Australian Govt Censors Notes From Secret Anti-Piracy Talks

An anonymous reader writes "It looks as if the Australian Government really doesn't want the public to know what's going on in its closed-door talks with ISPs and the content industry. The Attorney-General's Department has applied the black marker to almost all of the information contained in documents about the meetings released under Freedom of Information laws. The reason? It wouldn't be in the 'public interest' to release the information. Strange how the public seems to have a high degree of interest in finding out what's being talked about."

Comments

Internet Villain of the Year

[niftydude]

Maybe Stephen Conroy can win internet villain of the year a second time.

Re:Internet Villain of the Year

[mjwx]

It's strange how they know what we shouldn't know. Bunch of UN communist stooges. Bring back Guy Fawkes.

Guy Fawkes was just the fall guy.

The leader of the group was actually Robert Catesby who was a Jesuit who wanted to replace King James and the English government with the 9 year old daughter of King James. Catesby was a bit of a religious extremist himself, described as a crusader by his friends and relatives. Guy Fawkes was a soldier who had fought in the Spanish Netherlands, hence he was tasked with guarding the gunpoweder the rebellion kept in a storehouse under the House of Lords, he was not the core of the Jesuit rebellion. Fawkes may have been historically the most famous, but it was Catesby's head that was put on a pike in front of the House of Lords.

To be frank, I dont like the likes of Conroy, I like the idea of giving control of the internet to a bunch of religious rebels even less. OK, Conroy is a religious twat as well, but he'll never get his way, the Labor backbench would have a little rebellion of their own, his filter has failed twice before in the house.

Re:Internet Villain of the Year

[LordLucless]

Catesby might have been a religious extremist, but then, so was James I. His persecution of Catholics is what drove the Gunpowder Plot. The distinction between the Gunpowder Plotters and James I wasn't that one was religious and the other isn't - it's that one was Authority and the other was Rebellion. You might as well say you don't like Conroy, but don't like the idea of putting a bunch of dead Englishmen in charge either - it's a strawman. That's not what the OP was saying.

Re:Internet Villain of the Year

[mjwx]

You might as well say you don't like Conroy, but don't like the idea of putting a bunch of dead Englishmen in charge either - it's a strawman. That's not what the OP was saying.

The OP was making a false equivalency to the fall guy for a religious rebellion to freedom.

I challenged that pointing out that Fawkes is not a symbol for freedom at all, he wasn't even the guy in charge, he was the guy who was caught (Catesby and Percy weren't). As a result, my point is not a strawman but rather, the expression of the old saying "better the devil you know". We know Conroy will be controlled.

BTW, pointing out James I was religious is a bit of a strawman, pretty much it's trying to say "It's OK to do something bad because Janey is also bad". That whole period of English history went from Christian Tyranny to Protestant authoritarianism to reformation years ahead of mainland Europe.

Re:Internet Villain of the Year

[crutchy]

He should literally be tried for treason

and if that doesn't work we can always figuratively try him for treason

It's All About The Anal Rape

[Greyfox]

Most people know that corporations in general and the copyright industry in particular are out to anally rape them. What the government doesn't want you to know is just how much they support the copyright industry in their quest to anally rape the citizens the world. Politicians have to be elected, and people tend not to want to vote for politicians who help others anally rape them. However politicians also want money, and anal rape is a lucrative business. So politicians both try to help their corporate friends anally rape regular citizens and at the same time try to hide the fact that they're doing so. This really should come as no surprise to the citizens of the world.

You'd think people would get tired after being anally raped for so long (Really, you can only rape someone for so long before it's just sex...) and found a "No Anal Rape" party. I think most people would agree that not being anally raped by corporations and politicians is a cause worthy of getting behind.

Re:It's All About The Anal Rape

[neiras]

I think most people would agree that not being anally raped by corporations and politicians is a cause worthy of getting behind.

I see what you did there.

Re:It's All About The Anal Rape

[WrongSizeGlass]

I think most people would agree that not being anally raped by corporations and politicians is a cause worthy of getting behind.

I see what you did there.

Well, it's certainly not something you want to get in front of.

