that the blocked page doesn't exist. This makes it hard to distinguish between bitrot and censorship, so nobody really knows what is censored.

Re:No speed impact

[koiransuklaa]

For Finland:

"No impact on speed": true, there's no effect (it's usually just a simple DNS blocklist at ISP, or sometimes a http proxy).

"80-95% of citizens are censored": False, as far as I know. Some large ISPs did start enthusiasticly but it seems most have now gone back to not censoring, or offer both censored and uncensored access. The three large ISPs I am in contact with (Elisa, Sonera and Welho) all offer uncensored DNS.

"Accuracy is 100%": True if you define accuracy as "how many sites on the block list get blocked when using a blocking DNS server". No-one knows how many false positives the list contains or what percentage of all child porn sites are on the list -- there's no possibility of knowing this for sure as the only time citizens get to see the list is when it happens to leak (check wikileaks for the most recent ones). There have been some fairly high profile false posititives though: www.w3.org was blocked for a time -- and the police had no other explanation than "human error".

Conscience vote

[Dunbal]

I hope some Australian and UK readers can help the rest of us understand the significance of conscience votes,

      It's like when in America Nancy Pelosi tells you how to vote.

maybe it's not about censorship at all?

[Anonymous Coward]

a bird told me (and i've been unable to verify) that Conroy is a major figure in AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft), a cartel of twats that are responsible for the "you wouldn't steal a handbag" trailers on every goddamn DVD.

the OFLC (now called COB - the classification board) is a nice money-spinner for the government, but tends to be hugely biased toward bigger distributors (the american ones...).

this seems to me like if the filter is implemented, no child porn will be filtered - rather torrent sites will be.

it's a massive conflict of interest if true...

of course, the NBN is a reason to keep this idiot where he is. the filter will be kept at bay at least until the other side gets in.

Just to put things into perspective

[Netshroud]

430 out of >1,000,000,000,000

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

I really think that anyone who is so "gung ho" about an issue, that is so unreasonable about change is a "me-thinks he protests too much"- a cupboard paedophile, a child pornographer himself. Anyone who unable to listen to reason has his issues.

Classification IS Censorship

[atomicstrawberry]

"'I'm not sure that the censorship claim stacks up. This is about classification systems."

The Australian Classification system is a system of government-run censorship. Media which is refused classification is not allowed to be sold in the country.

The debate is fundamentally about censorship.

It is legal to possess and view unclassified and refused-classification material in most of Australia, provided that it is not material which is actually illegal (child porn, for example). What Conroy wants to do is circumvent the ability for adults to decide what they can view. To make it illegal to view online things which are legal to possess in reality. It is censorship. To argue otherwise is completely dishonest.

Re:Classification IS Censorship

[Namarrgon]

Different debate. Most governments censor their citizens; that debate is only over how much.

The debate going on here in Australia is about how to implement that censorship. Currently it's done at a legal and retail level. Conroy wants to extend that to ISPs too, by means of a URL blacklist.

The problem is, any attempt to explain that it'll only block < 0.001% of the RC content on the net, or that it's trivially bypassed by altering the URL (e.g. adding a "?" to the end), or that it's far too open for errors/abuse, gets either ignored or re-framed as "against filter == pro child porn".

Re:Classification IS Censorship

[kiddygrinder]

he's just trying to change the debate into one he can actually argue. Why should we spend millions on a system that slows down the internet and does nothing else even mildly effectively? this is a question he cannot answer.

Re:Classification IS Censorship

[MichaelSmith]

The debate is fundamentally about censorship.

Yeah but I think the actual agenda is the National Broadband Network. Basically the TV network owners don't want competing, free content bypassing their networks and going directly into the home. The idea behind filtering is that reasons will be found to block this content, thus preserving a revenue stream for the TV networks. Its just a way to encourage them to keep paying their license fees to the federal government.

Anonymouse Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Conscience votes are where the member are supposed to vote with their hearts, not with their parties.

It won't go through. Stop worrying.

[ohzero]

This will never happen, if only for the reason that the Australians are afraid that we'll start comparing them to the Chinese.

Sorry, thats not how internet works.

[Tei]

We have built this information highway to transport "raw" information. This raw information is packages that have inside packages that have inside packages of other information. Some of these packages can be encrypted, the final information encrypted.
You can't really censor internet on topic X for people that really want X, since theres no absolute way to stop all X on the internet, more than theres to stop it on the real world.

Re:Sorry, thats not how internet works.

[monkyyy]

oh but we want to stop them cause reason y for the children/country/economy, the fact that they dont believe in reason y proves that we are morally better then them, and as they say "anti-reason y straw man quote" is so clearly wrong that the straw man must be to dumb to be able to get x w/o help from drug-lords/terrorists/mafia/opposing political party/Russians

Vatican

[flyingfsck]

I may support the block list if they would put the Vatican and the rest of the Holy Roman Child Abuser Church on it.

what a useless bastard

[kiddygrinder]

[Malcolm Turnbull] has to explain to Australian families that he is prepared to do nothing about blocking access to those sites

Conroy has to admit that he's not prepared to do anything to prosecute the creators or help the children being abused in the creation of this material, but really just wants to pretend it doesn't exist.

Overreacting maybe?

[devent]

430 child pornography sites. You got to be kidding me. That like what, 0.000000000000001% of the websites worldwide? And for a hand full of sites they have to filter 100% of the traffic and spend millions of Australian $ for it?

How about a total filter on the catholic church, after all there are 10% of Catholic Priests Were Pedophiles. How about spend more money to protect real children in Australia? There was 5,591 sexual abuse and 11,789 physical abuse in 2008. There were 339,454 notifications but only 162,259 investigations, that's only 48% coverage. How about dropping this stupid filter and spend more money on protecting real children, living in Australia right now?

