Slashdot Mirror
Australia - Censorship Overload
VooVoo writes "The Australian Broadcasting Authority has taken Australia to new heights of ignorance following hot on the soon to be implemented draconian Broadcasting Services Amendment (Online Services) Bill. It has proposed to introduce an access restriction system where Net users will have to supply personal details if they wish to access R-rated material online. (R-rated is softcore and way tamer than X-rated and XXX-rated).
The scheme was announced on October 27 and Australian's have until November 7 to object.
The ABA wants people seeking R-rated or "likely to be classified R by the Classification Board" material to provide their name, address, birth date, email address, and credit card.
Check out what the ABA has to say about it.
"
Sometimes, a picture says a thousand words. :)
that's a funny ad but it's odd that australia would do something like this in regards to the internet. Didn't they have a topless hardware store there at one point?
On another note, I cannot for the life of me see how they can regulate this unless they do like singapore ( i believe ) and put government control on all pipes in and out as well as set regulations to the ISP's. If that is the case aren't they going to loose the tech sector (do they have one?) to such restraints?
"We hope you find fun and laughter in the new millenium" - Top half of fastfood gamepiece
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
However, with the right technology, the Internet could route around censorship. Any interested should take a look at The Freenet Project.
--
Under Australian Law, only people over the age of 18 can obtain a Credit Card (Ie MasterCard, BankCard or Visa). People under the age of 18 can obtain ordinary "Debit" or EFTPOS cards but not Credit Cards. The problem occurs when Johnnie 16 has the VISA logo on his DEBIT card.
THe other interesting and Fun part is that this may contravene Privacy Laws. It may be illegal to keep a register of who is access "R" Rated information as this could be seen as a licence or information that could be deemed harmful if released. You don't need a special PORN licence to by Penthouse!
Also you can get a drivers permit at the age of 16 so even a licence is not fool proof.
The MyTh - I am a figment of the Imagination - [Im Probably even not here]
As each individual is different and we all have our own sets of morals and what offends us and what not (ie I like Carrots, my sister absolutely hates them) The law allows for differences of opionion.
It is what you as an individual under your own choices of morals and conscience take offence to.
The MyTh - I am a figment of the Imagination - [Im Probably even not here]
First of all, just to get things out of the way, you're a dumbass.
Second of all electing a woman for president has nothing to do with the Bill of Rights.
And third of all, no way do I ever vote for someone who didn't have to register for the draft same as I did.
It is most definitely the job of each parent to decide what is/is not appropriate for their children. The government should not be in the business of raising my children. However, the government is in the business of legislating reasonable restrictions to ensure it's not impossible to raise children (yeah, I know, the definition of that term is an entire debate in itself).
Parental responsibility is not the be-all end-all of this discussion. I am more and more dismayed that (at least in America), the growing attitude is if you don't agree to everything, then you are a backward prude. I think it's a dangerous assumption to belittle people simply because they work to maintain a civil society. One in which just changing TV channels doesn't expose your children to concepts they are too young for. (No I don't have cable, and yes, I do monitor my children's viewing. But it doesn't help to make your children play in the yard, when there's sewage flowing down the street and over the curb.)
A poster mentioned "R&J" and Grey's Anatomy. Those are good problems to solve. I don't know the best way to work in a "Parental Checkbox" on this (Shakespear="Yes", Larry Flint="No").
I want to write some more, but probably should exercise my right to retain my job ... by getting back to work.
Anonymous Kevin
PS: Before you jump right in and flame me for simply disagreeing with you. Take a deep breath, and try to raise some children. Then get back to me.
Somebody is still grumpy about getting his ass kicked by a bunch of hillbillies.
And we've had just as much free speech as anywhere else in the world - far more, in fact, than most of the world, including many places where no one would dream of stopping people owning guns.
I couldn't give a fuck what you Americans think about this - the "right" to bear arms is a crock of shit. If you can't come up with a better way to retain your freedom of speech (a little hint here for the intelligence impaired: it starts with a `D' and sounds absolutely identical to `Democracy') then you're probably too stupid to be safe with firearms. And don't try telling me that you need to fight to get democracy in the first place, because that's pure bullshit - Australia, that poor little nation whose citizens you seem to despise so much, never fired a single shot in it's move toward democracy. No, we somehow managed to get there by deciding that we wanted to, working out how we were going to do it, and then _peacefully_ telling Britain that we wanted our independance.
Force of arms is _not_ a necessary precondition for freedom. Nor is the idea that the populace should be able to win a war with it's own government. So please, just shut up. And you might want to consider looking at the history of those nations that have managed to remain peaceful and prosperous without fighting wars left right and center. You can start with Australia, then maybe consider Canada, New Zealand, the UK, most of Scandinavia . . .
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
i'm glad somebody brought this up, because i had the same thought myself. speaking as someone who doesn't have a credit card by choice (and likely never will), this i a frightening thing. why should i have to support a company to be able to verify my identity? the wording is indeed vague, but if it's true, it's absurd at best.
Sorry, we have the Aus Film and Lit. Classification Board who rate our movies and TV: G, PG, M, MA, and R (our R is like your NC-17)
from the conclusion to the above paper
Instead, and without fear tactics or moralist rhetoric, the Government could have instituted a public education campaign informing parents about the need to restrict unsupervised/unfiltered access to the Internet with young children (5-13) and begin a dialogue about personal responsibility and self moderation with older ones (13 and up). As a young person that has grown up in the midst of computers and communication technologies, I believe this would have achieved a much more productive outcome.
I wholeheartedly agree with this. I was having a computer discussion with my somewhat *cough* less computer literate sister. She was discussing how quickly her 4 year old had learned to use their computer. My advice to her was to learn more about the Internet so she could teach her children when the time came. These actions will help keep us from having to legislate behaviour.
The War on Drugs(tm) in the U.S. is a perfect example of how silly it is to try and control content(substances) that your citizens want and will get either way. Fighting against yourself is never productive and leads to a waste of valuable resources. Widely spreading information is the best way to fight these battles, not limiting/controlling/spinning it.
+&x
NA-17 (hard porn) to an R (soft porn) rating,
Neither rating is meant to indicate porn of any kind.
The ratings are based on the MPAA's opinion of the level of sex, drugs, violence, nudity and profanity in the movie. I saw an article at synge.com that stated that the difference between an NC17 rating and an R rating for the movie American Pie was "two pie thrusts". They cut it from 5 to 3, and that was all it took to change the rating. 2 seconds of film. It is because of the moralising of people who equated NC17 with porn that the rating practically does not exist any more.
~ I haven't lost my mind. It's backed up on tape somewhere.
I totally agree. Monachists won't be getting my vote ;)
Why do so many of you seem to think that the only way to achieve and maintain freedom is by force of arms?
Because said method has proven itself in our case to be quick, effective, and entertaining.
Did we ever even dream of fighting a war _against_ Britain? No.
Pussies.
You see, we didn't need to - all we needed to do was ask them, and provide them with what we considered to be a good constitution, which they gladly ratified and set us free to follow our own course
That's because there's nothing in Australia except kangaroos, censors, and whiny little dumbasses.
Why in gods name do you have to try and force your morals, your ideals, your way of life onto the rest of the world?
If you try to bring your fucking god into this discussion, I'm gonna dress up like an Indian and dump your tea in the ocean.
I'd prefer to live with my own mistakes than yours.
I don't think that's your decision.
Next time we choose sides for a war, you crybabies are getting picked last.
> Guns don't solve problems, they create them. Their only valid use: Self Defence by trained
> professionals.
So, if you're not a trained professional (professional what, I might ask?), you've no right to defend your person, your family, or your property from a malevolent other? That sounds to me like you're taking away 99.99% of the population's right to defend itself.
Not to mention that the Constitution secures the right to keep and bear arms to the citizens of the United States. That viewpoint has been backed in other decisions by the Supreme Court, who have stated that the intent of the founders at the time of writing the Constitution should be taken into account when interpreting the words on the paper.
Our founders were prolific writers, and reading their works will give you the guts of their intent in writing the Second Amendment. In short, they made a distinction between the militia and the military. The military, called an Army in the language of the Constitution, was an entity whose purpose was a necessary evil. The founders realized that a powerful military would be a government tool to oppress the citizenry, and therefore included language to prohibit the quartering of troops and the assemblage of a standing army on U.S. soil. This is done to protect us, the citizens, from us, the government.
The "well-regulated militia" was seen as a citizen's check over the power of the military, and was deemed necessary by the founders to ensure the liberty of the citizenry. This viewpoint should not go unnoticed in today's society, where government is all-intrusive and where our rights are being attacked "for the good of the children" and "to further the war on drugs".
> [population control is NOT a yearly "in season" thing!]
How else, then, would you propose to regulate hunting? Hunting of, say, deer, is a necessary evil. Sport hunting kills off about as many deer from the herd as would have been killed in a year by a healthy population of predators (whom we've killed off, and keep driven away). Here in the St. Louis region, the deer herd is out of control. There used to be hunting in the region, and there was no problem with overpopulation. The herd remained healthy, and able to feed without problems and without causing problems for their human neighbors.
We created the problem when we killed off the wolves, and we must steward the animal herds for the sake of proper conservation. Nothing worse than seeing an animal starving, and nothing could be worse than feeding it and making it dependent upon you and a nuisance to yourself and to your neighbors.
Licensed sport hunting (deer tags, etc.) as a means of herd population control is a Good Thing [tm]. It's only in the last ten years or so that it's been thought of as a Bad Thing [tm], and in that time period we've seen a problem with population control in the herds.
I suspect that, while my example pertains to the deer herd in a given area, the principle is the same for other animals and for other areas. We have a moral obligation to the lands and animals that we steward to fill the ecological niche of predator, when we've driven the natural predators of the species in question away for one reason or another.
The Bill of Rights is not the origin of our rights as citizens and as free men in this country. The rights we enjoy are ours as human beings, and are inalienable (check out Locke), endowed upon us by our creator (whomever you choose for that creator to be, even if it be fate). I like to think of these rights as being "human rights", and believe that all men are endowed with these rights, and would like to see all men free to pursue their lives with those freedoms. The only reason, to my mind (and, I might add, to the minds of the nations' founders), that all men all over the world don't have the same rights as we enjoy in the U.S. is that their governments are oppressing them. That is, and should be, cause for revolt by the oppressed.
The Bill of Rights secures those rights to us from the oppressive force of the government.
--Corey
Not only will they not deserve liberty or safety, Mr. Franklin, they will be DENIED both!
The ABA article says that this only applies to "internet content hosted in Australia", so either the Aussies are going to be enjoying top quality USA pr0n, or the topless Sheila's are going to be moving to offshore hosts.
A constitution basically amounts to a contract between the government of a country and that country's people. If the government decides to break that contract somehow then that wonderfully worded and incredibly moving and patriotic constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper.
The whole idea of democracy is that the power in a nation is vested in *the people*, *all the people*, not in some small group, be they the government or some nobles or whatever. Elections are merely a means of delegating that power to a group that's small enough to run a country reasonably practically.
This is something that most Americans seem to have forgotten - no matter how powerful their government might be, that power comes _directly_ from the populace. All the power in a democratic nation is owned by all of the people. If that isn't the case, then that nation isn't really democratic - it just thinks it is. And that seems to be where the US is heading, based on the way that a majority of people don't even vote, and on the number of people who seem to think that the government is some all-powerful group that has to be threatened with armed retaliation in order to stop them doing nasty things to people.