How do you spell korupshun?

[kawabago]

Hollywood

That'd because it's probably discussing

[Anonymous Coward]

The Australian government has "a special room" in almost every single ISP with a machine capable of taking a full duplication of traffic for almost any customer. This applies to phone networks as well.

I know someone who installs this equipment, he will not even TALK ABOUT it online, he literally won't type it in an email, IM or messaging system of any kind. Offline it's difficult to get info regarding it out of him.

Those boxes, to my knowledge do not require a warrant, the government can just remotely log in and start recording. Obviously they can't use the data in court without some kind of warrant but the equipement is there.

Posting this anonymously I will assume is enough - I don't have much more information than that unfortunately. If anyone else does, please feel free to reply.

Re:That'd because it's probably discussing

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting this anonymously I will assume is enough ...

No sorry mate, it won't help at all. You forgot about the government's "special room." Expect a knock on the door at any moment, there's another kind of "special room" where you are going.

Posting anonymously so the government won't ... oh damn!

Re:That'd because it's probably discussing

[bug1]

If you really want privacy use encryption, vpn (to a "safe" country?), tor, whatever, pay for it with bitcoins.

There are benefits to pervasive surveillance;
  - Its hard to have a false identiy if you dont have a real one, try and throw away the false identity, not the real one.
  - If you looking for a needle dont put it in a haystack, the more "normal" traffic they capture, the further the target sinks into the noise.

Sickening,

[mjwx]

Conroy is not the biggest - he is one of many. Only 30% of the population support Labor (an organisation that can't even spell its own name correctly). A large percentage of the population dispise and detest them. However, short of civil inssurection, how the hell do you get rid of them? The people can't call an election and they have taken away our guns.

This person doesn't live in Oz.

We can call an election, it's just that no-one wants to. We dont need guns to do that, I suspect the GP is not Australian and doesn't realise Aussies can sort out their problems without violence. To get an election called, all we need to do is prove to the Governor-General that the current government is unfit, then she dissolves parliament. The thing is, no-one wants to, elections are a pain in the arse, a waste of a good Saturday and the Liberals are even worse then Labor.

The Labor party is actually preferred over the Coalition in the two party preferred poll, add the popularity of the Greens and they will retain control next election (ALP with the help of the Greens). If anything, I expect more votes to go to Green and independent candidates. The Coalition will never get in because Abbott's just a patsy for the Liberal power brokers and their economic policies are insane ($70 Billion dollar black hole the shadow treasurer cant account for).

Re:Sickening,

[mjwx]

besides which what the hell country are you living

Australia, which is clearly very far from your location.

Labor/greens would get absolutely annilated if an election was called anytime soon.

They said that in the last two elections. As long as it's Anyone v Abbott, Labor is practically guaranteed to win. The liberal policy is to say "No" to everything that Labor does, this will lose them a lot of votes. Its far more likely Abbot would be massacred in any election as Julia Gillard is preferred PM, but as I said before it would just end up like 2010 with the balance of power being held by Greens and/or Independents because Australians are simply sick of the two major parties ruling by fiat for four years.

BTW. look up how polls are done and how inaccurate they are at election time. They go out and ask random people to answer a questionnaire, this is easily biased by going to specific areas. This is why Morgan polls look different to Nielson polls. The only semi-reliable polls are exit polls (basically the same thing, they ask people who they voted for on their way out, hence they are called "exit" polls).

Re:Sickening,

[mjwx]

But how anyone can call there economic policies insane after the basket case the current labor government has put us into is beyond me.

Um, pretty much the only growing economy in the western world. An actual plan to deal with deficit.

I suggest you check your facts instead of relying on things like News Limited.

Re:Sickening,

[MisterMidi]

Be careful with your suggestions, someone might actually do it ;-)

A visit to Wikipedia (with recent numbers from the CIA World Factbook) learns that Argentina, Panama, Turkey, Estonia, Paraguay, Peru, Lithuania, Uruguay, Ecuador, Kosovo, Suriname, Colombia, Israel, Sweden, Costa Rica, Guinea, Latvia, Nicaragua, Mexico, Poland, Luxembourg, Honduras, South Africa, Austria, Slovakia, Macedonia, Brazil, Guatemala, Venezuela, Finland, Germany, Albania, Malta, Iceland, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Switzerland, The Bahamas, Belgium, El Salvador and New Zealand all have bigger economic growth than Australia.