But what will happened is that Australia is going to spend millions to block 430 child pornography sites but then they have to cut spending on education and on child protection services.

Re:Overreacting maybe?

[abigsmurf]

That 10% of priests being paedophiles is utter utter garbage. You cannot just 'extrapolate' a small, non-random sample (which itself is most likely the worst figures they could find) and claim it as proof that 10% of all priests are pedophiles.

I stood outside a poodle lovers dog show and asked 10 people what their favourite type of dog was. 90% said poodle, extrapolating that, 90% of the world love poodles more than any other dog!

Call the cops on the 430 instead of hiding them

[dbIII]

Once again Conroy is full of made up bullshit. It's a pity that the alternatives such as Barnaby Joyce are far worse.

Cool, a new bullshit unit

[dbIII]

"If you want to be a strict engineer, it's 170th of the blink of an eye"
That will cut the speed by a significant number of libraries of congress per second.

he lies!

[Anonymous Coward]

'Conscience votes go to matters to do with life and death in the [Australian] Labor Party,'

The table in this link states what both Labor and Liberal have had conscience votes on in the past. Clearly there are matters that Labor have had votes on that aren't life or death.
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/cib/2002-03/03cib01.htm#table2

The dude is just making shit up.

But it does help

[SmallFurryCreature]

If you censor the entire net, then you DO shutdown the pedo sites. If you lock up everyone who isn't a right wing american KKK card carrier, then you do lock up the traitors. If you ban all Muslims and Muslim symphatizers from the US, you ban the Muslim terrorists as well (you still keep the abortion clinic bombers and seperatists and other home grown nutters).

THAT is the problem. The holocaust and WW2 did solve the German unemployment problem.

The REAL question is NOT to ask wether a measure will solve the problem but at what cost it comes.

Simply put. More kids are killed in traffic then by pedo's. Solution, ban cars. Why doesn't this get proposed? Because nobody wants to surrender their SUV with cattle bar for those hellish suburban roads.

We CAN hunt down pedo websites. BUT what is the price? Is the loss of freedom of speech and freedom of information worth saving a few kids? Yes? Then hand in your cars keys today... AH, thought so. You want to save a handful of kids from predators but not thousands from car accidents.

Same with 9/11 and the war against terror. We CAN stop the terrorists, but is it worth the total collapse of privacy and ruining internation trade and exchange of ideas?

Is the war on drugs worth Mexico being the latest country to slide into civil war? Locking up people who are just addicted enough to risk life in jail for smoking a joint for the 3rd time?

With extreme measures, we can solve all the worlds problems. But is it worth it?

So "That's why it's so important to not believe every person who can describe the problem, but rather look at their proposed solutions and see if they actually help, or will take you somewhere you don't want to go."

It is that last bit that is the important thing. Not wether it will help. That is easy enough. But do we want to life in that kind of world.

And that is hard. It requires people who value freedom of speech to defend smut peddlers like Larry Flynt. Not because they are pro-porn but because you either stand for freedom of speech for all or for none. Because if you allow stuff to be banned because it upsets people, you end up banning everything because everything upsets someone.

But that is VERY hard to sell. It is like argueing about the evils of various religious institutions in a religious country. Once a mere questioning of religious practices could get you in serious trouble. Thank god the Catholic and other churces have lost a lot of power and you can't simply be put to death for questioning the pope.

Right now you can just be cast out for daring to question the wrongness of child porn crusaders. Question this minister and you are automatically pro-pedo. A brave man/woman who dares to risk that. And so he gets away with it.

Re:But it does help

[Anonymous Coward]

Sensational post! Well said.

Re:But it does help

[Pharmboy]

That pretty much sums it up 100%, no additional input is needed. Admins can pretty much disable comments now, nothing could possibly add more clarity than the parent comment.

Re:But it does help

[Anonymous Coward]

We CAN hunt down pedo websites. BUT what is the price? Is the loss of freedom of speech and freedom of information worth saving a few kids?

Are you honestly claiming that if you don't have the freedom to distribute child porn, you don't have freedom of speech ?

And that is hard. It requires people who value freedom of speech to defend smut peddlers like Larry Flynt.

Are you really claiming pornography produced by and for consenting adults is in any form comparable to child porn, which by definition must involve coercion ?

Not because they are pro-porn but because you either stand for freedom of speech for all or for none. Because if you allow stuff to be banned because it upsets people, you end up banning everything because everything upsets someone.

Have you ever stopped to consider that just maybe, some things are banned precisely because they upset just about everyone ? The problem is *not* that Mr. Conroy wants to shut down pedo websites, the problem is that his proposed method is ineffective and wide open for abuse - if he where really serious about stopping child porn, he would advocate spending more resources on investigating and prosecuting the people running and frequenting the these websites. More international cooperation would also be a good thing.

Re:But it does help

[LordLimecat]

same against 911 and the war against terror....

So then, what solution would you propose to permenantly solve the "war against terror"? Trade sanctions? Some how that will keep people who hate us, from hating us?

Anyone who thinks solving "some people hate us and want to destroy our society" is easy, is full of themselves.

Re:But it does help

[bsDaemon]

Terrorism thrives on the ability of a small incident to provoke a grossly asymmetric over-reaction, thus swaying general public opinion against the larger party. A few cases in point:

- Bloody Sunday of 1920, when the IRA killed 14 British intelligence officers in Dublin. In response, the British Auxilliary units (Black and Tans) shot up Croke Park during a GAA football match, killing 14 civilians, and then executed 3 prisoners of war. This solidified support on the Irish side for the Republicans, and also caused a great deal of distress in England. There were mass demonstrations in London against continued occupation of Ireland at the price of gunning down civilians.