Truth is, the government couldn't give a damn about armed retaliation - they're infinitely more worried about being voted out in the next election. There's your power over the government, and you don't need a gun to use it. Vote! Vote every damn time you get a chance, because if you don't you're abrogating the power that you rightfully have as a member of a democracy - it doesn't matter what rights a constitution gives you, they mean nothing if you don't use them.
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Indeed. Senator Alston is just as conservative
a Catholic as Harradine: he is just more
constrained by his party membership. Basically
the entire Coalition (Liberal and National
parties) has a hard core of ultra-conservative
wowsers who can swing the rest of the party
behind them. (A bit like the Republicans in
the US, I guess.)
Danny.
I have written over 900 book reviews
But, you forget... the Democrat party and the Republican party are not the only parties out there.
I know there aren't any other parties out there. But the way the political and voting systems work, they are the only ones for all practical purposes. It is more beneficial to me personally to vote for which ever of the two big parties is more in line with my views, because if I vote for a third party, most likely that vote is a "waste" and it makes it that more likely that the one I want least is in office.
In fact, I hope to see more and more republicans head on over to the Reform Party. Why? Because if the republican party loses a big block of voters to the reform, then it makes it more likely a democrat will get elected (the lesser of two evils in my mind).
Until they create a voting system that actually allows you to vote for a fringe candidate that fits your ideals perfectly and yet still have an influence on who gets elected, the two party system is going to be what we're stuck with. And there ain't a chance that they'll go about trying to change the system, since it benefits them the most as it is.
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
The MPAA owns the trademark "R" rating... they do not own X or XXX, which in fact are not ratings at all (which is why NC-17 was created). Everyone involved in this should be concerned that they will be sued over using "R" to classify ANYTHING....
How's about every Aussie ISP shuts down for some length of time (Say... 24 hours?) in protest. A lot of them will probably be put out of business by these laws anyway, so them giving their customers a taste of what it'll be like should be in order anyway.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
A poster mentioned "R&J" and Grey's Anatomy. Those are good problems to solve. I don't know the best way to work in a "Parental Checkbox" on this (Shakespear="Yes", Larry Flint="No").
That's because there is no way of just making a checkbox electronically. The computers aren't smart enough to distinguish the two. Only a human being can manage that.
The other problem is that what you thing your kids are too young for, someone else might think is just fine for theirs and vice versa. Since government regulations apply to everyone, you have to either write them to the least restrictive subset or wind up preventing people from making choices they reasonably should be allowed to make. And remember that, while you're reasonable, other people aren't. The US has problems with fanatics who would consider the Mona Lisa part of that "sewage flowing down the street and over the curb", and the US isn't the worst in the world I'm afraid. When thinking of government regulations on content, think first of the most fanatical, uptight, prudish, irrational bunch you can imagine, and then ask yourself if you want them able to dictate to you what you can allow your child to see. Because, frankly, that's the bunch that'll take full advantage of a law like this to do precisely that.
How is this anything other than a superficial gesture of human rights?
-A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
As for Oz implementing some sort of Age Verification system - I'm all for it. I hate censorship but then again :)
I do think that certain material should be withheld from minors. What constitutes "certain material" is another
question altogether though
Well, maybe the "age verification" and censorship should be done at the recepient's end. The Internet community is not your children's babysitter. Something to think about before you give your kids unsupervised access to the Internet.
... as long as people can be bothered to do so.
:-) I would hold that it is still possible to get around a system such as the australian government is trying to implement, but as I said in my original post, people will need to be bothered to do so.
You are right of course, but don't you think that's a little implicit
A little planning goes a long way...
The article doesn't say that the government is the one collecting this information. The content providers themselves do this. (Mind you, it sounds like the gov. has the right to look at your records any time someone makes a "complaint", so this may be a pointless distinction in reality, see my rant below)
The article also doesn't say anything about requiring a credit card as part of the registration process -- it simply provides that as one possiblility (the others being a "digital signature -- whatever that gets legislated to mean -- or a standard government ID).
Now that I've shown that it's not as bad as it seems, I'll tell you why it's worse than it looks...
The scary thing is (well, the first scary thing, there are a few) the way this is likely to work in the real world. It costs money to run a "registration service", especially if there are government-defined hoops you need to jump through. A lot of people will just decide that it isn't worth it, and pull their information off the web. The sad part is that these will most likely be the non-profits and artistic sites, not the "Cum-guzzling teen sluts" (register that, you bastards!) that most (uninformed) people where thinking about when they passed this law.
The scary thing (part 2 in a series) is that even the people who stay online and register users are unlikely to maintain the databases themselves -- they'll contract out to another company (like AdultCheck). Competition will slowly drive most of these companies out of business. Then there are maybe a half dozen companies with the keys to our privacy. And these companies depend on their government licence to stay in business. So when the police ask for "just a peek" into the database (without a warrant, of course), they'll have the implicit them down if they say no.
The (third and final) scary thing about this is that the list of offensive material is likely to be a lot longer than most (again, uninformed) people think. This isn't just about "pornography"! This is where the online community is failing in its education efforts. Most people love this kind of law. Whenever you can say "but, what about the children", you've automatically got most of the public on your side. (see "drug war", "gun control", "COPA" for details) It takes a lot of activism on our part to counteract that.
There is one major benefit of this legislation for the linux community. All of these registered users will be counted in the new W2K server pricing model, driving prices up dramatically and forcing even more webmasters to dump their IIS for Linux/Apache!
Anyway being an AU citizen, (and about to send an email to the board to ask exactly *how* they intend on implementing this - i cant wait to fall over laughing at this one).
problem is .. theres not a lot we *can* do other than object, the bill has come about as its a compromise to keep a elderly senator with 'save the children views' voting for the government.. pathetic.. isnt it?
as for removing the right to carry firearms, well.. theres been what.. 7 mass shootings in the US in 6mths, 0 here.. sure we might not be able to get to our daily porn sites, but damn, its nice not to worry about geting mown down by some maniac with a semi-automatic firearm.
dms0
one day ill bother to create an account...
You might want to reread the US Bill of Rights, since you obviously misunderstand the first amendment.
The government did nothing to change the content of Eyes Wide Shut. The changes were made by the director to avoid an X rating by the MPAA (a private entity).
The US Bill of Rights prevents the government from saying "change the film." It doesn't prevent a third party from saying "change the film, or we we'll give it an 'X' rating"
The reason why the media (which is ~90% owned by two or three giant corporations) has been quiet may have something to do with the bill putting small content providers out of business (due to excessive legal and criminal liabilities) and handing the online content industry on a silver platter to the only companies which can afford to hire armies of censors -- i.e., Packer, Murdoch and the likes.
Australia (im australian) goes to the polls on the weekend do consider constitiutional change.
The changes in the constitution are to sever remaining ties with England.
We should say no, we NEED others to follow, we need to seek the guidence of other countries to help form sensible policies. Decisions like this proove we cannot stand on our own two feet.
If only we were going to the polls to vote on wether Australians had the right to privacy, or the right to free speeech or something.
This confirms Australias status as the "Global Village Idiot"
your right you don't know what your talking about, and yes you are talking rubbish
The angle of the Dangle is equaly proportional to the heat of the beat. ---Beavis
ARGH! It's enough to make you wanna scream. :)
Right now we're on the cusp of referendum to become a republic. The big point of contention is the method for electing the president. The proposal before us has the parliment electing the president and the prime mister being able to dismiss the president more or less on a whim.
Sounds grand doens't it? Damn it though if one more talking head says "if you can't trust your politicians who can you trust" I'm gonna go balistic. Seems to me anyone with an ounce of good sence knows people in power can't be trust. Period.
This latest insult is just more salt in the in the wound. Hoo-fucking-rah.
End Rant.
... with eskimo chains i tatto my brain all the way...
If you really believe that the USA has more freedoms and rights for citizens than any other country then you are a complete idiot. In Sweden for example you can own a hunting rifle if you get a license and take a training course (i believe that is correct at least) but you can't own hand guns. Is that really so restrictive? However, in my town (in the USA) it is illegal for anybody under 21 to drink alcohol, it is illegal for anybody to smoke cigarettes in any business (including bars!) or parks, I can't hear swear words on the radio (thanks FCC fuckheads!), I almost couldn't get into the Southpark movie because I didn't have my ID with me (I'm much older than 17 btw), and I can be sentenced to death if convicted of certain crimes. The truth is america is comparable to most european countries in terms of freedoms. there are many differences from country to country (that often shock people used to their own laws), but overall your rights are similar.
I wans't attempting to be derogatory. Hell, I just noticed I mispelled lose in my post. I am usually the least Americentric person around. What I actually meant was if the tech sector was as big as, say, Japan or Valley. thanks for the rebuke. ;)
"We hope you find fun and laughter in the new millenium" - Top half of fastfood gamepiece
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Not true, the Australian system has a High Court which is similar to the American Supreme Court. Its function is to test that the laws made by a government are within the spirit of the Australian constitution eg. the recent Mabo (sp!) case where the High court ruled that the Federal govt. law on native land rights to be unconstitutional
Violence - some of it is tageted at kidds in cartoons - OK?
Brainwashing advertizing - OK? Do even kids know nowdays what a "restaurant" is?
Mobil phone towers in schoolyards - OK? We know they do not cause cancer... the people who mad it said so!
Why would legislators care about kids? They do not vote! If they would, perhaps they would allocate some money on school education!
What they care about is that this scores a lot of points with those who - by the look of it - still controll the mind of people.
Anyone from a county where majoroty's mind is not controlled by a few (via the church or a political party)?
What is it with guns and Americans?
Historical reasons mostly: had to kill the natives to take the land, had to kill the British to get away from them, had to kill the animals to eat, etc. We're a bloody group of people.
Why do so many of you seem to think that the only way to achieve and maintain freedom is by force of arms?
Mostly due to a historical (and still current) complete lack of trust in our own government. Some of us view the U.S. government agencies as a bunch not far removed from the Nazis, and distrust both their motives and their methods. Periodically the government provides various events as evidence to continue this distrust.
Are you completely impervious to the lessons of history, in places like India (everyone seems to revere Ghandi as some kind of demi-god, but they conveniently forget that he taught people a way to achieve freedom _without_ using force), and in Australia, too.
Impervious, no... just not as selective as some. Violence has been part and parcel of the history of mankind -- part of the reason Ghandi is so rightfully revered is that he was such an exception to the usual violent methods used by so much of mankind. But gaining freedom from a far off empire is a completely different story from keeping freedom from your moronic next-door-neighbor who isn't going to go away. Oh... and wasn't Ghandi murdered?
We were once a penal colony, ruled by Britain; now we're a free, sovereign nation who are on the verge of cutting the last of our ties with Britain. Did we ever even dream of fighting a war _against_ Britain? No. You see, we didn't need to - all we needed to do was ask them, and provide them with what we considered to be a good constitution, which they gladly ratified and set us free to follow our own course.
Gee, we didn't even want freedom from Britian at first, we just wanted a few seats in Parliment -- like they'd given to Scotland a few decades before that. Funny, they weren't so nice to us... amazing what a difference a couple of hundred years can make.
Please, will someone explain to me why this kind of thing is so hard for Americans to accept? Is there something in your psyche that makes you blind to the possibility that things do not have to be done exactly as you did them? That there might be other ways of life that are just as valid, and possibly more so, than your own?