Depending on how you define the western world, they might not all be part of it, and I may have forgotten a couple. But the point is, Australia is not by a long shot "pretty much the only growing economy in the western world."

Re:Sickening,

[whoever57]

You mean that same governer general who is appointed by the GOVERNMENT!

I doubt that the GP does. I think that he means the same Governor-General that is appointed by The Queen.

Public interest

[kingturkey]

Not that I disagree with their view here, but the summary makes the mistake of conflating 'the public interest' with what is 'interesting to the public'.

"Public interest"

[sixtyeight]

From the brief: "It wouldn't be in the 'public interest' to release the information. Strange how the public seems to have a high degree of interest in finding out what's being talked about."

We get a lot of that disagreement between the citizens and the government here in the States as well. And when tax time comes along, I apply the same reasoning to whether or not paying them would be "in the government interest". Or the public's.

If everyone did that, governments would shape up PDQ out of sheer necessity. Even if the politicians and the courts don't work, the People still have recourse. Which reminds, tax time is almost here in the U.S.. Pay them any non-negative amount you think they're worth.

But what could it hold against public interest?

[SuperKendall]

I can understand how you can redact portions of documents where release of information might lead to physical harm, like planned locations of troops or identities of informants.

But how on earth can there be ANYTHING not releasable in a talk on copyright? There is nothing that could be talked about that would cause physical harm to others.

This absolutely stinks and I hope the courts can be brought into release the information attempted to be hidden from the public.

So what has been hidden? My best guess is that the document shows a terrifying contempt for the common citizen in regards to rights they have, and they are really worried about how that would come across in the press.

Re:But what could it hold against public interest?

[ozmanjusri]

This absolutely stinks and I hope the courts can be brought into release the information attempted to be hidden from the public.

More likely to be left to whistleblowers/Wikileaks.

"industry-negotiated solution"

[TubeSteak]

In a briefing issued to Attorney-General Nicola Roxon regarding the meeting, the department noted that it continued to prefer an industry-negotiated solution to the issue of Internet content piracy.

Industry-negotiated "solutions" are the antithesis of a democratic process.
It's amazing that governments not only allow this to happen, but actively facilitate the process.

If the government had to step in and set up rules, they'd be forced to accept input from those annoying citizens they're supposed to represent.

Reason:

[no-body]

They are chicken - afraid that people find out what they are up to.

Any public servant doing this kind of stuff should be penalized.

William Binney: ...after he realized that the NSA is now openly trampling the constitution, says as he holds his thumb and forefinger close together. "We are, like, that far from a turnkey totalitarian state."

The Public Interest

[AliasMarlowe]

The phrase "the public interest" does not mean the same thing to Government officials and to the actual Public. It's a sort of catch-all reason for hiding information or bending rules or otherwise ignoring the (usually legitimate) wishes of a group or indeed of the populace.

Re:The Public Interest

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, no. If revealing what they're discussing is likely to cause protests and riots - then perhaps they shouldn't be discussing it in the first place. It'll have to be revealed at some point so the riots and protests will still happen. The only reason they want to keep it secret is to hopefully ram it through ASAP against the public's wishes.

Re:Sickening

[Capsaicin]

However, short of civil inssurection, how the hell do you get rid of them? The people can't call an election and they have taken away our guns.

You wait until the next federal election when we all get to vote. That's how we like do it round here.

I thought the conservatives really overreached when they banned almost all guns (even though 85% of my fellow Australians supported Howard on this issue). When I read posts like yours, however, I wonder whether my loss at having my piddly 22 taken away isn't, after all, outweighed by my gain from having any firearm kept out of the hands of folks like yourself.

Physical harm to corporations

[Namarrgon]

Remember, corporations are people too, and if the public gets an interest in these talks, that could seriously damage the corporate bottom line, which is about as physical as you can get.