- Hamas lobs unguided rockets in the general direction of Israel, and usually they land in vacant lots and no one is hurt. Eventually, the IDF rolls into Gaza with tanks and helicopter gunships and starts wrecking shop, then puts up a blockade to try and starve civilians into compliance. This then gets Israel a bad rap in the international press and court of public opinion. Do you really think Likud would be willing to go to peace talks, even with Fatteh, if not for the recent scandal with the murder of civilian aid workers on board the Turkish ships attempting to run the Gaza blockade?

I could go on. There are more examples, these are just fairly big examples of where the reaction provoked was grossly out of line with the original offense. Frankly, I think that the only way to really defeat the terrorist tactic is to not let them provoke the reaction they're looking for. Basically just ignore them. Eventually they'll do something that really needs to be dealt with, but you don't occupy a country in response to a building. This is why we have a CIA and special forces. Targeted assassinations are a proportionate response. The marines are there to fight countries, not terrorists.

If we had dropped a bunch of Green Berets into Afghanistan to take out Bin Laden rather than waiting for a month wagging a stick at the Taliban hoping for extradition, then this whole thing would have been over and no one would have said we did the wrong thing. As it stands, the US looks like a bunch of bullies going around stepping on ant hills because the new kid in town didn't know we were supposed to be the toughest kid in the school.

Re:But it does help

[Crypto Gnome]

Insightful?

Totally Retarded!

If you censor the entire net

Yes, but that is NOT THE PROPOSAL.

The proposal is to CENSOR THE NET IN AUSTRALIA , bugger the victims of child pornography everywhere else (pun intended) WE DO NOT CARE about dealing with the problem, only sweeping it under the carpet.

Re:But it does help

[rotide]

The solution is easy, because there is none. There simply is _no_ solution to "terrorism" besides the total and utter collapse of any and all freedoms.

Why? Because tomorrow I can be a terrorist. My mother too. How about a random guy out in Montana? Yes, he can be a terrorist tomorrow. Hell, you can turn into a Terrorist in 30 seconds if you want to. All you have to do is start plotting to cause harm with the intent on moving someones political goals/agendas/views.

See, terrorists aren't armies. They aren't, as a whole, organized. Sure, you get groups of "terrorists", but frankly, ignoring funding, they are probably weaker than the lone McVeigh since they probably communicate and that chatter can be monitored.

The major problem with the "War on Terror" is that there will _never_ by definition, be an end to it. There will _always_ be another person willing to die, or at least kill, to make a political point. Take the guy who crashed his plane into the IRS building months ago. He's a terrorist. If he really wanted to make an Al Qaeda type bang, he just had to fill his aircraft with something that would go !BOOM! on impact.

Again, these people aren't part of a standing army with x soldiers. It would be great if you could ask them to all line up in an old school skirmish line and just take them all out in an afternoon. But that will not happen, it can't, because the best part of Terrorism is that they rarely have the same agenda or goals. Terrorists in Somalia will have a different view than Terrorists in the old Soviet Republic or Ireland, etc. They will each attack different targets at different times while truly remaining entirely autonomous. Hell, they don't even care what the other guy is doing as it has _no_ bearing on their goals.

What is the solution? There isn't one. We need to step back and realize that they will keep coming just as sure as the sun will rise in the morning. Destroying everything we hold sacred to "defeat" the Terrorists only gives them more purpose. Hell, that's half of what they want in the first place. The war can't and will never be won.

My solution?

Go back to pre-9/11 security. Keep enough security to hold the crazies at bay as much as you can but otherwise ignore the "Terrorists". Stop throwing away everything we care about for "security" and "safety". Live your life and enjoy it. Or, you can keep buying into the propaganda and help feed the machine that profits from the fear. Seriously, the war can't be won and the only purpose for the huge industry that is trying to "stop" it is pure, utter, profit and power.

Stop drinking the koolaid.

Re:But it does help

[misexistentialist]

We CAN hunt down pedo websites. BUT what is the price?

The price is quite acceptable, though the government is mostly focused on blocking sites and hunting non-paying viewers of the porn. Makes you wonder if powerful people are interested in protecting the supply.

Re:But it does help

[Anonymous Coward]

"We CAN hunt down pedo websites. BUT what is the price? Is the loss of freedom of speech and freedom of information worth saving a few kids? Yes? Then hand in your cars keys today"

I'm pretty sure pedo websites can be "hunted down" (as opposed to "blocked by internet filters"), and that can be done without loss of freedom of speech, and without me handing in my car keys. That way we could also save the kids caught up in that industry, instead of only creating pseudo-protection for "our" children.
Likewise terrorists could be hunted down without starting a full blown war.

Re:But it does help

[ammorais]

The proposal is to "censor the entire net in Australia"

Re:But it does help

[walshy007]

Take the guy who crashed his plane into the IRS building months ago. He's a terrorist.

Terrorists sole goal is to inspire terror, I doubt he had any intention of that and his motives were more to make people see some of the IRS's faults. As misguided and tragic as it was, unless you go by a very broad sense of terrorist he could not have been one.

Re:But it does help

[MightyMartian]

The solution is easy, because there is none. There simply is _no_ solution to "terrorism" besides the total and utter collapse of any and all freedoms.

Not even that cannot guarantee safety from terrorist attacks. Anybody sufficiently motivated to cause death and mayhem will find a way. In totalitarian states, of course, they don't need to become terrorists, they just become leaders.

Re:But it does help

[Anonymous Coward]

If we had dropped a bunch of Green Berets into Afghanistan to take out Bin Laden rather than waiting for a month wagging a stick at the Taliban hoping for extradition...

Why risk John Wayne and a bunch of Green Berets when Chuck Norris could have solved the problem solo! While we may not have gotten our act together the 1st month but at least we are using skynet like drones so we should be able to drop the 1st terminator in the battle any day now. War will be so much more civilized when we can finally set our phaser to stun.