Well, *I* accept that. The world would be a boring place if everywhere and everyone were like the U.S. Ugh.
Why in gods name do you have to try and force your morals, your ideals, your way of life onto the rest of the world?
I don't. Most Americans don't either... most don't care about anything beyond the borders, really. It's just that the ones that DO care tend to go into the government (see why a lot of us don't like our government?) and go bother a lot of people overseas. I don't understand it either, really. They give the rest of us a bad name. But may I ask this: why do you listen? When an American comes to tell you how to live, laugh in his face and tell him to bugger off. (Or whatever local cursing is most effective.)
Please, leave us to make our own way, without having to slavishly bow down before _your_ gods and heroes. We are not part of your country, nor do we want to be - we want to make our own decisions, and do things the way that we see fit. I'd prefer to live with my own mistakes than yours.
[shrug] Fine by me. Just please don't confuse what Americans want with what the American government wants. Perhaps more than anywhere else in the world, they are NOT the same.
I've heard much complaining for several years about how America forces other countries to do this or that... I've always wondered why. Seriously. Tell our government to shove it, and do as you see fit. The world *would* be a better place.
You say 91% dont want the queen as head of state.
You dont mention that only 13% agree with the 2/3 majority presidential election method.
Australia has had good stable government (with the occasional stupid decision) for 100 years.
Changing to a system where the watchdog (president) is elected by all parties coming together and mututally agreeing on something wont work. We will end up with some half-baked idiot thats elected because of some back room deal, similar to the way we got this censorship deal.
We need NEED the queen to be head of state, we NEED the head of state to be
- Someone who has power in there own right (so they cannot be unduely influenced by others).
- Honourable (If they do the wrong thing theyl
- Someone who wont abuse the power they are given
The Queen currently fits the bill pretty well, time may come when the british monarchy cannot fullfill the job, until that day why not let em keep doin it.
People say it should be an Australian, i think it would be good to have an Australain do the job, but thats not to say that only an Australain can do the job. Why limit the eligibility to an Australain?
The PM will always have some power over all Australians, the PM cannot threaten the Queen, if it came to the crunch an we elected a truely evil PM the monarchy would be in a better position to say it how it is than an australian who has "other" factors to consider.
I have a friend who lives in Sweden and is absolutely terrified by school system there ...
Basically, once kids enter the school they belong to the state and parents have no real influence on their education. If that is true then it does suck.
If this goes on there will be a hole in the Internet where .au used to be.
Come on Australia, get real!!
You'll have to forgive me, getting riled about the very Amerocentric tone to 99.5% of posts!
In absolute terms, no, not as big as either. Relatively? Quite large. You have to remember Australia is about 98% the size of America, with 8% the people. So actually, maybe even a little larger. Two major "guarantees" of employment: CCIE (as with anywhere) and *sigh* MCSE :)
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Australia has always been on the edge of the censorship issue, and it is really no surprise to seem the placing the same draconian limits on the Internet that they have been known to do in traditional media.
Makes one appreciate our bill of rights here in the US.
--
William X. Walsh - Email: william@dso.net
Editor of http://www.dnspolicy.com/
Yeah, well here in the U.S. when our children go to school, our teachers turn their classes over to the drug police, so the children can learn bigotry toward drug users and how to turn their parents in to the police. We call it D.A.R.E.
These things scare me. Every time a bell rings, somebody around the world loses some rights. The US looks at this and says "Oh my, thats terrible" When very well, it could happen to us. This is something even American Politicians would support (However, I don't see why). Its bound to fail no matter what however. You can't watch everybody. Big Brother won't be Big enough.
Did she have to wear a veil over her face?
Quite wrong. A good friend of mine helped to get that law overturned in this jurisdiction!
UK libel laws do act to ban free speech, because in the UK, truth is not a defense to libel. For example, if I say, "You're a bastard", and you were in fact born to an unmarried woman, there is no possibility of libel in the U.S. because I spoke the truth - an absolute defense. In the U.K., I can still be sued and lose, because, though I spoke the truth, my speech still tended to defame your character.
In fact, "true" libel receives harsher punishments than "false" libel for the very fact that it is true makes it more strongly defamatory. This allows public figures to sue any time they receive harsh, yet true, criticism of their public actions, and therefore discourage people from criticizing their government.
The UK and U.S. libel laws are very, very different. Do not confuse them.
--
Michael Sims-michael at slashdot.org
I'm puzzled, and worried, by what appears to be very vague wording, even for an intitial draft.
An electronic application requires either credit card details, or a digital signature. A requirement for these is an excluding measure, which removes web access from those citizens who don't have credit cards - it leads to an information-impoverished underclass, built from an already economically disadvantaged section of society.
Fortunately the paper-based application doesn't appear to require credit cards, as other proof of age is accepted. However, we then read that such applications may be invalidated if "credit transaction is not approved by relevant credit provider".
Does this mean that credit cards are still required ?
Does it mean that registration also requires a fee to be paid ? (and if not, who does fund this huge scheme ?)
I liked the movie. I admit that Satan's penis didn't have to be shown all over the place, but it was kind of funny if you could get past the grossness of it all. The Bill Gates moment was the best -- worth all 7 dollars. As for George's 7 famous words, fuck the FCC and the NSA. Oh, and be sure to include key words in your posts like... o0v0b0y0b0t0v0p0n0y j1r1n1c1b1a1f n2f2f2n2f2v2a2n2g2v2b2a n3h3g3b3-3f3r3y3s3-3q3r3f3g3e3h3p3g p4b4z4z4n4a4q4r4e4-4v4a4-4p4u4v4r4s c5b5g5h5f s6o6v p7v7n z8b8e8g8n8y x9b9z9o9n9g x0b0z0e0n0q0r h1s1b p2r2b k3r3a3b3a q4r4s4p4b4a j5n5e a6f6n s7e7r7r7q7b7z y8v8s8r y9b9i9r y0v0o0r0e0g0l o1y1b1b1q t2b2e2r q3r3f3g3e3h3p3g3v3b3a o4b4z4o y5v5o5r5e5n5y w6h6q6v6p6v6n6y f7r7a7n7g7r e8r8c8e8r8f8r8a8g8n8g8v8i8r v9e9n9a v0e0n0t p1y1n1f1f1v1s1v1r1q o2n2p2g2r2e2v2n c3u3n3e3z3n3p3b3y3b3t3v3p3n3y a4r4h4e4n4y a5r5g a6h6p6y6r6n6e
The knee-jerk reaction I've just seen to this is not what I expect from slashdot.
First, this is not a censorship law. It is an age-verification scheme. The distinction is that the 'censorship' part is already enacted under other legislation, (especially the On-line Services Act of recent fame) restricting the sale of pornography to those 18 or over. (Legal adulthood in this country) which ALREADY applies to any physical vendor in this country. And yours, I'd bet.
This official declaration (not a law. there's a difference, though not much of one) is a direct result of using a bad argument against censorship. Learn from it. Basically, ISP's said 'we can't restrict content, because there's no way to verify age!' To which the legislators said 'Sure there is.' and this is the result. And it would work, if everyone was honest.
The present legislation already says that Rated content must be restricted behind some sort of access-control system. This document just defines what, technically, that means.
Will it work? No. Does it have much effect? No. Porn sites already ask for Credit Card details, from which the rest of the information is obtainable. The reason they ask for it again is to (a) cater for the situations where someone might be legitimately using another's credit card, and (b) so that the 'declaration of correctness' means more more than 'this credit card number is correct'. Still doesn't stop Johnny from using dad's identity.
Some things you've overlooked. This is a technical spec, and it's a pretty good one. (Leaving aside the moral issues for a moment) Privacy implications are catered for. It allows for digital signatures. It knows about cookies! It's what any of us would come up with if asked to design something similar. There is evidence here of a clue on the part of the ABA. That in itself is interesting.
And to be fair to the ABA, it's not their fault. They have been legally required to do this. And within those bounds, they've acted fairly honourably, despite the impossible position they've been put in. From what I've seen, the ABA isn't very keen on doing this job, since they know what a mess it's going to be. (I've got a lot of unrelated beefs with the ABA on spectrum issues, though.)
The recommendation itself is OK. It's a decent, well though out age verification scheme. And though it can't actually work, it performs the social task of telling kids that maybe they're doing something naughty. Never stopped them before, but at least they're aware, and that seems to be the point.
And it admirably performs the job for which it was written: site operators will know exactly the minimum they have to do to keep the government off their backs.
So, don't get mad at this. Get mad at the On-Line Services Act which goes into effect Jan 1st. This is just the spec for how to do passwords. The Act is what sends you to jail for not doing them, and tries to bulk censor international content even for legal adults.
Jeremy Lee | Orinoco
>Big Brother is alive, well, well loved in England. And his name is Tony Blair. However, STOP BLOODY SAYING ENGLAND WHEN YOU MEAN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
and Austraila used to be a penal colony, ironic indeed.
Put another privacy right on the barbie, eh mates?
;>)
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
Your right..let me rephrase that. If I am hard up enough to absolutely have to look at boobies(soft porn, babes, what ever you want to call it) It seems rather redundant that the government would restrict my right to view it over the net, but would allow anyone, including minors, to view it on a public beach.
geting mown down by some maniac with a semi-automatic firearm.
Actually it was a maniac with 17 legally held weapons. Why he thought he needed all of them I don't know.
Please email the above address and tell the #$%#^ing broadcasting authority they've been watching too much TV and it's softened the brain!
It sounds like a completely unworkable system, but knowing what has happened in the past in Australia, it is likely to remain "on the books", unenforced, and used as a threat, or as a justification for persecution and discrimination.
I've got news for ya: It's been many years since it was illegal for a woman to be president (if it was ever)... Get into the 1900's, man!
Wether there a woman worthy of being president ever runs is another question. No, that wasn't very PC, but up until now, there have been no woman presidents because, either:
a). There were none to elect
b). They wouldn't have made a good leader
c). It was before 1970...
We had a female leader (Prime Minister) in Canada once. She was voted out VERY harshly for her imcompetence... She lasted 8 months as a stand in for a Prime Minister that couldn't hack it (Brian Mulroney). Just like men, there are some women that can hack it, and some that can't. Don't expect the first woman to run as president to win. She might suck for the position, and be hoping to get in on the PC (not Progressive Conservative) "sympathy" vote. That won't ever work.
Come to Australia! It's a great place to raise a family...all the cells are nicely padded. No sharp corners, nowhere to bump baby's little head. Thank heavens for invasive government. Who ever suckered me into a deal where I pay morons to give me things I didn't ask for, take away everything I did, and tell me what I can't do? Glad I voted in the last election, really made me feel like my vote makes a difference.
actually, the bill was very much about politicking and not particularly about any real government objections to freedom on the internet.
The deal basically was that the government needed support of an independent senator to pass the bill to sell off of another part of the mostly government owned telecommunications giant, Telstra. This was going to the government squillions of dollars, so getting the ultra-conservative senator on-side was pretty much the key here. This guy is also highly anti-pornography and i suspect doesn't have much idea about this little fad called the Internet, bar that it has lotsa naughty pictures on it. This bill was introduced pretty much entirely to make this guy join sides with the government and let them sell off Telstra. So in another words, one senator, who hails from the tiniest state in Australia in which (correct me if i'm wrong) they are so backward that homosexuality is still illegal. Surely most states would have gotten over that by now...