It's an outrageous outrage

[TapeCutter]

Your wasting your breath, at least half the people here know for certain that whenever government meets with anyone behind a closed door they are plotting against we the people. Closed door meetings have got nothing to do with speaking frankly and protecting sensitive commercial information. It a plot, a UN conspiracy...or something....but most of all it's an outrageous outrage that must be fought. Our method of attack is to buy plastic masks from our enemy, smash the windows of small merchants and steal their wares, and top it off by vandalising establishment web pages. Sure it's going to take a while to scorch the Earth where the establishment now stands, but overthrowing the status-quo is not the only thing we do, new releases don't just rip themselves you know.

Protesting against greed while wearing hollywood masks and shitting in the town square is going to be about as effective as flower power was at "solving" the same issues 40yrs ago. One of the largest internal migrations in the US was in the early 70's when the hippies left the cities in droves to establish communes that shunned political hierarchies and political alliances between members. Virtually none of the communes lasted more that a couple of years. Most people assume it was because of jelousy brought on by the "love thy neighbour" attitute to sex, but it was nothing of the sort. They failed because the lack of political structure created a power vacumn allowing the one slightly more agressive member of the group to rise to the top by brow beating individuals into submission one at a time, when that stopped working things got physical. Coincidently this was all around the same time that the Stanford prision experiments demonstrated that we all have an evil dictator lurking in our phyche just waiting for the opportunity to fill a political power vacum and we also all have a cowering slave in our phyche that given the right conditions will emerge and chose security over liberty.

In other words, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The mayor hides the crime rate
council woman hesitates
Public gets irate, but forgets the vote date
Weatherman complaining, predicted sun, it's raining
Everyone's protesting, boyfriend keeps suggesting
you're not like all of the rest.

Garbage ain't collected, women ain't protected
Politicians using, people they're abusing
The mafia's getting bigger, like pollution in the river
And you tell me that this is where it's at.

Woke up this moming with an ache in my head
Splashed on my clothes as I spilled out of bed
Opened the window to listen to the news
But all I heard was the Establishment's Blues.

Gun sales are soaring, housewives find life boring
Divorce the only answer, smoking causes cancer
This system's gonna fall soon, to an angry young tune
And that's a concrete cold fact.

The pope digs population, freedom from taxation
Teeny Bops are up tight, drinking at a stoplight
Miniskirt is flirting I can't stop so I'm hurting.
Spinster sells her hopeless chest.

Adultery plays the kitchen, bigot cops non-fiction
The little man gets shafted, sons and monies drafted
Living by a time piece, new war in the far east.
Can you pass the Rorschach test?

It's a hassle is an educated guess.
Well, frankly I couldn't care less.

- This Is Not A Song, Its An Outburst (AKA The Establishment Blues ); Rodriguez - 1970

Re:It's an outrageous outrage

[chilvence]

I skipped straight to the song. From now on I propose all argument be null and void unless articulated in the form of a song.

Re:Sickening

[FormOfActionBanana]

Really? How many people were killed by redneck gunfire? And how much of that was accidental vs. malicious? I'm really curious.

In the US, gun control is a big issue. Mostly it's white people who don't want black people to shoot them. The rednecks are sort of caught in the middle of the debate, and generally live in different locales.

Re:terrorism and piracy is always confusing

[Phrogman]

I suspect the problem is the Western world's reliance on Intellectual Property as a money making mechanism. Already a lot of innovation is being done outside of the big western countries, so our businesses are increasingly relying on IP laws to protect their business interests. Thus the push for draconian legislation to ensure those who obtained patents can milk them for all they are worth and simultaneously stifle research in the same area to ensure they get the most cash from their patents at the same time.
Certainly the RIAA/MAFIAA is a very powerful lobby group with massive influence over the US Government - enough to ensure secret treaties with other nations etc, but I have always suspected they are mostly riding the wave of government enforcement of IP laws and the US push to make their version of copyright/patent law the universally accepted one. There are a lot of businesses with a lot riding on their ability to enforce patents. If they can't enforce those patents a lot of them might fail - or at least their CEOs would get a lot fewer millions in severance.
Of course the media conglomerates are facing the complete collapse of their industry if they don't adapt, and they adapt very slowly if at all. My wife and I were just discussing the other day the fact that we can't think of anyone who subscribes to cable TV. A few folks with Netflix but no TV, its just not worth paying for.