Re:But it does help

[Lonewolf666]

We CAN hunt down pedo websites. BUT what is the price? Is the loss of freedom of speech and freedom of information worth saving a few kids?

Are you honestly claiming that if you don't have the freedom to distribute child porn, you don't have freedom of speech ?

The way some governments want to implement blocking child porn (with secret blacklists) is indeed a danger to free speech. Because it makes it easy to put stuff on the list The Government Party Does Not Like. I certainly don't trust the politicians in my country with the power to do so.

Re:But it does help

[belmolis]

While the general point that terrorists often evoke disproportionate responses is valid, the example of Israel is factually wrong. Many Israelis, mostly civilians, have been injured and killed by the rockets that Hamas launches into Israeli, rockets that are not extremely accurate but are aimed at civilian targets. Moreover, Israel has been put to considerable trouble and expense in order to prevent the casualty figures from being much higher. Israel has not tried to starve Gazans. Basic food supplies have never been subject to the blockade. Gaza has had a perfectly adequate food supply. International organizations report no evidence of starvation. This of course belies the claim about the "humanitarian aid" ship. There was no need for such "aid", and in any case Israel had offered to allow any such aid to enter Gaza after inspection for contraband, as it in fact did after seizing the ship. (If you believe that there was a pressing need for such supplies, try to explain why there was no effort to move such supplies into Gaza when Egypt opened its crossing into Gaza the day after the raid. The Egyptian Red Crescent moved a small amount of non-food supplies (tents and so forth) through the crossing. That was it.) The casualties were not innocent humanitarians but terrorists who attacked Israeli soldiers. Read the interviews with the families in Turkey who speak proudly of their jihadist sons and of the survivors who regret that they were forced to release the Israeli soldier whom they had captured and intended to use as a hostage, "another Shalit" as they called him.

I'd like to see Conroy justify his position

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to see Conroy justify his position to both the victims of child pornography and to subjects of oppressive regimes. It's not like his policy does anything to help the victims, nor has it been proven that availability of footage correlates in any way with child abuse. If anything, you could argue that having material available reduces the need for a paedophile to go out and find a new victim.

On a side note, I'd like to see his 430 sites. How come he gets to see them and we don't? Why are the sites still operational? How much effort has been spent on finding the people that run the site? You can't go on arguing that we need a change of law if you haven't spent at least the same amount of effort working with the current laws.

Conroy is Inspirational

[Anonymous Coward]

If I go into politics it will be because of inspirational Senators such as Stephen Conroy.

If not his enormous lack of understanding of his portfolio I wouldn't feel so compelled to go into politics and protect Australia from the cost of his ignorance.

I'm curious

[dbIII]

Considering the way you say you voted, I'm curious as to what you think what the opinion of Abbott is on the filter. I know the Joe Hockey was opposed but his word count for as little as they did on environmental policy.
I think Conroy should be in another job with no responsibility where nobody has to listen to him, but with the filter he's a symptom of trying to catch fringe votes and not the actual problem.
I'm pretty happy that we didn't end up with both the Liberal party AND the filter, and for at least the next term we'll get neither.

Re:I'm curious

[srjh]

Not sure about Abbott, but both the Libs and Nats officially rejected it, and appointing the even more anti-filter Turnbull as Communications minister suggests that they're sticking to that opposition.

Abbott did make it a difficult choice, and the Libs didn't get my first preference, but the filter is worrying enough to be the most important issue for me (although it was a pretty uninspiring campaign overall from both sides, so that might have had something to do with it). I know the filter is very unlikely to go through now, and I'd have circumvented it anyway, but a government that shows that much contempt for freedom of expression and government transparency needs to be opposed on principle.

Re:I'm curious

[dbIII]

Personally I saw the filter as one of several ALP attempts to take votes from the Liberal party by adopting a Liberal party policy. Despite Turnbull's words on the subject I don't think they have really given up on it, but I can only hope the whole silly idea is buried.

Fix the murders problem by banning news on murders

[Aceticon]

Would forbidding the press to report on murders stop people being murdered?

'Cause that's equivalent to what Conroy is suggesting: hide the problem not solve the problem.

It seems to me that if he is so concerned about the problem of sexual abuse of children he should support going after those that do the abuse, not hiding it.

This angle could be used to pry open his argument.

Follow the money

[Anonymous Coward]

Who's going to make money out of installing such net filter?

minister for who?

[enter to exit]

This man is nothing but a fool. Why can't he see that no one _wants_ the filter and that it is simply useless. He has said himself that the "tech savvy" can easily get around what they are proposing. What does "tech savvy" mean to him? - it's all relative.

Does he honestly think that an undesirable is going to be deterred by a filter that can be worked around? The same man goes around and threatens to filter google because it's videos are RC - it' nothing short of surreal.

Every possible form of protest has been exercised and they still persist. What else can we do? What ever happened to the idea that laws should reflect the values of the community? The vast majority of AU is apposed to this. Who exactly are they trying to please with this filter? The 'religious nut' demographic can not be that big.

If this goes ahead we're going to have is an extra government layer to get through to use the internet and we all know how good the government is with technology. We can expect delays and failures that no one will take responsibility for.

If people want a filter they should buy one, the government can even subsidise it if they want - it'll be more effective anyway (not to mention cheaper). I don't want my tax dollars being spent on censorship policies like this.

It's ironic that the same government that can be so forward thinking with things like the NBN (regardless of how wasteful you think it is) can be so incompetently backward with it's filtering plan.

I'm sensing that this is increasingly a matter of ego for him and that is very dangerous.

Re:minister for who?

[ledow]

"It's ironic that the same government that can be so forward thinking with things like the NBN (regardless of how wasteful you think it is) can be so incompetently backward with it's filtering plan."

Question: What do you think the introduction of the NBN is *really* for, then?

