Aussie censorship expands

[Auxin]

Australia pushes further Web censorship

Touted as tool for targeting phishing and terrorist sites, new bill would allow police to alter current Internet "blacklist."

By Jo Best

Special to CNET News.com

Published: September 21, 2007, 6:09 AM PDT

A bill introduced this week by Australia's Parliament would give the Australian federal police the power to control which sites can and cannot be viewed by Australian Web surfers.

Introduced on Thursday, the bill--titled the Communications Legislation Amendment (Crime or Terrorism Related Internet Content) Bill 2007--would empower the federal police to alter the "blacklist" of sites that are currently prohibited by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

The list currently includes pornography and "offensive material." However, under the amendment, federal police would be able to add other sites to the list, including content that the AFP Commissioner "has reason to believe...is crime- or terrorism-related content."

The definition of material that may be liable for censorship includes Internet content that "encourages, incites or induces," "facilitate(s)" or "has, or is likely to have, the effect of facilitating" a crime.

Once such content has been identified by the AFP, Internet service providers may be responsible for blocking their users from accessing it.

According to the government, the legislation is designed to target phishing and terrorist sites, among other online criminal activity.

"The new arrangements will allow harmful sites to be more quickly added to software filters," said Eric Abetz, a senator for Tasmania, who introduced the bill. "Of course the best outcome is for these sites to be taken down and their hosts prosecuted. But this takes time, particularly as most of these sites are hosted overseas.

"Rapid blacklisting means that the damage these sites can do can be more quickly reduced whilst takedown and prosecution processes are pursued, usually overseas," Abetz said.

Privacy groups have already criticized the legislation as an attack on free speech.

"This government's extremism has reached new heights today," said the chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation, Roger Clarke.

"How can a politician claim the right to hold office if they set out to undermine the critical democratic right of freedom of speech, and blatantly decline to evaluate the impact of measures put before the Parliament?"

Link

The cautious among you might want to get the Tor & Privoxy & Vidalia bundle and the Tor Firefox Plugin before they decide to firewall the tor.eff.org domain.

If you think I'm paranoid flip back a few days in the news and observe the governments proposal to ban illegal cookie manufacturing paraphernalia

[Amulte]

wheres the "shoots self in head" emoticon when i need one... is this the begining of comunism without the perks?

this is getting rediculous....now they are basically targeting reading material. i consider the AFP offence and demand their site blocked. "offensive material" is one of their lovely broad terms they love so much to make laws encompass anything they desire as the situation arises.

I can see this as potentially being helpful in saving to ignorant from themselves but fail to see it able to prevent the issue of 419. In reguards to the "terrorist-related content", im certain they would see majority for substance information sites as "terrorist-related" as, after all, drugs fund terrorist organisations in some of their minds.

whats next? who we can associate with? how we ware our hair or clothes? places we can and cannot live? what we name our children?....wait they already got to that one. now its our internet reading material. isnt our general reading material enough???

i guess this country got sick of its repuation as relaxed and wants to be a clone of another.

As the Australian flag sets in the west an unrecognisable one rises to the east.

Edited September 26, 2007 by Amulte

[Auntyjack]

any country is in deep shit when there government decides it does not need to be accountable nor requires justification in suppression of existing liberties.

This government WILL be accountable shortly...hopefully the incesant drenching of Aus Gov propaganda in Australian media will not be enough to put us all in our boxes.

AJ

I think the last 20 years in Aus politics is a good example of why no matter how good the office is it should have a limited term.

Edited September 26, 2007 by Auntyjack

[Ace]

Sounds like the first stage of all out mind control. First, prevent Mr and Mrs Jones from reading what they wish because it might show them something that they shouldnt know. Combine this with the incessant crap that they feed you in the media and you have nothing but what they want you to know. So much for free thinking - that is almost under wraps. Then we'll have the perfect little robotic society that does nothing wrong and lives happy lives because all is perfect.

Why oh why did those horrible computer geeks create this monster that is the internet?? Arent they terrorists for producing a new medium for information to spawn, colonise and spread to perfectly fragile little minds across our perfect country? Why not lock up big Billy G for creating microsoft and helping these terrorists spread their evil? After all, that is helping a terrorist organisation, isnt it?? And banning porn on the net? How the fck do they propose to do that? The internet is built on porn!

What is the internet going to be left with once all this terrible information is blocked? A couple of sports websites for kiddies to idolise their heroes (and get torn to bits when they realise that their heroes have used illegal drugs [which according to the Gov's 'tough on drugs' campain - 'You dont know what they'll do to you'. That is of course if you have never studied the substances, their history, their uses, their application to ones life, or their dangers...] throughout their careers), millions of news and weather websites to tap that propanganda machine directly into everyone's heads (and keep Mr and Mrs Jones up to date and completely mechanistic in their thought and physical actions), continuous advertising popups for alcohol and prescription meds and maybe a couple cooking and gardening websites (so long as they dont contain information on drugs or turning flour, water and leaves into weapons of mass destruction...). Oh I know I cant wait!!