There seems to also be a bit of a moan and groan about how the Australian public haven't really joined forces to rally against this. I think one of the main reasons is that being so "laid back" we don't seem to really notice this creeping in. I mean i haven't heard anything about this for months now in the mainstream press; it's hardly big news. The general consensus in the public, I think, is that the bill is so unworkable and vague that nothing's really going to be done about it. Even the opposition party admitted that it was just a worthless token bill to suck up to the senator (who i STILL can't remember the name of...). Apathy seems all that it deserves...
But basically the chances of this bill really making any practical difference is virtually ziltch
The name of the cocksmile politician is Brian Harradine. From Tasmania of course.
I picked up a copy yesterday :)
#define RANT_MODE
The Online Censorship Bill was the result of a grubby little compromise between the government and a independent Senator from Tasmania who happened to hold the balance of power in the Senate at the time. The guy is a fanatical Catholic and is constantly trying to ban porn, restrict access to abortions and contraception, and generally demonstrate what a wowser he can be. The government was trying to get a tax bill through the Senate, and they needed this guy's vote. Hence, from absolutely nowhere, this ridiculous Bill was rushed through.
#endif
What most people in Australia seem to have conveniently forgotten is that Harradine (the Tasmanian Senator) is not the only backer of this legislation. A group within the current Liberal Party (conservatives) known as the Lyons Forum are just as much behind this. Harradine is a convenient smokescreen for their conservative (extreme religious) agenda.
http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/lyons.html has more information.
As a australian university sysadmin I have a fairly large budget devoted to a web-presence that I didn't even consider investing in australia. I am not prepared to deal with any sort of filtering nightmare through our anonymous ftp presence. Outsourced web hosting seemed to be the better option. While this legislation should not have any direct impact on the material we host it may well drive up hosting prices through aussie ISPs who need to meet the costs of filtering and/or loss of business as more clients move overseas. As a result we point our clients to a .au site that is actually hosted in texas. I suspect that my decision making process may be fairly representative of australian sysadmins in the near future.
Can't they think of something better, like a license number or something, I don't own a credit card, and I certainly wouldn't use one on-line, but if I wanna access material that is 'to sensitive' or 'to adult' for some ppl, why can't I just enter my license number instead? That would be good age verification. hmph.
'Sometimes I think about killing myself, no, wait, that's you.' -- Jack Handy
The above comments deserve to be moderated up significantly. Too many European and Australian /.'ers seem to assume that the USA is a monolithic horde of single-minded fanatics bent on subverting the rest of the world's culture and politics. This is not even remotely the case, but it makes for good self-righteous rants on Slashdot.
I must say I was completely disheartened when I and many other Australians sent articles and links to slashdot well before the initial bill was passed in the hope that it could encourage people from around the world to convey their disgust to the Australian Parliament, only to find that nothing (absolutely nothing) was mentioned on Slashdot until _after_ the bill was passed, making the entire thing totally pointless.
The only reason the bill passed was because most of the politicians voting for it thought that it would do nothing more than a very effective job of halting the flow of porn to unsupervised Australian children. Why they're unsupervised is perhaps more troubling...
Nobody in the international community did anything at all until after the bill was passed, and the problem with that is that such things won't be reviewed without cause. That is, _after_ any ISP with fewer than 10000 users gets dragged underwater by the weight of higher bandwidth costs, required proxying and filtering, and customer dissatisfaction.
Australia has grasped the cause of the internet. It has one of the highest usage rates per capita in the world, and living in Sydney I can tell you there's rarely a commercial on television that doesn't inclue a URL or email address, and alot of those sites are maintained by smaller ISPs or developed by small-time web design companies. This bill will not just restrict our freedom, it will take away our jobs and our passion for the industry, and I can't help but think that a few thousand emails from slashdot readers could've given these idiot politicians a vague idea that it wasn't just what they assumed were providers of pornographic content (but were merely concerned Australians) that saw this as a bad thing.
Not correct.
The difference is that in the US the author is in the clear unless the plaintiff can prove that the author knew the statement was false and published regardless.
In the UK the burden of proof is reversed: the author has to prove that their statement is true; moreover it is not a defence merely that they had reasonable grounds to believe it at the time.
This of course makes libel very much harder for the author to defend. But trying to prove the truth of their statements did enable the McLibel defendants to force McDonalds to disclose an enormous pile of embarrassing documents.
Other defences are fair comment on a matter of public interest, and certain other exemptions such as parliamentary privilege.
FUD- that's what it all comes down to.
The FUD of internet censorship ("Somebody PLEASE think of the children", "Teenagers are blowing limbs off").
The FUD of the republic ("Major constitutional change", "A new constitution [yes, they talk crap]", "Do you want the same thing to happen here as in East Timor")
I am 17. I can't vote this weekend. I know more about the preposed changes then most adults I have spoken to. My well studied YES opinion is worthless, because I don't deserve a vote.
I haven't blown off any limbs recently (weird, i'm sure thats what people my age do wiht the internet). Yet, I, and people my age, get blaimed for the "internet misuse".
Australia is headed to 2 major mistakes (understated), and they are both created by lies and FUD. How can so many people be fooled by so few? This country is run with lies!
Thats why I read mine newest post first, flat
. I would bet that one day, some porn movie theater in the US will show it uncensored, though...
Really? Can I take you up on that?
I've seen porno films, I've seen the Americanized version of Eyes Wide Shut, and they are nothing alike.
I think anyone going to their local porno and getting an uncut Eyes Wide Shut will be severely disappointed, and probably demand their money back.
To sum it up, there's little wanking material in Eyes Wide Shut, so unless the cut scenes were 1 hour and 40 minutes of XXX action, the uncut one will be just as wank-free.
That said, the idea that seeing people nude and engaged in intercourse, with thier genitals hidden or unobvious is so dangerous to American mores that clumsy digital tricks had to be used to prevent this repulses me. Has any international slashdot readers seen an uncut Eyes to comment?
George
I'd like to be able to log in and view these posts, especially the ones stuck on the "2nd page" where no one apparently goes to read, and moderate this up at least to 2 for being informative and insightful.
This poster has an excellent point and it's sad most people won't read it since it's on the second page. (That's usually where all the well thought out posts will go, after the initial hysteria hits on page 1!)
some kind gentlemen was nice enough to link to a html version on a russian server once .. i would take this opportunity to thank him for it :)
Now that big brother seems to be raising his ugly head in other parts of the world, it leads me to ponder a "work-around" to him. Off Shore banking has helped people shelter thier money from taxes, garnishments etc. Now will we start seeing off shore web hosting where for a nominal fee you can set up a web site hosted in a independant country free of the laws that govern web hosting in your country? If that is the case, will we start to see country A trying to regulate country B's web content? Or will Country A start to tighten it's hold on it's population? Which begs the question of when will someone come out with a way to circumvent the restrictions on websites? Makes my head hurt.
GIHM -The light at the end of the tunnel is only the oncoming train.
> Guns have won and protected freedom. if that's all guns have won you then i'll gladly take sedond prize.
It says: "credit card or digital signature". Tell me if I'm wrong, but surely there's a problem of who verifies these digital signatures to set up a trust chain between the ABA, the site and you?
Is it not the case that I can just go out and generate a "digital signature" (at least in the PGP sense of using my private key to encrypt something) corresponding to any identity I choose to assume?
Or do I not understand digital signatures?
Gerv
Well, seems like someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. I'm not even going to bother asking what it is about us "fucking yanks" that pisses you off so much, I'm just going to address a few points that I feel the need to, after my standard disclaimer.
(Disclaimer: Skullhunter does not, nor does he claim to speak for all of America, as he has not yet succeded in taking it over)
Okay, now that I got that out of the way, let's start with point one.
"Why do so many of you seem to think that the only way to achieve and maintain freedom is by force of
arms?"
Okay, first thing, I hate blanket statements. I personally don't think that that's the only way to achieve and maintain freedom, and I am sure I am not the only one. But I do realize that it is a viable option. There is nothing harder to subdue than an armed populace. And yes, today's modern military does have weapons that make civilian arms look pathetic, but that same modern military would probably be a bit wary of trying to fight an entrenched civilian population. Not the best option, but still an option.
"Are you completely impervious to the lessons of history"
No, nobody is, whether they choose to acknowledge them or not. After all, "Those who forget the mistakes of history are condemned to repeat them." Yes, Ghandi's example was a wonderful one for all, one that was followed in more recent times by Dr. Martin Luther King, another great man. But there is another lesson of history that some people, like myself, are also not impervious to, and that is this: The most important act of any totalitarian regime is to remove from the populace the tools of self-determination. Limit what they can read or view, and the people can't speak out or hear dissenting opinions. Limit their movement and travel, and they cannot escape. Take guns and other weapons from their hands, and they cannot resist. Since you use historical example to try and prove your point, so shall I. One of the first acts of the Nazi regime in Germany was to confiscate all firearms that were owned by people with "Jewish-sounding" surnames. Coincidence? Not likely. And the example can be taken back even further; the ruling class of feudal japan decreed that no one but the samurai, the elite warrior caste, could own swords. Ownership of such a weapon by a commoner was usually punishable by death.
"Did we ever even dream of fighting a war _against_ Britain? No. You see, we didn't need to - all we needed to do was ask them, and
provide them with what we considered to be a good constitution, which they gladly ratified and set us free to follow our own course. "
Well, we tried that. Apparently the rulers of England back then were a bit more upset about the idea of losing control of one of their protectorates, and decided to press the issue. We made them pay dearly for it, and we also paid in the lives of our countrymen. But I'm very happy that your change of government went more peacefully than ours.
"Why in gods name do you have to try and force your morals, your ideals, your way of life onto
the rest of the world? "
I personally don't try to force anything on anyone. Most people I know could honestly care less about what you folks are up to, unless it affects us. But, this new censorship law DOES affect us. It sets an international precedent, and what's more it gives a lot of fat-assed lazy politicians funny ideas about feel-good legislation that they can make a name for themselves with, at the expense of the very people they're supposed to be working for. So you'll pardon us for having an opinion about it.
"Please, leave us to make our own way, without having to slavishly bow down before _your_ gods and heroes. We are not part of your
country, nor do we want to be - we want to make our own decisions, and do things the way that we see fit. I'd prefer to live with my own
mistakes than yours. "
No, you're not part of our country, so despite your vitriolic verbosity, our ability as a people to affect the policy of your nation is nonexistant. But the ability of your nation's policies to eventually affect us as a people is very, very real.
"But all too often these days I find myself absolutely _HATING_ America and how they interact with the rest of the world. It's not
much fun, believe me"
Then don't do it. Hate is a blinding, wasted emotion, especially when applied to a pretty damn large group of people that you don't know.
Skullhunter
> -- try to take over the country and millions > have the means to kill you. > Ahh yes, the old "one gun - one vote" system. You gotta love it!
Orwall is 1999!!
this is insane!
If you want to see the uncensored Eyes Wide Shut in the US, feel free to import it from another country on home video when it comes out. That is legal.
It was cut up not because of laws, but because the MPAA said it had to be so to be shown in American Movie Houses without a X rating (these are private entities, and may do as they wish). This does not mean viewing of the X rated version is illegal... Just you won't get to enjoy it in your average movie theater. I would bet that one day, some porn movie theater in the US will show it uncensored, though...