Only 430?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good heavens! There are probably 10 times that in "terrorist" sites, "racist" sites, neo-Nazi sites, propaganda sites, anti-government sites, and simply sites that have articles critical of Conroy's idiotic claims. The question is, once it starts, at what point will the government be able to resist the temptation to block whatever they wish? What are the rules and principles they will use? How will they deal with the inevitability of errors? And who in the realm of technology believes it will be at all effective in stopping the "bad guys" trying to access this stuff?

If they've identified 430 sites with child pornography, then what is he waiting for? The best thing they could do is send the police after the site owners, not fool around with filters that would be ineffective anyway. Either that or don't block the sites -- re-route them and turn them into a massive sting operation. Regardless, a government-run filter program is a weak and error-prone way to deal with the problem. A colossal waste of time and money.

Australia would have non of it's current problems

[MRe_nl]

If the Aboriginals had just implemented stricter immigration control.
It's the bloody immigrants i tell you, stealing all our jobs an bushmeat.

What Australia neds is a PirateBay Equivalent

[Toy G]

That is, an easy to access, distributed, bulletproof solution to bypass the proposed filter. A network of proxies in different countries, using a constantly self-updating list of peer nodes in a P2P way (like Gnutella/eMule do). Make it extremely easy to get (firefox addons etc).

Make the filter irrelevant even before it's implemented, and show Conroy for the tool he is.

(Besides, such a project would also turn out to be invaluable for activists in places like Iran.)

lol conroy

[A3gis]

I refer you to http://www.lolconroy.com/

Wouldnt be it easier to take down those 430 sites?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing that they are illegal in all civilised countries you may even get some user account infos and arrest some of the originators...

doublethink

[swanriversean]

"I'm not sure that the censorship claim stacks up. This is about classification systems."

"Classification systems" are an essential part of censorship. Indeed the examples he gives of "classification systems", movie and TV ratings, are age-based censorship systems.

"Conscience votes go to matters to do with life and death ..." Sure there isn't much death involved here, but there is a potentially large, and definitely some, effect on what it is like to live in Australia. Ultimately, every vote is a "conscience" vote, and even this one is, as Conroy himself challenges the conscience of Malcolm Turnbull: "[he] has to explain to Australian families that he is prepared to do nothing about blocking access to those sites."

I guess they're trying really hard "down under" to live up to the ideals of Orwell's Oceania.

Liberals must dump Tony Abbott!

[CuteSteveJobs]

Labor deserved to lose this election, but the Liberals Abbott was an obvious fool, a technical ignoramus, an economic illiterate a sexist and a racist pig, and to cap it off was caught making unfunded promises.

I dearly wanted to boot Labor out, but the Liberals made it too hard to vote for them. So I voted Green, and grudgingly gave Labor my preference. But Labor has cleared learned nothing and Gillard has crowned Conroy as Communications Minister *AGAIN*!!!?

Neither major party has got the message. Would the Liberals please dumb Abbott and the other Howard misogynist dinosaurs WHO HAVEN'T GOT THE MESSAGE so we can vote for Turnbull next election and get a progressive centralist government?

Conscience Vote

[Maclir]

In most Westminster democratic systems - of which the UK parliament is the original, and convention in Australia follows closely, members of parliament are elected on the basis of a political party. The party system is much stronger in those countries that in the US, in many ways:

1) The party organization chooses who will stand for a particular seat as that party's representative in a process known as "preselection". This can be a combination of votes by paid up party members in local branches, with "head office" votes as well. By the way, in those countries, to be a member of a political party, you pay a membership fee and join a branch - and there may be an acceptance process. In the US, you simply say that you are a member of the democratic or republican party - and in some states, mark that preference when you enroll to vote.

2) Because there is no popular election for head of state / executive members, formation of government is done of the basis of which party can command a majority of votes on the floor of parliament. This is generally a no-brainer, but as we have seen in the last few weeks following the Australian federal election, can take a lot of negotiation. The party forming government determines who the Prime minister and other cabinet ministers are, and they can change their mind on who fills these positions at any time. The general population don't elect the Prime Minister directly.

3) Votes in both chambers are along party lines. If an individual member votes against the their party's policy, that is a big deal - known as "crossing the floor". The argument is that since you were elected as a member of the party, based on the party's platform, you support the party's vote.

4) There are some limited number of issues that are seen as having very personal implications - for example, abortion, matters affection religious beliefs, things like that. So the parties allow a "conscience vote" - where there is no binding party position, and each person may cast their vote according to their own beliefs.

Nothing to do with faith.

[the_raptor]

Most of the "faith based" groups barking loudly for the filter DO NOT SUPPORT the Australian Labour Party*. The filter is getting pushed not to pay back the support of whining Christian groups (because this support doesn't exist) but for pure "Think of the Children!" politicking. And because all bureaucracies reach a life stage where instead of performing their function they instead focus on holding onto or acquiring more power.

Many Christian groups are against the filter because with the way Australian society is going it wouldn't be long until ACMA started censoring Christian web sites (as they were already going to filter abortion and euthanasia content).

* At least since the ALP went right wing on immigration policy. Australia does not have a large "Christian right" like America. We have a small Christian right and a slightly larger Christian left. The larger part of society is only religious in a "no atheists in a foxhole" way.

It depends...

[BenEnglishAtHome]

More fundamentally, for child porn to be made, children have to be sexually abused.

Depends on the jurisdiction. In the United States, for example, there are people sitting in jail for child porn, directly related crimes, or derivative prosecutions for making or possessing pictures or videos where one or all the following conditions are true:

***The actors are kids but are never naked and no sex acts take place.

***The actors are verified adults portraying underage characters.

***The actors are nonexistent, animated characters.

Re:It depends...

[shilly]

I meant real child porn, not what weirdo US legislators define as child porn.

Re:It depends...