Re:Sickening

[rohan972]

guns don't kill people, but stupid fucking irresponsible redneck retards kill people, and these people will always be a danger to the community around them as long as they have access to guns

Well, since it's Australia we're talking about, how do you explain this. Queensland would by far be considered the "redneck state" even more so back when gun control came in, yet it was NSW, Victoria and Tasmania (all of which had tighter gun control than Queensland) that had the massacres that prompted the introduction of nation wide (state implemented) gun control.

Since the acquittals of Susan Falls and Claire Margaret MacDonald we have the absurd legal situation where self defense is not a legal reason to obtain a firearm, but you may use a firearm for self defense if you are a woman. If you are a man who provides a woman with a firearm which she uses to kill someone (apparently legally) you will be charged with supplying the firearm to her.

Our gun laws in practice are absurd and sexist. The murder rate was already declining before their introduction, there is no evidence that gun laws have lowered the murder rate. Support for the laws is just one more example of the triumph of emotionalism over reason.

Re:Sickening

[FictionPimp]

It is illegal in chicago to carry a handgun (it's almost illegal to own one). In fact, chicago is probably in the top 3 most gun controlled cities in the USA. Yet there were 41 shootings last week. Gun control NEVER works.

The decision

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

As always, an important facet of any informed debate is comprehending all sides to a given issue. With that in mind, you can download the decision, as well as the rest of the documents, here (warning: 11.3Mb, pdf wrapped in rar). I'm assuming the following is the controversial bit:

Subsection 11A(5) of the Act provides that if a document is 'conditionally exempt' it still must be disclosed unless the decision maker is satisfied that, on balance, its disclosure would be contrary to the public interest. I have decided that disclosure of these documents, in absence of any solution or agreement, would be contrary to the public interest. My reasons for so concluding are, essentially, that the discussions that are taking place are at an early stage involving various industry representatives. The discussions, therefore, are at a very delicate, sensitive and important stage. Disclosure of documents while the negotiations are still in process, would, in my view, prejudice, hamper and impede those negotiations to an unacceptable degree. That would, in my view, be contrary to the interests of good government - which would, in turn, be contrary to the public interest.

(Copied manually and quickly, so don't take as gospel)

I see her point. As I'm sure we're all aware, there is a very vocal group of people who are against the idea of these talks occurring in the first place. The early stages of the talks could (and most probably do) contain aspects that are unreasonable and will not be present towards the resolution. These points could well be exploited by people who would like to see these talks not go ahead.

Think of it like couple counselling. The couple might start out angry and at each others throats, but that doesn't necessarily reflect how they feel about each other, and the compromises they're willing to make. If someone were to make the initial proceedings public, it would potentially send completely the wrong impression out to everyone. Anyone who is genuinely interested in the outcome of the counselling would prefer to hear about the latter stages.

Anyway, now you have the information, make up your own minds.

The Bane of Democracy

[hemo_jr]

What does the Australian government fear? And informed public?

Re:Sickening

[Canazza]

Gun control never works in a country that already has an abundance of guns.
The UK has absolute gun control.

All we have are stabbings. Attempts to curb knife ownership have failed. People still get stabbed all the time.
Keeping weapons off the streets is simple. Getting them off the streets once they're there is next to impossible.

A lie said enough times

[microbox]

The liberal policy is to say "No" to everything that Labor does, this will lose them a lot of votes.

Seems to have worked pretty well for the Republicans. Congresses approval is around 10%, yet half the population still supports this now reactionary political philosophy. Who's to say that Abbott cannot make ground out of contrarian hatred. After-all, plenty of people hate the Labor and the Greens, and Abbot has a large media complex that will back him all the way. A lie said enough times... just saying.

Re:Sickening

[sjames]

I'm sure the people who die from stabbing thank all that is holy that they didn't get shot!