Thought this might be of interest, got this from the SAGE-AU mailing list from an original post on the Electronic Frontiers Australia list. Raises an interesting point Re: increased bandwidth costs for Au ISPs:
h tml
--Begin Fw--
The ABA has issued a 'Consultation Paper' containing draft
specifications/criteria for restricted access systems for sites providing
content that is (or is likely to be) classified R. A copy is available at:
http://www.efa.org.au/Publish/ABAconspaper_ras.
Closing date for comments is Tuesday 9 November 1999.
The proposed system requires adults wishing to access material that is
unsuitable for children on Australian sites, to provide significant
personal details to register to access a site. After registering and
obtaining a PIN or password, on each access to the site, the user must
enter their allocated PIN or password together with their date of birth.
It seems highly unlikely that most users will be willing to provide
sensitive personal details to web site operators, as such information could
then be used for blackmail, personal or professional exposure, fraud and
predatory behaviour, etc.
These provisions appear designed to silence sites in Australia providing
material unsuitable for children (which includes considerably more material
than "porn" and violence). As R rated sites outside Australia are not
subject to any potential action by the ABA, sites will move offshore in
order to maintain an Australian and international audience. ISPs will face
higher bandwidth costs as more content is drawn from overseas and will lose
income from hosting services to overseas ISPs/ICHs.
---End Fw---
No, this s just bullshit. I am sick and tired of having to correct people on slashdot with huge opinions and no facts behind them. Haradine (the independent to which Goonie is referring) did not vote for the tax package. Another balance of power party, the left-leaning Democrats voted it in. And they voted against the internet censorship bill. And they voted against it long after it was clear that the internet censorship bill was going to get through. The bill was not, as previous posts have suggested - one senator's 'crusade'. Much more worryingly, it was put together by a committee containing members from several sides.
Believe with me, my saplings.
The scandinavian contries are generally more relaxed when it comes to public rights.
In Denmark it is legal to buy and drink alcohol when you are 15.
But we restrict the use of guns VERY MUCH, and that is IMNHSO a very good thing(tm). We don't have kids blowing each others heads off in high school. (Of course we can't prevent the occasional mad man) So all in all, fewer guns, means fewer people dead by them
I think the US might be in for an upgrade or an overhaul.
Michael Wulff Nielsen
Gun owners do not feel the need to be apologetic about their rights. When the KKK gets their parade in NYC, do people in the press sulk around, afraid to exercise their freedom to speak?
Anyway, to the topic, I think the Aussie public will eventually give this one a good fight and win. Idiot anachronistic polititians have to die sometime, though having sold your soul tends to prolong your life, it seems. -kabloie
It's in times like this I'm glad that I live in Denmark. I don't even have to be 18 to buy X rated magazines (at least I haven't heard it should be illegal).
Sometimes I wonder if those persons who makes this kind of laws believe that their own body is ugly, and then imposes restrictictions on other peoble, so that these peoble wont know any different.
Now I just wonder when it will be illegal to give birth to a child "because it could offend someone".
VPS-like shared hosting, on under-crowded servers.
I'll admit this guy may have gone a little overboard, but you seem to jus blame the entire thing on your government... why?
perhaps it's just the pervasiveness of your culture which has been forced upon so many for so long is finally beginning to be questioned.
You blame the government, but you put them in office. That is not to say they are faultless, but you have to take some responsibility.
If more poeple acting cared enough to vote, perhaps you would get more people in office who cared about what you wanted.
PacketOfCrisps
Yes, they will be so busy whacking off to porn, theyll forget to fuck. Ha ha. Ha.
It's a good thought for a poll, actually. I've read 1984, Animal Farm, and Homage to Catalonia. I think in this case seeing the movie might be thought to count, though. :)
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
It's very important to these self righteous yankies to feel that the rest of the world is sheer hell compared to their hiding place. Just like it is very important to them to believe that they are the only place on earth that has changed somewhat in the last 50 years, and that the USA is the only place on earth where people are free. Don't try to explain to them that to our standards the US is practically a christian fundamentalist state, they have very little political and personal freedom, and their political system essentially not only legalises corruption, but glorifies and requires corruption, they can't possibly see. Just like you can't possibly see the earth is round if you only look at it from one spot, and you can't possibly look at your neighbour's face if you have your head up your arse.
And these poeple could't possibly be employed in another non-polluting industry? You don't think that if we made significant investments (say a millionth of the US defense budget) in, for example solar power and made it feasable, that the industry that established might employ some people. Of course some pain will be involved, but our kids and their neighbors, and their kids and neighbors (etc) might have a future.
Hey! It works for me (and I don't even own a gun). In all seriousness, I was very much a supporter of restrictive gun legislation in the US, especially after living several years in Europe with its relatively low crime rate, its relaxed drug and alcohol policies, and pleasant cosmopolitan outlook.
However, events in Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo have brought about a 180 degree change in my opinions. Specifically, I find it very interesting that Montenegro (which does have an armed populace) hasn't yet been decimated by the Serbs, yet the others have. There is something to be said about making such repressive activities expensive for the oppressor, and while guns may not enable a populace to claim military victory against a well equipped, modern army, they can make using such a military for such purposes prohibitively expensive in terms of resources and soldiers' lives. Given a number of other disturbing trends in the United States today with respect to privacy, freedom of speach, etc., that particular check and balance, however dubious, is IMHO becoming ever more important.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
"#define RANT_MODE" :)
"#endif"
Do you, by any chance, have trouble compiling your code?
OFTC: By the community, for the community
There are two main sticking points in the censorship law, whether you like the idea or not.
one: you must use an 'approved' filter, and if you don't your ISP must filter your connection for you and can charge you for it. Linux users may start saving now since no Linux filtering scheme is even being considered.
two: you cannot store your 'possibly' illegal content overseas, because the regulations make the ISP responsible for what you access.
It should be noted, the UK had a case where they court decided that even though the content of a site was hosted overseas, the owner was a local and was therefore under the jurisdiction of the local laws.
The censorship laws are going to kill the internet, because they even have the right to filter your email, and if you use SSL connections they can be terminated if there is a suspicion you are accessing illegal material. I watch jennicam and there is often scenes which would be bannned under the new laws, so I guess I will be denied Jennis' smiling face.
Also as a funny aside, the source code for the Linux kernel is littered with swear words that would make it restricted.
Of course I'll read your SPAM, if you can reach that far up your ass to get it.
we all know what guns can do (e.g columbine, many others). the last shooting we had in australia was in 1994 if i remember right (pls correct me if not). and, big surprise, we have free speech. any polititian (including the opposition leader) can get up in any political meeting and say outright that the prime minister is a fucking moron, or anything he likes, with no punishment, exept of course, how the voters view him. we have total freedom of speech, and this bill isnt going to go any further than it has already, and if it does, it wont work anyway. i can if i want to, go anywhere on the net (the web, irc, newsroups) and find pictures of naked children, doing all manner of sinful things, with no punishment, because no one is giong to track one home user's activities on the net, so even though we have theze crazy laws, the're not enforcable, therefore by definition, the're not really laws, just what some washed-up old fart thinks should be so
sorry i got a bit off track :) guns are bad, from whatever angle you look at them from. even for hunting. where is the enjoyment in going out and slaying innocent animals? no, i'll keep my australia thanks, where i could safely walk from one end of the city to the other, and still have just as much money in my wallet and be just as healthy as when i started
We should say no, we NEED others to follow, we need to seek the guidence of other countries to help form sensible policies. Decisions like this proove we cannot stand on our own two feet.
Er, our own prime minister is anti-republic. There is anything but a consensus on this. Which is good.
And which country would you choose to guide us? The Poms, who put us up as cannon fodder in WW1? The Yanks, who show their political panache by electing Reagan and Clinton?
You might need to be led around by a ring in your nose and be afraid of thinking for yourself, but don't be so patronising as to assume that all your fellow Aussies (me included) do.
Putting your future in the hands of others is a poor recipe for survival.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
Come again? Did we forget 300,000 cameras so soon? ... tools... (siglim 120 chars)" Like cars... to the office no more no less.
"Computers should be
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
"We must protect the children" is a red herring which people use to get their way. If someone comes out and says that something should be censored because THEY don't like it, most people laugh. When someone comes out and says something should be censored in order to protect the children for some reason they are taken seriously. I remember reading a great article on this by a humor magazine which contacted Christian groups and asked them to censor the violent imagery of the Crucifiction in order to "Protect the Children"
http://www.fadetoblack.com//ourfuture/
Gee, we didn't even want freedom from Britian at first, we just wanted a few seats in Parliment -- like they'd given to Scotland a few decades before that. BIG DIFFERENCE!!! Scotland got "a few seats in parliament" because it was a seperate country, with it's own laws, parliament, and so on... which United with England on a legal footing. The Scottish King became the King of England too. It made sense. America was colonised. It was not an ongoing country at the time, at least not in the eyes of the European peoples of the time. So, please don't use this as a justification for the American civil war. God knows, there are enough real reasons without having to make things up.
-- Under/Overrated is meta-moderation, and therefore is Redundant.
... you can get a credit card at age sixteen with your parents/guardians as co-signatories.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Explain to me the irony. I'm confused. I don't see it.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Australia has a similar *proportion* of IT workers to the States.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
Look at the fight against the Poll Tax that happened in the UK, where mass civil disobedience (non-payment of the tax by over 30% of the population) led to the government backing down and withdrawing the tax.
I think the massive street riots also had something to do with this, too...
Frightening how easily the Governments worldwide adopt the nanny mentality for their politically motivated agendas (eg poll tax) - and how much opposition from the populace they must face before they will back down. And yet, difficult social policies which people would readily agree to if draconian legislation was to be introduced (eg massive reduction in pollution - everybody wants it but nobody is volunteering) - governments shy away from...
Strong data typing is for those with weak minds.
I seem to rember when america was in a simmler situation with relation to internet censorship. I rember when there wasent a site i visited that wasent showing the fredom off speech ribon. Come on world especialy the americans give us poor aussies some support. We wont be able to beat this on our own. Come on help us break the concertive polititans rule!
It has already been explained why Australia ended up with this law. But it's a law of double standards between different mediums. For example, Australian laws towards "indecent" material is fairly liberal when say compared to other western democracies. However, this only applies to non-computer related (ie, games or internet) mediums. With the ratings covering sexually explicit material for video and print media (X-classification for videos and R-2 rating for print publications), a lot of what is allowed is illegal in the US. Without getting into detail about what is allowed, one of the liberal laws we have is that the minimum age requirement for actors in these explicit movies/publications must be at least 16 years old. I believe that only several countries in continental Europe and Australia have this minimum age; too young for the U.S.. "Mild fetishes" are also allowed. (But to be fair, a lot of what is legal in Europe or the US, namely violent sexually explicit material, won't get clearance in Australia).
Basically, our classification system has always had contradictions in regards to different mediums. It's strange as well as hard to explain to foreigners, but there's no political will to change it. As it has already been stated, doing so will be perceived as supporting pornography.
For a look into our ratings system, check out the following site: http://www.oflc.gov.au/Pages/clasinfo.html
It looks to me like they are trying to recreate
the original prison colony.
I just read:
m
http://www.aba.gov.au/what/online/restricted.ht
and I must say I'm stunned. There is such a thing as personal and parental responsibility. By legislating away the people's rights and forcing people to "register with the government" to view things "likely to receive an R rating," you're certainly on your way to creating a police state and poisoning any chance of high-tech business in Australia.
I worked a tech support job in college, and a common problem in helping users was that they often didn't ask the right question. I think that's your problem here. The question this legislation is answering is "How do we hide objectionable materials from minors?" That's a poor question because in reality the answer is that you can't. For social and technical reasons it is completely impossible.