[SleazyRidr]

Australian legislators define it in much the same way. Even if a girl's tits aren't big enough you can get into trouble.

Re:It depends...

[alexo]

I meant real child porn, not what weirdo US legislators define as child porn.

Unfortunately, when push comes to shove, the only definition that matters is the one used by the "weirdo legislators" in your jurisdiction.

Re:It depends...

[ras]

I meant real child porn, not what weirdo US legislators define as child porn.

Maybe you did.

But to make the evening TV news, people doing bad things have to photographed. Is your logic that it must be illegal to make money out of something bad happening? So we can't make money out of news that shows violent theft, or invading armies, or murder. It is a fairly compelling argument in some ways. Almost certainly, one of things driving terrorism is the publicity it generates for the cause. 911 was a slam dunk in that regard. Surely by this logic, there is a certain appeal to banning all reporting of the towers crashing down, taking 1000's of lives with them as they did so. That news footage has reverberated around the world for years since, and inspired more than a few budding terrorists.

No no, you say, that is not my logic. Unlike the news there is a very clear and strong link between child porn and kids being harmed. One directly leads to the other.

The only problem is, that claim doesn't stand up to scrutiny. If that logic is true then coming of the internet and the huge uptick in the trading of child porn it made possible must be accompanied by an equally huge uptick in kids being abused. Have a look at the statistics some time. No matter how you measure it - children in care, convictions, reported abuse - it just didn't happen. There was no uptick. In fact it has remained pretty much flat.

So what is the logic behind the banning of child porn? I don't think there is any. It is just that most people don't like it. On a personal level this just boils down to you not liking it, so you want it banned.

The funny thing is, you will be punished for your selfishness. Our Conroy doesn't just want to ban child porn, and I doubt he is unique among wantabe censors in this regard. He wants to ban the reporting of all sorts of things on the internet - euthanasia, abortion, games not to his taste, and ... the list of what is considered highly indecent goes on and on. All will be filtered. He has said he wants viewing of such illegal sites monitored by the police. I can guarantee you will find the banning of some things on Conroy's list highly troubling. And yet, here you are, allowing yourself to be suckered into it by an appeal to your basest instincts - a dislike of child porn.

Re:It depends...

[shilly]

Hunh? Of course I fuckin' dislike child porn. I loathe it! To make it, children get raped.

You are claiming there is no link between child porn and kids being harmed. Can you explain how you make child porn without harming kids? I think you're so wrapped up in your pseudo-intellectualising that you've lost sight of reality, compassion and humanity. The making of child porn involves raping children. The fact that small children will continue to be raped even if child porn is not made, does not providing a compelling justification for sanctioning more child rape by sanctioning child porn.

Are you really condoning child rape?

On a separate note, if you go back and review my original post, you'll see that I am not arguing that the proposed internet filter in Australia is either the right or the effective action to do to cut down on child porn. I was instead saying that assertions about cause-and-effect should have evidence adduced to them.

Re:It depends...

[ras]

You are claiming there is no link between child porn and kids being harmed.

Obviously not. If you are going to take pictures of kids being harmed, then somebody must have been harmed.

What I am claiming is no link between pictures being traded and kids being harmed. The evidence for this is pretty strong. The statistics we have show no correlation between the amount of trading going on, and the amount of abuse.

Since you appear to be having trouble understanding this, let me put it for you in a different way. The evidence suggests that is you somehow waved a magic want and got rid of all child porn travelling over the internet, the number of kids abused would not change. The evidence for this is pretty simple and straightforward: there has been no change in child abuse figures since the introduction of the internet, so its removal is unlikely to have any effect.

Since I happen to think the only proper basis for banning something is that it causes harm to someone, that means banning the trade of child porn is the wrong thing to do.

Since you have had a bit of trouble understanding the bit of logic above, I spell the rest of it out for you as well. I don't like child porn, and I don't think it would be particularly missed if we could wave some magic wands to banish it from the planet. The problem is we don't have any magic wands. All the wands we have do harm when we wave them: they put people in jail, they split up families, and like all justice they cost our society a huge amount of money. So the question becomes: do we want those wands and do those harms for no other reason that people like you find child porn disgusting?

Re:It depends...

[Lucractius]

Subjective things should never have been brought into this.
Such subjective nonsense is what leads to teenagers old enough to have sex getting prosecuted for having photos of themselves on their own phone.

Re:It depends...

[shilly]

I understand your logic. I also understand the flaw in it. People aren't just trading existing child porn. They are creating new child porn and trading it. By permitting the trade to continue, you are sanctioning the continued creation of new child porn and thus new harm to children. In other words, the trade of child porn causes harm to children because the trade can only be served by the creation of child porn, and the creation of child porn involves harming children. All over the world, right now, children are being raped and their agonies being filmed to create child porn, and then that porn is being traded. The supply and the demand are inextricably linked. The question of whether *other children* -- the ones not being filmed, are at lesser risk of being harmed if child porn is not available to consumers is a second-order issue. You would need to adduce quite a bit of evidence to demonstrate what you continue to assert on this second-order issue: that there has been no change in the amount of child abuse since the inception of the internet. You mentioned a bunch of proxy indicators -- none of them is reliably collected on a pan-national basis, and none of them is a direct indicator of harm rates. Any study that was also to compile such figures and was also able to disaggregate confounding factors would be pretty damned impressive. So what's your citation? Particularly given that it's a perfectly reasonable hypothesis to suggest that the internet facilitates the harming of children (eg by connecting like-minded individuals in different countries). I suppose for the avoidance of doubt I had better state clearly that the hypothesis does not imply that I think the right answer is to ban the internet, since you have a habit of over-reading my intentions.

