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Australia Called Out as Willing To Undermine Human Rights For Digital Agenda (zdnet.com)
A report from AccessNow has asked Australia to change its course and lead the way in serving as a champion for human rights instead of against. From a report: Global human rights, public policy, and advocacy group AccessNow has called out Australia for its lack of focus on human rights as it adapts to the challenges of the digital era, with a report from the non-profit saying the country should instead be leading the way in serving as a champion for human rights. "Australia should be a global leader in serving as a champion for human rights, such as the right to privacy and rights to freedoms of expression and association," AccessNow said. "Unfortunately, Australia has taken actions that indicate the nation is willing to undermine human rights as it adapts to the challenges of the digital era."
In Human Rights in the Digital Era: An International Perspective on Australia [PDF], AccessNow says that as the digital world continues to develop, and technology increasingly becomes an "intimate part" of daily lives, Australians are facing a choice. "The country can either continue to be a testing ground for policies that undermine privacy and security in the digital era, or it can be a champion for human rights in the digital age, leveraging its relationships in the world to raise the standards for the next generation," the report says.
In Human Rights in the Digital Era: An International Perspective on Australia [PDF], AccessNow says that as the digital world continues to develop, and technology increasingly becomes an "intimate part" of daily lives, Australians are facing a choice. "The country can either continue to be a testing ground for policies that undermine privacy and security in the digital era, or it can be a champion for human rights in the digital age, leveraging its relationships in the world to raise the standards for the next generation," the report says.
Exactly what rights are being violated,
Ya do whats you gotz to do!
>> Australia Called Out as (thing) by (random aggrieved group)
Clearly, Australia needs to clap back before the Internet gets broken.
That’s a content free post. Better headline "Advocacy group offers vague complaints"
1. Government recognises people have a right to protect their comms and sees this as a good thing.
2. People will all be criminals by dint of using strong encryption anyway
* People will continue to use strong encryption regardless of what the law states. Strong laws against crypto will simply drive comms underground, making it more difficult for everyone to communicate and for righteous law enforcement efforts to be successful. We are headed for doomsday as regards the Internet/WWW. More and more people want to control it for money, power, fame, etc. While the lure of "free" services has been a major coup for companies like Google, Facebook, the damage that *will* come is yet to be seen. Everyone with a modicum of technical sense knows there is an information sharing superhighway between governments and these companies. I've long suspected that the "sham" of pretending to fight governments over "private" data is just for show. What with secret courts and warrants, would we even know for sure, even with warrant canaries? If your truly private data is in the "cloud" on a machine that *you* do not control, it can no longer be said to be private, even if encrypted. Somehow, someone, in some way, will be able to own your data given enough time and effort, especially if you become the target of a state actor.
As long as that expression doesn't violate their definition of freedom and the current line of thinking of the intelligentsia.
I know that some people on slashdot might be able to have some interesting ideas on this.
So I was thinking about it and thought I would pose the question.
Is there a difference between the right to freedom of speech ( which is to say the right to say what you want without punishment or restriction).
and
The right to use public broadcast equipment like the internet to exercise that right.
Specifically I'm thinking about the internet as a tool that amplifies the effects of ones actions. As another example of what I'm pondering , few people argue against the right to self defense, although most people would put limits on the power and strength of that defense. As and example most people would think it wrong to defend yourself against a knife attack by spraying a machine gun into a crowded room.
So, given the amplifying power of the internet over speech, making every careless statement a broadcast to hundreds or millions with all kinds of possible unintended consequences. What if any reasonable limits are there to speech on the internet or are they identical to the normal limits put on speech , like 'not inciting to riot'.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
You get no human rights when you're treated like animals.
Apparently the only ones losing rights online are white males.
Nothing to see here, move along.
You can think of all the worst things being enacted in the West and Australia is the testing ground for it (due to lower population and required work to implement things like global surveillance etc).
Australia is a Banana republic - where criticism of Israel using forged Australian passports in their assassination activities resulted in the Australian Prime Minister being overthrown and replaced by the Girlfriend of an Israeli diplomat at the embassy (read - Intelligence Agent).
I left a country relatively OK - only to return 20 years later to see that it had become a Police state.
Assange is an Australian citizen and he personifies the intersection of Human Rights and the "Digital Agenda".
Now that Sweden has dropped its case, he should be free -- except that the British government now insists on prosecuting him for bail violations (and then extradite him to Trumpistan).
It would be simple under existing treaties for the Australian government to step in and BRING HIM HOME to face a relatively fair trial for whatever he is alleged to have done.
You think Trump is bad, you should see who we vote for... Recent PM told aussies ADSL2+ over copper was better than Fibre.. and we swallowed it and now have the shittest internet on the planet. Also we seem to vote for Tyrannical governments (We just passed laws banning protests, and legal assembles)
Australia is not a gun nut country. No city people have guns(*). Many country people have guns(#) but aren't American style gun nutty about them.
Some people think the gun laws in Australia are too strict but they are in a very slim minority. Most people want fewer guns than we have now.
The government IS actively destroying our privacy, but it has NOTHING to do with guns.
(*) Some city people are in target shooting clubs, etc. Only the police openly carry guns. Nobody has concealed weapons.
(#) All rifles and shotguns for pest control and animal slaughter. No military style weapons at all.
The Port Arthur massacre prompted some minor gun control legislation. That's it. Everything else you mention is unrelated.
The anti-privacy anti-citizen nonsense the government is pressing for now is a response to the terrorism scare. They like the idea of having control and the amazing level of fear in society of Muslim terrorists means they can get more control just for the asking. Labor has no balls and will never stand in the way of "security" legislation.
Of course, the fear of Muslim terrorists is deliberately stirred up by politicians too. How many politicians point out we've not had any Muslim terrorist attacks here? None. When commentators (the very, very few honest ones) point this out, politicians fall over themselves talking up the horror of overseas Muslim wars and that's why we should all be sick with fear here. Bastards the lot of them.
I've been lobbying the Australian government for 25 years on freedom of speech, association and censorship issues. As Australia does not have a bill of rights many really bad laws are attempted here so our populace has to be alert all the time. Unfortunately most don't because, lets face it, it's complicated and frustrating work - exactly what the govt. depends on so they have a path of minimum resistance.
Even though I really love Australia, I'll call my country out for being cunts, bottom line really, because I want our culture to evolve into something better. We're the template for modern covert fascism and I'll explain what I've observed in all those years of lobbying.
Years ago companies used to bring their wares to Australia first because we were a good test market for the US at 1/10th the population. That meant they could test marketing campaigns and product here first and figure out how they would sell it. Now I don't know exactly when it started however I think some clever politician figured out they could do that with political campaigns and when they wanted to legislate a new law they could try the shittiest version here then take it to other 5 I countries and pull out the things their bill of rights would not allow.
The latest version I see in the US is refugees, but we've been being cunts to refugees for years. We completely destroy their lives and when we're done making them wait however many years we send them back to where they came from to get tortured and killed. As an Australian, I have to say, I'm totally fucking ashamed.
I really believed in Democracy and I always thought that countries like ours were places where dissidents running from tyranny could come, I thought Australia was a designated protest zone, because freedom is the most important thing. I hope western countries can fix it because their is a lot of really good things about western culture.
And it's not that the everyday person is a bad person, they're not. However I think the time has come when we wake the fuck up and realise we are being deceived, before all western cultures loose this really good thing we have.
I hope you can see this is not bagging western culture it's trying to save it from being corrupted.
All the best to you.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.