Perhaps a better question, is "What can the Australian gov't do to help parents raise children?" The answers there could include:
Reducing taxes so parents bring more money to their homes.
Working to increase the time parents spend at home by reducing
the # of hours in a work week.
Better schools.
Adult education classes focusing on high-tech so parents understand
what is on the net.
Encouraging companies that create "acceptable content."
That seems more likely to help children and it doesn't impose on individual freedoms.
Kevin Lyda
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
Yeah, that's just what we need - more laws restricting the 2nd Amendment (the right to keep and bear arms). When will people learn that the 2nd is the cornerstone that protects all the others? If there's no 2nd, who's to say that socialist/communist/etc governments can't trample freedom of speech, unlawful search and seizure, self-incrimination, speedy trial, etc? It sickens me when people try to model the US after other nations of the world. Sorry, you can't do it. Why? Because the United States IS unlike any other nation in the world. No other country has the freedoms and rights that citizens do here. Guns have won and protected freedom. Other governments don't trust their subjects with the use of arms, and therefore, are free to dictate in any way they see fit. You think this is the way it should be done? Fine. Move to (or stay in) England, Australia, Canada, Denmark or any other socialist nation. But for God's sake, don't try to change the Bill of Rights.
I see a lot of comments like "Australia isn't a bass-ackward country because there is full frontal nudity on TV, so how come you think it's less free than the US where "Eyes Wide Shut" was censored".
Well, freedom (as in speech, not beer) comes in many parts and countries can (and do) selectively pick parts to tighten and to loosen. For example, the US has a very stong tradition of free speech. Speech that would be banned in, say, UK (because of libel laws) or in Germany (as hate speech) is perfectly legal in the US. So as regards speech, the US is one of the most free countries in the world.
Unfortunately, the US also has a weird hangup about sex (I am not going to go into reasons why). A lot of sex-related stuff that is perfectly OK in countries like Australia, or the same Germany is prohibited in the US -- either outright, or by coercion. "Eyes Wide Shut" is a good example: there is no government censorship involved, but a film with NC-17 rating cannot be a commercial success or seen widely (many movie theaters just do not show any NC-17 films).
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
Um is that subject about you?
The Australian Government encourages all Australian [married] couples to give birth to a child, but don't get caught video taping the birth - the Australian government might consider it pornographic !
Furthermore, all baby pictures will become illegal because some hypersensitive academic will consider them kiddie porn.
This is all part of the continued erosion of individual rights and freedoms under the guise of societal good - something which, unfortunately, is not unique to Australia.
Australians: It's time to take back the control of your country from [dishonest, patronizing, and pretentious] politicans and their [hidden] social agenda.
All Global Citizens: See comment to Australians, above.
I found the definition for adult (individual 18 and up), but I'm a little fuzzy on the terms "offence" and "reasonable". I like to provide reason behind my actions... does that make me a reasonable person? Or is it up to the courts to determine who is reasonable and what might cause "offence"? Hmmm. Too ambiguous.
Wherever you go in North America today, you will hear something about homesexuality, drugs, weird sexual tandancies... Sure all these are for people IF and only IF they choose to be part of them. Why do these have to be forced on everybody else? Especialy people who are not mentaly mature to form THEIR opinions about such issues?
North America has chosen it's route. Time will tell if it was a good choice. Now stick your noses up your a$$e$ and stop calling everybody else "ignorant" or an "idiot" just because their ways are not like yours!
[Cue "Final Jeopardy" theme...]
"What is 'parental supervision'?"
Correct! Congratulations!
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Last week, I went down to see a friend who's actually working in one of those "Andersen-Price Watherhouse" companies.
In their office, the use of the Internet to acces X-R-XXX or whatever "offending" rate material is prohibited.
We started to watch the Proxy Server (I know is not my bussiness...I shouldn't be in the building in first place jejejej...He maintains the servers) and we saw that almost 99% of the sites accesed that were "prohibited" where in fact requested by the same people who made the rules in first place.
I didn't "make things up". The American colonies did originally ask England for seats in parliment, not for independence. This is fact. They wanted those seats for different reasons than Scotland got them, that much is true -- but then I never claimed otherwise. Implying that I'm making things up is really offensive, but that seems to be what you're shooting for anyways.
I don't need to use such a thing as justification for the American Revolution (the "American Civil War" refers, at least in the U.S., to a completely different war) -- the people at the time thought it and other things was justification enough. Blame them, I wasn't there.
The context of my reply was in response to the silly statement that Australia just had to ask England for freedom, which completely ignores the fact that over 200 years lay between the American and Australian seperations from the English Empire.
What should really be remembered is that there is an apparent hypocrisy here, not because people can't make up their minds, but the government needed the vote of a conservative independant from Tasmania, so they bent over backwards to get it - giving him his net censorship bill.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
*YET*? Name a few other censorship policies here that are over and above the "glorious land of the free" *cough*hack*cough*...
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
As many commentators (even on /.) have noted, the law is barely practical and badly thought-out, the result of a deal from hell made with an independent to get a regressive goods & services tax through parliament. So, I don't think it is a big deal. (disclaimer: I am not into of the sort of stuff they are trying to ban, unless you include linux, so my ambivalence can be taken with a grain of salt)
-- open source? sounds like the real book --
Blah blah blah.
Who's to say...? The several countries who have resisted governments even without their 'cornerstone' right.
I don't think the US trusts its subjects with guns. I sure as hell wouldn't. You ever consider why that backward, "socialist" (WTF?!?) nation called Australia has a murder rate TEN times less per capita than yours? Can you draw conclusions?
None of those nations are socialist.
You're right, the US is unlike everywhere else. No other country is so often the laughing stock of the rest of the world. And I wouldn't put it down to an inferiority complex.
Open Source. Closed Minds. We are Slashdot.
- Battery is an offensive touching.
- The victim of a battery has the right to use necessary force to stop the battery.
- A fetus, invading a woman's body against her will, is committing battery.
- Accordingly, the woman has the right to use the force necessary to stop the battery and remove the fetus from her body.
If the fetus is not viable, it dies, but that's of no consequence to the law; the woman didn't kill it, she just removed it and let its death result from its own failings. Ergo, by the common law, abortion is lawful as a remedy to unwanted pregnancy.There is also the precedent that foetii have historically not been considered human beings, and infanticide has usually been a separate and lesser crime from murder. But nothing will get in the way of the illogic from the religious fanatics on the right wing.
The way I read it, this only affects "prohibited content" or "potential prohibited content".
Therefore, this really only affects people hosted pr0n in Australia. And, with hosting costs being what they are, you would be mad to host anything of the like in Oz, right?
Or have I missed the point?
Seems a bit pointless to me, if I am reading it correctly. The only result I can see coming of this legislation is to push any such content providers out of the country (which potentially gives you less power to control those content providers, which doesn't seem desirable from the govt's perspective).
The vast majority of norty material surely comes from overseas, and therefore is not covered by this legislation (but by the earlier legislation which has passed and comes in to being Jan 1).
In summary: I don't see how this hands the online content industry to anyone.
...j
Obviously, the solution to all of this is for the Internet industry to pitch in some cash and buy all the legislators. It's clear that these bills are the result of the broadcasting industry trying to use their political clout to maintain their monopoly on "adult" content.
Censor this, Australia!
There's one thing that generally just annoys the hell out of me (okay, I'm rambling and this isn't really on-topic, but is kind of related, bear with me - I know ABA suggested alternative methods): Credit card as an age validation method. Well, I'm adult, and I don't have a credit card, and neither will I get one in near future. I don't have had any problems with this in Finland, I have a passport, I have a driving lisence, and if I wouldn't have those I could always get an ID card that has a photograph. All of those are generally accepted. And as for mail order/net shopping payments, I ask the sender to send the bill with the package.
No problems, until I decided that I really don't have any use for my GeoCities site and I might as well nuke it. I had not updated it for ages (last time way back in the Pre-Yahoo era when they didn't even forced to put the ads there, just a link to GeoCities main page). It thought I was born in 1998 (how it deduced that, I have no idea). To prove that Yes, I'm Adult And I Have A Right To Nuke My Site I should have given some information, and, of course, my credit card number which I don't have, because I don't have a credit card. I mailed them about this, but the solution still involved credit cards.
Also, the local credit card company don't like the idea of sending credit card info over the 'net, no matter how badly you try to tell what kind of cool encryption schemes you used.
Lesson learned? If you design these systems, don't depend on the credit cards as a form of age verification. Plus, even if I would have a credit card, I would still be suspicious about this kind of verification - Abuse of the number would not be too hard...
It'd also be interesting to set up an encrypted VPN between various points in the world and various users in Oz. We have the technology...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Don't know about Denmark, but Norway has about the same voter turn-up as the US (CA at least) governor election.
Je ne parle pas francais.
4.2.2. Mandatory data items for the lodgement of a hardcopy application are:
name of applicant;
address of applicant;
date of birth of applicant;
email address of applicant;
declaration that personal details are correct; and either credit card details; or evidence of identity and age, for example, certified copy (sighted and signed by a third person) of passport, birth certificate, driver's licence, senior's card or student card.
And then we skip onwards a little:
5.2. The following rules will be used to invalidate an application:
if date of birth indicates that an applicant is not at least 18 years of age;
if credit card number cannot be verified;
if credit transaction is not approved by relevant credit provider; or
if evidence of identity and age has not been produced.
Note point three. To me that sounds an awful lot like an intention to charge money for the privilege of having a PIN.
Many many many people here that I've told about this seem to refuse point blank to believe that such a thing is about to happen, or that it will affect them. "Oh I don't look at porn..."
Grrr! You don't have to be looking at porn! Senator Alston (the instigator of this nonsense) is talking about using mandatory filtering at the ISP level to implement this. We all know what filtering software does. It's highly likely that soon we'll need a PIN to read Shakespeare's plays, peruse medical journals, or.... *gasp*
/me goes blue in the face from repeating himself over and over and over to anyone who will listen...
t looks like the goal of this legislation is to prevent minors from seeing R-rated movies. (The comment dismisses them as only "soft-core", but I definitely don't want my 15-year-old seeing Pulp Fiction.)
But do you want your kid to not be able to see, for example, Romeo and Juliet or an on-line copy of Gray's Anatomy? Some people might want that restriction, some might not, but with this bill you don't get the choice. The problem is that the bill's supporters mislead people. They, like you, point first to the porn, but the bill covers far more than porn.
Then again, there's the practical aspect. Filtering of this magnitude is incredibly expensive because of the amount of data involved. Bear in mind that this isn't the first time a country tried this. I was there in the lat 80s when Germany told Compuserve that they had to prevent their German users from accessing certain types of content. Compuserve did the analysis on what it would take, and decided it was not feasible to filter/restrict only German users as long as the German portion of the network was connected to the rest of their network. Since they couldn't leave it unrestricted, they simply threw the switch and disconnected the German portion of their network. Heh. Perhaps the Australian ISPs should try something similar?
I wonder what the difference is between mandatory and 'required' data... I was taught in school that the terms were synonymous.
Are these legal terms that require special definition? Or does that depend on what you mean by 'required'?
Strike while the irony is hot! -- The Freethinker
You are wrong, simply being tied to britain didnt help did it? Since when does briton say, "oy cobber, ya doin da wrong thang mate" England couldnt care less and they have no rights here. Say YES, just to reduce the so called Empire a little more. GOd damn EVIL empire
This confirms Australias status as the "Global Village Idiot"
No. Those Foster's commercials do.