In answer to your last question: of course I'm happy to put people in jail, split up families and spend societies' money on attempting to reduce the quantity of child porn. I don't want to do it merely because I think it's disgusting, but also in order to halt and if possible prevent specific harms to specific children. Obviously, I don't want to send every adult male who's wanked over the sight a 17-year old's nipple on the intarwebs to jail for ever and flog them while they're there, which appears to be the strawman you have in your head of what I want to do, but I would quite like to see the makers of child porn tracked down, removed from their families, which will often include children they are harming, and then put in jail. Why on earth not?

Finally, I note your use of the pejorative "people like you" in your final sentence. Are you saying you're one of those other people: the people who don't find child porn disgusting? If that's the case, *why* don't you find child porn disgusting? You know a child has been harmed to make it, after all. Whether watching it causes further harm is irrelevant to that inescapable fact.

Re:It depends...

[ras]

I understand your logic. I also understand the flaw in it.

No you don't, unfortunately. My logic is not some nicely chained line of reasoning like yours. It was more of an observation really. You are claiming that trading of child porn in the internet causes more children to be abused. At least that I what I think you are claiming, otherwise you would not want it to be kept illegal. I say that from what I observe, it is almost certain trading of child porn on the internet does not cause more children to be abused, and I say that because we there has been very little change in the number of abused children since the introduction of the internet.

You are saying regardless of there being no change, there must be one because of this lovely line of logic you have put together. We just can't see it for some reason. As you know, I think your emperor has no clothes. We can't see it because it is not there.

So how could your logic be sooo wrong? Well, if the logic is internally correct it may be the starting premises. You logic evidently assumes children are abused to make child porn and child porn is made to make money. But how do you know this? There are any number of alternative explanations. How about this one: some people like abusing children, and then discover they can make money on the side from their little hobby. Or this: people who abuse kids what like all of us to feel accepted, to be part of a group the won't outcast them for abusing children. But how to find like minded child abusers? Well, you could produce pictures of yourself abusing kids, and then use those pictures as an entry ticket to the group. I know from police reports that entering such groups is very hard for obviously reasons. They literally demand pictures of you doing something illegal as the price for entry.

Notice that in both these explanations the trading of pictures did not cause the children to be abused. The children were already being abused. The trading pictures was just a side effect. A fairly unfortunately side effect from the child abusers point of view, because spreading photos of themselves committing crimes around like confetti leads to a fair few of them getting caught. By the way, there is some small justification for the second explanation. Despite what you hear about money trails, I gather most pictures in these rings aren't traded for money. They are traded for other pictures. The prosecutors here where I live seem to believe money has very little to do with it.

I have read other explanations from psychologists on why people trade porn. Like yours, the rational they have put together sounds very reasonable. Flawless, in fact. But I am nonetheless suspicious of them. I have never seen any of them follow up with a hypothesis and then some attempt to test it with real data. They were just some neat train of logic that happened to fit the existing data. As least they had that going for them - they did fit the existing data. Yours doesn't.

In case you are wondering, I don't have a clue why people abuse kids, or why they trade pictures of themselves doing it. Nor do I have a favourite theory. I've tried for some while to figure it out, and failed miserably. That is why I just look at the underlying stats now.

Re:It depends...

[shilly]

So now you say your logic is not logic but an observation. Previously you said it was logic that I'd failed to understand.

Your alternative explanations are just silly:
- In the first example: when the abuser discovers they can make money out of their (vile) hobby, they are quite likely to respond as people have responded throughout history to money, and increase their money-making activities. And thus abuse more children
- In the second example: when the abuser gains entry to his circle of friends, he finds validation, acceptance and encouragement. This is likely to encourage him to abuse more children.

I repeat the question I put to you earlier:
"Finally, I note your use of the pejorative "people like you" in your final sentence. Are you saying you're one of those other people: the people who don't find child porn disgusting? If that's the case, *why* don't you find child porn disgusting? You know a child has been harmed to make it, after all. Whether watching it causes further harm is irrelevant to that inescapable fact."

Are you going to duck it again?

Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse

[Anonymous Coward]

I swear child porn is the big boogyman to control the internet just as 911 was the big fear monger event to justify totally immoral wars against countries that had nothing to do with the event....

This isn't new:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Horsemen_of_the_Infocalypse

Cars aren't intended for "twisted action"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Simply put. More kids are killed in traffic then by pedo's. Solution, ban cars. Why doesn't this get proposed? Because nobody wants to surrender their SUV with cattle bar for those hellish suburban roads.

We CAN hunt down pedo websites. BUT what is the price? Is the loss of freedom of speech and freedom of information worth saving a few kids? Yes? Then hand in your cars keys today... AH, thought so. You want to save a handful of kids from predators but not thousands from car accidents" - by SmallFurryCreature (593017) on Friday September 17, @04:57AM (#33608674)

THE PROBLEM WITH YOUR SO-CALLED "ARGUMENT":

Your foundation of your argument tries to make apples = oranges, and is therefore weak and fools only easily suggestable idiots who cannot see the diff. in what you are TRYING to "compare" and "make equal in intention" here.

E.G.-> Cars aren't trying to stuff their tailpipe up a kid's exhaust port, Freaks/twistos/pedophiles, are... get it? (by way of comparison & intent)!

Fact is, to myself? You actually come off like some pedo trying to defend his "twistedness" in fact, as do others here that tried to use your line of argument! I hope you're not such a person, and if you are not, my apologies on this note, but think about what I just said, BECAUSE of what YOU SAID! Drink that in, & digest it...

I mean, I.E.-> You appear so "vehemently" against this measure of filtering!

(Filtering, that yes, can work (for most folks vs. techno jocks that know how to use diff. IP addresses, or proxy servers, or DNS servers for example to beat a filter) vs. kids being exposed to this type of "twisted-ness" in the first place (hopefully that is))

How do I know this? Well... I use filtering (of a form), via HOSTS files here!