It's been great knowing you lot - we might as well say our goodbyes now...

Edit: If they really want to protect kids in perticular from some fo the more offensive or inappropriate material on the net, then why not make a nice long list of websites that kids shouldnt visit. Then create a programme like them WebNanny sort of things which is optional for concerned families or people so prudish that they dont trust themselves online. Trying to block the entire population from viewing information on the net is just absurd. Sure there is a hell of a lot of twisted shit out there that is simple enough to find and we would be better off without it, but how about we just decide what is right for ourselves?

Edited September 27, 2007 by Ace

[occidentalis]

I'm glad we have Auxin here to keep track of such developments ocurring in our country...

Edited September 27, 2007 by creach

[Kenny Blister]

This is not a surprise. Little was said (except by the EFA) about the Criminal Code Amendment (Suicide Related Material Offences) Act 2005, which made it illegal to access suicide related material, particularly via the internet.

The EFA are onto this one as well.

EFA Slams Police Censorship Bill

[KanJe]

On the topic of censorship, the place I work at runs a call centre for the 'Protecting Australian Families Online' campaine.

Here is the link for more info... PAFO

To be honest this women scares me...

Edited September 27, 2007 by KanJe

[ethnodude]

2012 is just around the corner.

chaos here we come.

hang onto your hats folks. things could get messy.

[Torsten]

give that all other anti terror legislation has been primarily used as tools in the war on some drugs, i would expect this new power expansion to be no different.

[KanJe]

give that all other anti terror legislation has been primarily used as tools in the war on some drugs, i would expect this new power expansion to be no different.

Hit the nail on the head, just like Nixon did by coming up with the 'drug war' to sway the votes during the Vietnam war. Generate a conflict or an 'issue within society' via propaganda so that they can promote them selves as the solution...

Did any one get that drug information booklet in the mail?

EDIT: Sorry if this takes things off topic...

Edited September 27, 2007 by KanJe

[Ace]

Did any one get that drug information booklet in the mail?

Yeah there was a thread about it a couple weeks back (should be in chillspace - dont have time to search for ya atm )

[Legba]

The times they are a'changin'...

"When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous." --Thomas Jefferson

[XipeTotec]

give that all other anti terror legislation has been primarily used as tools in the war on some drugs, i would expect this new power expansion to be no different.

can you give examples of where this has happened?

[Vertmorpheus]

Woo boogy boogy. You mean we can only find porn, pyro and politics online? When did this happen? here's me thinking theres plenty of quiet societies, likeminded mates and customer orientated retail outlets out there.... that teacher on Brisbanes Northside that was charged recently over his vast collection of things that go bang in the night was a teacher at my former highschool (there ya go , free tip for the curious). wasn't there when I was, but it's a small world after all.

Surely it makes more sense to keep your sheep in the pen where you can see them, fellas. What are you going to do when half the flock takes off for lower, shadier ground? Not so easy to gather names n addresses when you have to physically interact with people, on here the ninjas can be anyone.... why would they want to give that up? Is it just me, or are the only people that read the art of war, the peaceful?

It won't work. It will piss a lot of harmless people off, and the nasty types will just go back to meeting each other in local pubs/disposal stores/political meetings/kids playgrounds/sex shops like they did for aeons before the internet. Or meeting each other at the Right Kind of Boys Schools, like most of these warped "family values" fucks that I am sure have relished the odd sticky sayo after a hard day of packfucking smaller boys and dateraping private girls. Meeting at Seminary School, like the real moral guardians bored, useless, worthless sick fucks they all are. Coming soon to an illegitimate child, abused ward of the state or pregnant intellectual impaired teenager near you...

More to the point, as is ALWAYS the case with censorship... do we lock up or shoot the censors at the end of their working life? Cos viewing all that material must really fuck them up... is it like old army dogs? Oh, thats right, with their special tinfoil hats theyre immune to the "learned behaviour" and "implicit approval" that the rest of us are powerless against. I know that this morning I have an irrational urge to hunt monks for sport, thanks channel 10. You should all be locked up for showing violence. Or is it like Flynt said... we are ok with violence, just not sex? Despite one generally being illegal and the other legal? Despite the fact that people posting evidence pics to the likes of rotten.com etc has, in the past, seen quite firm cases against incredibly sick and almost inhuman people have to go untried.

Personally, I get somehow amused by the "new perversions"... Dr Phil, late news specials, special reports no parents can miss, CSI, SVU etc... where people get to sit n contemplate rape, murder, child exploitation, the whole shebang... for RATINGS... I wonder if someone putting an ad in a doc phil break gets to pick "well you can take the ep about getting fat or the ep about the lifelong child molestor complete with tearful confrontations and graphic recreations" "hhhmmm.... well whatever rates higher of course". Oh, but thats different...thats "arming society" against its evils. Not making money from terrible things having happened at all.... course, you can sit n listen to the kiddy fiddlers accounts n reasons while you eat your lunch, or you can read a website with similar content at work... doing one can get you arrested... can you guess which?