Hates people who have stupid little sigs
...as damage, and routes around it. How long before the most popular sites for Aussie surfers are proxy servers secured by SSL? Whoever sets this up first & best will stand to make a pretty decent advertising buck.
As far as movies are concerned, R is softcore. The X rated movies are non-violent hardcore. They are illegal in each state, but can be acquired by mail-order from the capital city ( Canberra . )
As for print media, there are two types of R rated publications. R-category-1 is soft ( for example, it includes most "detailed" nudie pics ), while R-category-2 consists of similar content to the "X-rated" movies.
I am not clear on how online content is classified ( or even if the censors have made any clear rulings ).
Cheers,
>The center of the US is about to try and outlaw any sort of abortion, get this even if a 13 year old girl is raped by her FATHER, there would need to be imminent danger to the girls life or our 'government' in its' infinte wisdom would require the young girl to carry the child to term.
:)
Your arguemnt is invalid, since the reason the government would do this is if it considers a fetus a person. If it does (and there is debate wether it is or not, I won't say my side of the issue) then the only reason such a law would be passed is to protect the rights of a human being under the US constitution. A human being has the right not to be harmed physically by other human beings. If a fetus is a human, than abortion is technically murder...
The debate isn't over abortion, but when a person is considered a person. A government has the right to take the most face-saving approach to this, because to be found out wrong in the future would make them executioners... It's a hard decision.
To put it bluntly, just because someone is born a bastard doesn't make them any less human. The debate is over the when point of being "born" occurs.
It's just part of life... What can you do about it? Become a doctor, and use your skills to convince the government what a fetus is/isn't. That's the only way to do it, since I'm afraid the public doesn't have the knowledge necessary to make an informed decision on this once; but they certainly can make gut-instinct decisions (Those are very bad. Imagine if the death penalty were decided over someone looking at someone and their evidence for a few minutes and saying, "well, I'm not sure, but man I feel that guy is guilty, just look at those gruesome photos!".).
>We are 'classifying' school children based on some half-baked software as to thier violence potential.
That's what happens when public gut reaction to idiotic TV shows shapes the government's decisions. Our own poorly thought out ideas are affecting the lives of others, again.
>The world of Gatica is coming and BIG BROTHER is pushing forit. National ID cards, mandatory DNA registration...GPS locaters..all for our own good of course...maybe I'm a tad paranoid but MAYBE NOT
This is one issue where the public needs too look deep inside and decide what is right and wrong, and refuse to do anything they think is wrong. Since whatever decision is made, it will only affect "you", not others. Remember, if you think it is wrong, then it probably is. This is one of the few cases where a gut reaction to something is OK - It won't change the life of your neighbour (much) or someone on trial.
I hate to get too political about this stuff, but this is something that the Australian people are now virtually powerless to prevent. Anybody else notice that most guns in Australia were banned and destroyed recently? I'm beginning to wonder about the English-speaking world. We "won" the Cold War, only to fall into use of the same devices Marxism/Leninism used for decades against people. It's prohibitively expensive to bring new, unregulated lines into Australia, not to mention now illegal. I would wholeheartedly endorse the emigration of rational, liberty-loving Australians to other countries (but maybe not the US--we'll see how long we keep the tatters of the Bill of Rights intact). Failing that, I would hope that people who respect the freedom of information in Australia could put aside other political differences to lobby their government to reopen Internet access and stop further injustices like this proposal from happening. I'm all for protecting children from harm, but protecting children from information is a parent's job, not the state. Anybody know what the laws are like in Scandinavia? I'd like to be able to own a gun or two, have decent connectivity, be able to peacefully protest when the government does things that aren't in the citizens' best interest, have the freedom to privately practice whatever religion I choose, etc. America looks like it's modelling its new laws on Australia, and all the political action I can take (mostly, taking the form of voting) doesn't seem to do much good. Chris
Excuse me but, why would the government need credit card details unless they are planning on direct billing you straight from you card?? If thats not the case, then what? Plus, this law reads all fine and dandy for websites, but what about the newsgroups? I mean, if I personally want porn, I go straight to the newsgroups. Screw all these "membership" sites and what not. I think somebody needs to take away all the wacky weed that the Aussie government has been smoking lately.
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
#define RANT_MODE
The Online Censorship Bill was the result of a grubby little compromise between the government and a independent Senator from Tasmania who happened to hold the balance of power in the Senate at the time. The guy is a fanatical Catholic and is constantly trying to ban porn, restrict access to abortions and contraception, and generally demonstrate what a wowser he can be. The government was trying to get a tax bill through the Senate, and they needed this guy's vote. Hence, from absolutely nowhere, this ridiculous Bill was rushed through.
#endif
The local Internet industry didn't know whether to protest, laugh, or cry. Most seem to be taking a fourth option - relocating both themselves and their servers to the States, happily beyond this stupid law.Electronic Frontiers Australia is working as hard as they can to publicise the impact of the new law, but the mainstream media isn't interested.
In any case, I intend to treat the law with the contempt it deserves and set up a secure proxy connection to a US-based server. It's my guess that, before too long, the bill with either be quietly discarded through ignorance, or cause an uproar when people can't get to their favourite porn sites. Either way, watching the next few months would be fun if it wasn't so tragic.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
In any case, it is the role of a responsible country to sometimes decide some things are just wrong, and you should not have the right to hurt someone else just because someone wrote a Bill of Rights 200 years ago (or whatever).
Haven't you guys had enough of the KKK yet?
_______________________ I am the eggman, wooo! _______________________
And his name is Tony Blair.
I think you may mean Jack Straw.
However, STOP BLOODY SAYING ENGLAND WHEN YOU MEAN THE UNITED KINGDOM.
No - we mean England. Scotland, for example, has a much more sane grasp of privacy issues.
-- Post No Gravy
Or watch it on television. Just look at SBS at night and you can see quite a bit more than just softcore.
This is what is so ridiculous about this law, the rest of the media in Australia is quite liberal (judging from the reactions of Americans on Aus TV, they get away with a lot more than American networks) yet we have this utterly stupid restriction placed on the net.
No, what you need is a strong constitution with explicit guarantees of freedom that gives politicians as little power as possible.
Then it doesn't really matter what idiots you elect.
I wonder how well such a situation will really work. I would be curious to know how effective such systems have been in other countries that have tried to repress "unapproved" Internet usage?
As far as I am aware, it should be possible for people to work their way around these systems quite easily - whether people will choose to take the "risk" (however slight it may be) of doing this remains to be seen. From what I have read (http://www.aba.gov.au/what/online/overview.htm) of the scheme, it sounds like there at least isn't a countrywide firewall in place, it's more of a scheme whereby ISP's are held responsible for the viewing habits of their customers (No common carrier status there then) and that in practise this will mean they need to introduce some kind of filtering system.
There have been several suggestions I have read about in earlier discussions on this topic to try and make the system unworkable - deluging the classification board with material, people in other countries mirroring prohibited content etc. What it is really going to take to stop this bill though is some form of mass protest - and that unfortunately sounds like it is unlikely to happen. It seems as though people in Australia just aren't spreading the word properly, or there aren't enough people who care about the subject to put up much of a fight.
One problem that I have encountered in discussions about censorship is countering the argument that anyone who opposes such a scheme is in some way condoning pornography. In this particular case it seems important to counter such an argument with arguments about the failure of filtering software to be accountable, about how almost all filtering software in the marketplace has had problems with the blocking of legitimate information sites. Warn people that the next step in such filtering is the filtering of viewopints that are unpopular. Explain to people that filtering should be something that is used as a tool to help parents keep bounds on what their children are up to and not as a method of controlling the whole population.
I guess a lot of people are hoping that this bill will go away, or be proved unworkable. I would just like to finally say that mass resistance *does* work sometimes. Look at the fight against the Poll Tax that happened in the UK, where mass civil disobedience (non-payment of the tax by over 30% of the population) led to the government backing down and withdrawing the tax.
Above all else, if you are Australian, don't just sit back and let this happen - because if it is implemented successfully in Australia, it won't take long before the idea gets exported - and I don't want a similar system in my country!
A little planning goes a long way...
And which country would you choose to guide us? The Poms, who put us up as cannon fodder in WW1?
And in WW2 - look up the Brisbane Line. We had to beg Churchill to bring Australian troops back from Europe to defend out northern coast.
The Yanks, who show their political panache by electing Reagan and Clinton?
"Now to New Guinea, and a crack at those Japs!" - John Wayne.
-- Post No Gravy
This has to be the funniest, most unworkable censorship policies yet from Australia. How do they intend to regulate internet traffic into Australia? Do you have thousands of low paid workers sifting through every news-group article? What about FTP traffic? Can you intercept & examine every file downloaded on the off chance that it may be a JPEG deemed to be "R" rated? IRC? Will there be spies on every #sex channel, on every IRC network, looking for .au citizens & making sure they are registered? What a load of tosh.
Go tell a Texan that you're shutting down the oil wells because of the Massive Reduction In Pollution Act of 2001, and you'll be lucky if they haul your carcass out on a stretcher instead of in a garbage bag.
A couple of points:
You're right about the sucking up to a senator (his name is Brian Harradine, incidentally, and he's not been a senator since July), but it wasn't about the Telstra sell off - it was about the GST, which has been on the Liberal Party agenda for quite a few years (fellow Australians will remember John Hewson's campaign in '93). Ironically, Harradine didn't end up supporting the GST bill. It got through with the support of the Democrats (their slogan used to be "Keep the bastards honest" - I wonder what happened?)
I mean i haven't heard anything about this for months now in the mainstream press; it's hardly big news
I think the reason its not been in the mainstream media is because the news media has been given other focusses - the East Timor crisis, and the republic referrendum of late.
But basically the chances of this bill really making any practical difference is virtually ziltch
I agree. Basically its not worth the paper its printed on.
Australian Government:
A bunch of old incompetent idiots that need a technical support crew to use an electric toaster.
HELP US! Not only do we have the 2nd harshest censorship laws for movies and electronic games, but we now get unfounded internet laws!
As soon as I am educated I'm out of this hole!
This seems rather silly, given the fact that if I can't view softcore(which I don't normally do) on the net in Australia, all I have to do is take a short walk to one of the many topless beaches. Doesn't anyone else find this a little confusing?
It's in times like this I'm glad that I live in Denmark
:)
Do you know anyone who's hiring web designers?
PP
Pope
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
It seems like this would be the perfect opportunity for a bunch of web pages in .au to turn black like when the CDA raised its ugly head around these parts. Maybe people will realize "gee, there are a LOT of web pages that come from there, I hope nothing bad happens"...
I got into a whole stash of 8mm stag films, porno magazines and what-not at a friend's house at around the age of 10... so what?
I am not a child molester. I am not a sex addict. I have not abused a woman. My friend and I watched the movies (I knew what 8mm was back then, he didn't), put them back and went back often!
The part that's way too out of whack with the United States at least is the lack of responsibility where it lies. From the posessor of a hot cup of coffee to parents who weren't too busy to have a kid, but suddenly don't care enough to inform, educate and mold the same.
Sure, I saw some pretty hardcore material back then, but we knew what it was. Heck, I had looked it up in an encyclopedia just a year before -- again for the naked pictures. While I was there, though, I did read the accompanying text....