I use it for better online speed and security too, from a single file, for all of my webbound apps and it works... it works for better speed and security online, and for myself, my workplace, and my friends and family too as well as people that download mine from me, and not a single one of us has had a malware or malscripted website take advantage of us in years/decades (in my case on the latter) because I practice a form of filtering via a HOSTS file (with security information on the known bad sites/servers from reputable reliable sources, and against known bad websites &/or servers + ad banner servers too, because they have been found with malscripted code in some of them, and they cut my speed online to hell and I pay for it (no thanks/bye bye adbanners)).

Even more hilarious vs. this filter were the replies that said "fix it" or "stop the websites that do it".

(Good luck on that because all the laws on the planet don't stop malware bearing sites either, and if they do manage to take down one or a botnet? More come up to take that one's place. It's a lot bigger undertaking to entirely (good luck on that especially) trying to take out what SOME 'freaks' want or will make, money involved or not - because of this? It can't ever really be FULLY stopped, as it is like a hydra: Cut off 1 head, another will take its place. You can only do as I do, & that is filter... I am not against bad websites or servers being shut down, but not a lot of effort seems to go into that, so the community online "takes care of itself" and its own, by creating filters like kill files in HOSTS files, ISP/BSP or DNS level filtering, etc./et al instead... and yes, it works!).

Freedom can be a good thing (OR it can be a bad thing. Especially the freedom to act irresponsibly). Freedom of any kind., and judging by what you're saying, well hey - let's not do anything at all then, let's be that blatantly/grossly irresponsible then!

Uh, no thanks. I am for filtering personally, because I know it does work for the good in both speed and security online per my example above using HOSTS files to do so here.

APK

P.S.=> Personally, I think this ought to be tried i

Tor

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like the Iranians aren't the only ones that will be needing Tor, anymore.

torproject.org

He's right...

[Shoten]

It's not about censorship at all. And, in related news, book burning isn't, either...it's about saving fuel via efficiencies of scale when raising large quantities of individual objects made of layered cellulose to temperatures above 451 degrees fahrenheit.

Why

[BlackHawk-666]

Why are children trying to browse these child pornography sites in the first place?

It just makes no sense claiming we need this filtering to protect the children from child porn.

Conroy? No thanks.

[dogzdik]

Child porn sites....

?

Not that interested.

Regular porn sites...

Not that interested either.

Whacko politicians with cult based ideas of reality - even less so.

It probably is all about childporn

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's probably a fantastic solution!!!

And Stephen Conroy is probably popular and loved all over the interporns...

http://bastardsheep.com/tag/stephen-conroy/
http://zgeek.com/content.php/1742-4chan-plan-to-assassinate-Stephen-Conroy
http://stephenconroyisacunt.wordpress.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Conroy

Whoops! Is that a few more sites Conroy's adding to the list??

'Yes, I said add them!!! Because I mean look - I said child porn is bad Ok. Just trust me these need to be added. Now I need to see if Turbull is going to interrupt my plans on how to stop people being exposed to the truth... I mean defends child porn!'

Stephen 'Refused Intelligence' Conroy
It's not fucking censor***p it's fucking REFUSED CLASSIFICATION you idiot!

Dexxter

[dexxter]

How do we know there are 430 child porn sites on the WWW? His list is secret and we have no way of knowing other than taking his word for it. Anyone who takes a politicians word at face value is a fool. And if there are 430 "known" CP web sites, I can guarantee that the list is out of date and the sites have all been shut down and moved elsewhere. CP is the current hysteria used to justify political censorship and control. Conroy is a dick! Always has been. Always will be.

Re:Fix the murders problem by banning news on murd

[Lucractius]

The issue is hes being belligerent about it. This is one of the many things used to pry apart his arguments and ideas, and yet he still pushes his point.
Much to the dismay of the populace.

A Little History

[BenEnglishAtHome]

So what is the logic behind the banning of child porn? I don't think there is any.

There was, once upon a time.

Historically, the ban on child porn directly influenced production. Fewer kids were raped as a result of the original ban. At the time, the ban was a good idea. Whether or not it should re-appraised based on the new reality of a world with advanced digital technology is a question that not many people are tackling.

There's a longer explanation here and in the follow-ups to that post.

Re:A Little History

[ras]

The previous post of yours you linked to was a gem.

There is another side to this. Here in Australia a fair number of child abuse rings are tracked down using the money trail. I am digressing a bit, but the money trail is another difference that belongs in your then and now post. Back then, everything was paid for with cash. There was no money trail. Now people pay with credit cards. Which means it abuser is paid for his pictures and someone is caught with the picture, the person doing the abusing will likely by locked away.

Anyway, the perverse outcome of all this is allowing, or more reasonably reducing the penalties for trading in child porn makes it easier to find those doing the abusing. Think of how nice it would be if every criminal took pictures of themselves committing a crime, then sold those pictures to many others around the world and in doing so left a trail of money pointing straight back to them. It would be some sort of law enforcement heaven.

Now the really weird thing about this is our Conroy (who is the polly who is the driving force behind filter) accepts this. So a few months ago, after relentlessly pounding the drum about child porn being so corrupting it must be filtered so it can not scar all who see it, he back-flipped. He now says child porn (but not other filtered stuff as far as I know) will be left unfiltered for a while, so the police can do their stuff.

As for the effects of the restrictions on child porn, there was one country (Denmark?) where they decided they would be more tolerant of it. I think the idea was more along the lines of your original post - the current stance is causing so much collateral damage they decided toning it down was worth a shot. They watched the child abuse figures like a hawk after that of course. They were hoping for no change, but in fact there was a slight drop. Not a terribly significant drop - you certainly would not go around claiming that allowing the trade in child porn protects children. But it was certainly more evidence that in the current environment the level trading in child porn has no causal to relationship child abuse.