Slashdot Mirror
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?"
Interestingly I can still access the blocked site, so looks like they've undone that (I'm on Telstra at the moment... Don't ask). Also interesting is that they just dismantled the filtering scheme in the budget overnight, so with any luck it goes away altogether. The ACL are not particularly happy about it though (but who cares about them).
As is linked in TFS, the filter list that some ISPs may have implemented is the Interpol one. Certainly not as broad-reaching as the original Conroy planned one.
Cheers, Chris
we are telling those with peering, but hidden eyes far up in the heavens exactly the kind of freedom America stands for. And they will know, like in all our broadcasts and films
I, for one, welcome the chance to sue our new overlords for illegally obtaining our broadcasts and films. Goddamn space pirates.