I see a solution, but it would require cooperation from the big boys (Yahoo, Ebay, Amazon, etc). If the webservers of the free world would agree to block access to *.au domains, we could force the Australian government to back down, or face becoming a technologically third-world country.
But do you think any of the big sites would place principle over profit? I think we all know.
--
If I say Bill Gates is a fraudulent monkey-fister with links to the mob and can't defend that statement with evidence in court - I'm going to be found liable (not 'guilty' - it's not a crime) in a libel action, 1st amendment or no. I fail to see how the US and UK differ in this.
Nick
-- "It's a sad day for American capitalism when a man can't fly a midget on a kite over Central Park" - Jim Moran
Hmmmm. A rational, in-depth examination, I'm sure.
Don't get me wrong. I like my privacy as much as the next guy and am definitly opposed to giving The Man my credit card numbers.
However, instead of calling names because somebody might tie your name to your favorite Pr0n site, why don't you take a minute, examine the problem they're trying to solve, then see if you can come up with a more acceptable solution. It's a more productive use of your time than beating your chest and shouting "Censorship! Censorship! Help! Help! I'm being suppressed!"
It looks like the goal of this legislation is to prevent minors from seeing R-rated movies. (The comment dismisses them as only "soft-core", but I definitely don't want my 15-year-old seeing Pulp Fiction.)
Now, you may feel it's not a problem for minors to watch R-rated movies. If so, then, instead of fussing about this law, you need to go work with the MPAA (or its Australian equivalent) and get that rule changed. Then their won't be a need for this rule we're discussing. ...but I digress...
Is the Internet kid safe? No. Will it ever be? No. But does the fact that a door cannot be 100% locked give us the right to throw it wide open and shout "Come one! Come all!" ? My answer to that question is also, No.
The Austrailian government is simply trying to enforce an existing law in a new frontier. Don't jump down their throats because you don't like it. Come up with a better solution and present it to them.
Anonymous Kevin
I'm not even Australian. I live in the US. (By the way you can add Yale to the I'm a number not as student blacklist.)
... tools... (siglim 120 chars)" Like cars... to the office no more no less.
And still I think this is bullshit. Australia is not the Village Idiot. The heads of state make up an organization we call the GVI.org.
Frankly the sooner you can get England off your ass the better. Meaning Australian heads of state have less incentive to follow in England's wake.
Big Brother is alive, well, well loved in England.
"Computers should be
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
One of my co-workers is a devout church-going woman with two teenaged sons. She is concerned with the availabilty of material she finds unacceptable on the Internet.
She was recently asking me about measures to restrict _her_ kids using _her_ computer. I suggested various ideas from putting passwords on her dailup access, on her ssytem BIOS, installing a "Net-Nanny" type program and maybe even getting an external modem and taking it to work with her in her purse.
What's the point of this? The point is that she is concerend about what she can do to protect _HER_ kids. She is not interested in protecting other people's kids, or restricting what _I_ can look at. Just what _her_ kids look at.
It is the responcibility of the _PARENT_ (let me repeat that slowly, "the responcibility of the _PARENT_") not of the State to safeguard children from things their _PARENTS_ may not want them to see.
I _REFUSE_ to give up my right to look and Jenny McCarthy's naked @ss just because someone else does not want their kids to see it.
You don't want your kids to see prOn? Don't let them use the 'net without supervision. Can't be bothered to supervise your kids? Get off your fat ass and take some responcibilty for your kids, damnit!
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
What is it with guns and Americans? Why do so many of you seem to think that the only way to achieve and maintain freedom is by force of arms? Are you completely impervious to the lessons of history, in places like India (everyone seems to revere Ghandi as some kind of demi-god, but they conveniently forget that he taught people a way to achieve freedom _without_ using force), and in Australia, too. We were once a penal colony, ruled by Britain; now we're a free, sovereign nation who are on the verge of cutting the last of our ties with Britain. Did we ever even dream of fighting a war _against_ Britain? No. You see, we didn't need to - all we needed to do was ask them, and provide them with what we considered to be a good constitution, which they gladly ratified and set us free to follow our own course.
Please, will someone explain to me why this kind of thing is so hard for Americans to accept? Is there something in your psyche that makes you blind to the possibility that things do not have to be done exactly as you did them? That there might be other ways of life that are just as valid, and possibly more so, than your own? Why in gods name do you have to try and force your morals, your ideals, your way of life onto the rest of the world?
Please, leave us to make our own way, without having to slavishly bow down before _your_ gods and heroes. We are not part of your country, nor do we want to be - we want to make our own decisions, and do things the way that we see fit. I'd prefer to live with my own mistakes than yours.
himi
(and no, I don't support any of these censorship bills, and I don't support the idea that governments know better than individuals what is right or wrong. But all too often these days I find myself absolutely _HATING_ America and how they interact with the rest of the world. It's not much fun, believe me)
My very own DeCSS mirror.
c). It was before 1970...
So? Israel had a fairly successful female prime minister back in the 60s.
--
All censorship is "justified" on the basis that the censored information is harmful to some people. Even adults cannot view what they want. Recently, censorship has retreated to "protecting the kids" in most places.
But has the case been proven that the kids need protection? Sure, some parents might like to control what their kids see. But has actual harm been shown? It would have to be clear and convincing to justify the loss of privacy and potential misuse of censorship.
I am a parent, and I know kids can be frightened. So can adults for that matter--there's a whole movie industry profitably exploiting this. Very young kids ( 8 ) could get some phobias, but they are unlikely to come in contact with any information other that provided by the parent. Just how many 6 year olds are out on the `net?
As for older kids (10 +), I really doubt the potential for information to cause lasting harm. By this point, parental influence is rapidly diminished, and it is best to accept this with good grace rather than becoming a control freak.
*.au seems to be in the hands of the control freaks. Sad but predicatable.
-- Robert
yeah, yeah, off topic, but I'm dying to know:
who's that in the new Censorship icon? Jon Katz?
erg... it seems like the ABA's capacity for poor idea is on an exponential increase. Go here, i'm sure people will get a kick out of this.. =)
this is obviously a lot of eyewash created by a political system which doesn't quite Get the internet. it would be more funny if not for the tragedy involved in letting the landed gentry make the rules. as long as the pen is mightier than the sword, it's all fun and games. when we have to take up arms against our oppressors, somebody's gonna lose an eye.
I think this is actually a good case to go
YES, so that we may not end up being influenced
by a 'conservative' Monarchist tendencies of
the past.
Future is the way to look forward to.. and hopefully a future that we can forge for ourselves, unencumbered by the past.
Gone,.. but not forgotten
and btw, censorship $uX
-Elfy
So many people use the legendary "Big Brother is watching you", but how many people have actually read Orwell's 1984? Just a thought....
On November the 6th, Australian's can create history- again. In 1901, an untested, but well designed constitiution was introduced, that has served Australia well for almost 100 years.
Now, we have a chance to take this perfect constitiution and alter it so it simply changes the head of state to a President. This president, however, is not a US style "superpower", the Australian President is like our current Governer-General, except the the name has been changed, and answering to England's Queen will be abolished.
Our President has been shown to be, however, like a US president with all of the power of the US President. This is incorrect. Like the current system, the Prime Minister will be in charge, but the President will be the head of state. The two-thirds majority in the house required to place a President into power is a much better option to direct-elections. Directly elected presidency suffers from the US problem of millionaire presidents advertising their way into power. If the Australian President were to have the power of the US one, direct-election would be the better option. However, the "ceremonial" Australian President would not require a national ballot.
This new system will actually take power from the PM. The President will be more difficult for the PM to remove then the current Governer-General.
This new model is well planned, and every major current and former politition supports it. The people have been subjected to fear tactic to put doubt into peoples minds, then tell them if they doubt the new system to vote NO.
A poll showed that 91% of Australians did not want the Queen as the head of state, however, because of lies, the chance of removing them has shrunk. The YES campaign looks to lose this weekend, because the Australian public has been fooled by the worst FUD campaign ever.
Australians- DON'T FALL FOR THE LIES! Vote YES this weekend. If you do not we will be the "Global Village Idiot" for alot longer.
How, apart from the fact that it's free, is this different from an AVS? From the point of view from the consumer of pornography I mean.
Tide Regulation Bill
In order to smooth the movement of shipping, low tides will only legally be allowed for 2 minutes between 4 and 5 am....
I am also Australian and I think we do not need to change our constitution. Would you trust current politicians to rewrite your constitution? We are not gauranteed that things like the right of free speech or free assembly, habeus corpus and other inalienable rights gauranteed by the current constitution will be imported into the new. We haven't even been given a say in how we want our new republic to be. Our choice is do you want a republic with the president elected by the parliment. Not, do you want a republic or not. This is why australia will vote against being a republic, because the people want to have our say in the way our country will be run in the future.
Thank you please come again.
.. in the USA, Inc., anyway. Check out this story.
FuppedDuck
It appears that the use of IE5 may be prohibited under this law!
--quote---
6.1. A registered user must, on each occasion, input allocated PIN or password together with date of birth to gain access to any website subject to the system.
6.1.1. The system must not allow for automated input of login information, for example, by saving on a cookie file stored on the user's PC the allocated PIN or password and date of birth.
---endquote----
6.1.1 appears to disallow IE5 because it allows password storage, and the system *must not allow for* password storage!
Another hole?
We don't need Britain to guide us, we need some way of selecting politicians with a modicum of intelligence to run the country. Unfortunately that's probably impossible ("politician with intelligence" has got to be the classic oxymoron).
himi
My very own DeCSS mirror.
Libel is NOT a criminal offence therefore it is absolutely false to say that UK libel laws 'ban' free speech
Oh, nobody said that UK libel laws 'ban' free speech. It's just that in the US you can get away by saying far more outrageous things (especially about public figures) than in the UK, and the first amendment is at least partly responsible for this.
To give you an example, the Kitty Kelly's book about the Royal Family was published in the US, but not in the UK for precisely these reasons. Here is a quote about it (from a law professor, no less):
"US law is far more generous to libellers than UK law, so the chances are the Royal Family would fail in a US case. So, by avoiding selling in the UK, where the laws are much stricter, the US publisher is massively reducing the chances of suffering legal action - and that's exactly why they've decided not to publish in the UK! "
So, I do stick to my point that the situation in the US and UK with regard to libel is significantly different.
Kaa
Kaa
Kaa's Law: In any sufficiently large group of people most are idiots.
That what I don't like. "If you want to see R-rated content you must give name, age, address and CC#". If you've ever seen that horrible for kids r-rated movie "Stand by Me" then you know why this is silly. /. often has r-rated content (and worse if you agree with the MPAA on the Southpark rating).
Does the bill get you if you link to r-rated material?
I do agree with the other poster that established media don't mind erecting more barriers to entry for new content providers, and thus will prove to be more enemy than ally in fighting this legislation.
+&x
PS. Yes, I know all politicians are beaurocratic idiots, Australian or not. It's just that Australian ones seem to be very conservative (with a lower case "c"), and seem to be far more concerned with the moral wellbeing of the nation than you'd expect, given the attitude of the main population.
"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." -- Delos B. McKown
Looks like the Outback Steakhouse chain will have to change its commercials. Instead of "No Rules", it'll be "Bluenoses Rule".
No sig? Sigh...
...as Americans have been saying for years, if you give up your right to own guns, the right to free speech will soon follow.
Obviously the old divide-and-conquer strategy of attacking groups and rights one at a time is working well in Australia.