Australian Government Initiates Covert Internet Censorship

An anonymous reader writes "Remember how the Australian Government tried to enact a big bad Internet filter on the population? Well, that effort failed, but now there's a new initiative in place. At least one government agency, the country's financial regulator, has quietly started issuing legal notices to ISPs requesting them to block certain types of websites deemed illegal. There's no oversight or appeals process, and already a false positive event has resulted in some 1,200 innocent websites being blocked from Australians viewing them. Sounds ideal, right?"

Comments

You have consented to large government

[roman_mir]

Of-course Australian government will block your Internet access to materials it finds inappropriate, whatever that means, you have given your government enough power to do things like that. Gun control was implemented in the same way, taxing income on a graduated scale, telling people what they can and cannot do with their private property, same for people running businesses, all of this grows and emboldens the government and when governments grow and become emboldened people shrink and become scared little nothings.

Re:You have consented to large government

[NeutronCowboy]

telling people what they can and cannot do with their private property, same for people running businesses,

Yep. I mean, a thousand dead or so is a fair price to pay so that businesses can thrive. Not to mention that it's better being a dead factory worker than some scared little suburbanite living in the US with two cars and a 5 bedroom house.

Totally. Especially if you're one of the rich business owners who can afford to not work in their own factory and hire a private army to guard your assets.

For those who are sarcasm impaired - yes, that was sarcasm. I normally write people like roman off as just crazy, but they seem to be proliferating like cockroaches.

Re:You have consented to large government

[NeutronCowboy]

Roman's comment is a classic example of a black-and-white world. In his mind, it isn't possible to have a government do anything without it automatically becoming tyrannical. Furthermore, the slightest overreach by any apparatchik is immediately an indictment of the incompetence of all government, followed by cries to dismantle government in general. Because of the extremely low threshold that people like roman have for any sort of government activity at all, there is no way to have any sort of government regulation at all. What's more though, their threshold for what is appropriate for government allows absolutely no discussion - to paraphrase someone else, you're either with them, or against them. That's the worst aspect of their "solutions": there is no possibility for debate about it.

Furthermore, you're falling into the same logic trap that roman does: there are only two states, and if one advocates against one, one is forcibly for the other extreme. What I'm arguing is that their worldview has been tested, and it is utterly failing - and has always failed in the past as well.

Re:You have consented to large government

[Anonymous Coward]

All nations rise and fall, history is clear on this. When they fall it is almost always with violent revolution against a tyrannical oppressive government.

At the same time, history is clear what happens before the revolution: some of the greatest empires in history. Hate the tyrants and murderers all you will, but they got to live as kings of their time.

Being ruthless, being violent, being amoral, and generally being the biggest asshole around works. Nice guys finish last, my fellow AC.

Your nation is no different and you sir are simply grease within the gears of oppression.

Better than being on the receiving end of those gears of oppression.

See, Saturday morning cartoons are not so far from reality. The villains get all the swag, the cool toys (doomsday devices, sharks with lazors on their heads, etc), lots of minions (including chicks with funny names and revealing clothing), secret lairs, etc. And oh yes, they always seem to get away from the heroes.

The difference is that in reality, there is no series/season finale where the villain is ultimately defeated and justice gets served. No, the heroes at best win battles, not the war. Cartoons make the heroes win and delivery justice to provide solace for the proles, and to brainwash them thinking that they have a chance.

Re:You have consented to large government

[s.petry]

While you make a fair "feel good" argument, it's not historically accurate. If you read history, you will find that there have been no perfect Governments. Governments that are granted powers always request more and more, until the point where a revolution is required to restore a Government that people can live with.

I guess you could ignore the fact that the US had been trending toward a tyranny for a very long time. Each year, more and more power is granted to the Government. Each year we pay more and more in taxes, and what does the average person get? The trend has not been moving the other direction, because that is how it works. Governments become corrupt, the corruption becomes entrenched, and the corruption becomes the normal Government. People will go through several phases (apathy, complacency, etc..) before they are fed up enough to revolt. But it happens in every single situation where corruption becomes the Government Normal. Where it has not happened yet, is places like Russia and China who have been diligent about shooting anyone that discusses revolt.

Australia kind of leapfrogged past the US and even the UK in terms of a soft tyrannical take over. I found it surprising, but as soon as they lost their ability to fight (gave up the guns) the changes have been moving very quickly.

A tyranny is not necessarily an outrageously oppressive Government murdering masses. I think this is why you are trying to justify such Government and attack people that point them out. It's easier to live in delusion than face cognitive dissonance.

Re:You have consented to large government

[gnoshi]

Thankfully because of the lessons of history, we can hopefully change the course this time around.
For example, perhaps we could have the positive benefits of government (gun control, progressive taxation used to fund public services, telling people what they can do with their private property - 'no, you can't build a rubbish tip in suburbia, sorry') and actually intervene in the problem of creeping power (such as this).

Somehow people manage to keep bringing this back to gun control - "when we gave up our guns we lost our ability to fight". However, gun control is widely supported in Australia, and I'm pretty sure that pretending we'd be able to overthrow the government with our guns wouldn't aid the cause of social change. Clearly having a profusion of crazy (and sane) people will guns in the U.S. has stopped your problem of creeping government overreach, right?

Yes, there is a need to monitor government and work to ensure their are limits on their powers, but can we stop pretending that progressive social policies are part of an inexorable creeping towards totalitarianism? I understand that may be hard for some people who need to justify their access to guns and their anger at paying tax, but please do try.

Old ladies tea groups should also have the power!

[Aguazul2]

Think of the geriatrics! What would the elderly ladies of your locality think of what you're browsing? Would it cause them a heart attack? We only want crochet patterns, recipes and pictures of cute puppies on our internet. Please delete anything controversial or too hard to understand! (This being not too far from what 100s of government agencies censoring the internet would end up with.)

Re:Here we go --

[cheekyjohnson]

Copyright infringement is a threat to national security, so blindly infringing upon people's freedoms and censoring content at a random corporations request is perfectly justified.

Re:Here we go --

[EmagGeek]

They will simply make it illegal to use "unapproved" encryption, where "approved" encryption is that for which you have provided the decryption keys to law enforcement.

Re:That "false positive" was BS

[JasterBobaMereel]

The problem is that the solution to a website offering illegal material is not to shut down the website, prosecute the owners of the website but get the ISP to block it ...?

If the material is illegal then prosecute them, if it is not then don't block it ....