Of course, I must admit by basic bias towards (I know, I know....) basically decent human values and families... so if they work out someone is browsing nothing but "101 used for a dead infidel", go for it... likewise if they are compiling recipes for explosives they have no real use for, IN ADDITION TO browsing a lot of psycho hate sites...but when they start doorknnocking ppl for trying to find half life patches and buy military antiques online, thats going a bit stupid... but then most of us failed to be arrested by now for having enyclopaedia sets with entries about gunpowder and ganja, despite the terror of some , a while back. I don't like the thought of local kids cooking up explosive peroxides and then transporting it around town on their BMX very much either. But if you think the AFP is going to stop you looking at women doing things they dont discuss with their fathers, or footage of idiots playing with petrol, I don't think I'd be too alarmed. Or maybe they will, in which case a WHOLE LOT of people will be REALLY PISSED OFF. Not a good way to keep yourself in power.Not for long. Course, maybe the next election won't be quite the election we want it to be ;) bit of that going on, lately...

Thought occured to me the other day that kids tired of old fat people taking over or shutting down their cool new web areas will have to ditch myspace and take to meeting each other in local parks, shopping centres and parties.. imagine that!? Pedos and terror groups wont be able to recruit online anymore and will take to hanging out at uni campuses and parks like the good old days, yay. We can all go back to playing spot the narc at the local bookshop or smoke in, "save the quokka" rally meeting etc.

"you what? you just started talking to some weird kids in the park? the nyou went back to their place, bummed lunch off their parents, played the xbox for a while and walked home by yourself? I thought I told you NEVER MEET ANYONE TIL YOU TALK TO THEM ONLINE FOR A COUPLE MONTHS FIRST! THEY COULD BE ANYONE!YOU DIDNT EVEN SEE THEM ON CAM! ITS JUST IN ONE EAR AND OUT THE OTHER WITH YOU, MADISON!"

I can see both sides... problem is I suspect at the extremes of both sides are some very blind people indeed.

VM

sorry while I remember... next time u see that workchoics ad with the two fake tradies standing in the club talking about how they havent been sacked, look at the old bloke in the background... Johnny Howard clone or what? Wow man, subliminal....

[KanJe]

After reading that Vertmorpheus, I haven't laughed so much in a while.

I completely agree with your points, you really got my respect with this one mate...

*Props*

[Yeti101]

It might not get much better with the change of government either as Labour has promised to 'protect' us from the internet:

From Whirlpool News in November

Labor has also pledged to create a 'cleaner' internet, requiring ISPs to censor sites identified by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to households, schools and public libraries where children might access the internet. The filter, Labor says, "will prevent Australian children from accessing ... such as those containing child pornography and X-rated material." http://whirlpool.net.au/article.cfm/1762

From this article in the Australian, they seem like they are moving ahead with the plan: Under the plan, all internet service providers will be required to provide a "clean" feed to households and schools, free of pornography and other inappropriate material. Any internet users who want to "opt out" of the clean feed will have to contact their ISP. http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/...6-15306,00.html

Also the Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) analysis of the proposal (Which has been around since 2006): http://www.efa.org.au/Issues/Censor/mandatoryblocking.html

So basically, if this forum and others like it were deemed to be 'inappropriate', then we would have to call our ISP's to get access back, and then would go on the list of bad people who refuse to think of the children and consequently make the baby jesus cry. Since all X-rated material is currently considered by ACMA to be prohibited I think even if you opt-out (or is it in?) you could still loose access to real porn, unless of course you just nip down to your local adult emporium.

The potential for this to be abused is tremendous, I'm just hoping the whole thing falls over due to technical issues.

[apothecary]

Laws like this simply illustrate the complete lack of technical understanding held by our 'leaders'.

I mean, the only people this will successfully 'protect' is law abiding citizens who wouldn't dream of looking at child pronography or X-rated material anyway?

Anyone who actually wants access to this data can do what dissidents in China do and use proxies or encryption or any other of the many technical solutions to this "barrier".

This also begins the slippery slope of removal of "common carrier" legal status that ISPs currently hold, i.e. they are not responsible for any content their customers view, they merely provide the connection. Once the responsibility of filtering is placed into the ISPs hands, it won't be long before they become responsible for 'divisive' posts on internet forums or drug synthesis or anything at all deemed undesirable by our elected officials.

Edited January 11, 2008 by Sina

[FungalFractoids]

I'm getting the fuck off this fascist continent

[PD.]

I think i mite sell all my plants and come with ya FF.

I wont need any of these cactus there ;)

[botanika]

...another information tumor. How do they expect people to understand what terrorism is and why it occurs if they censor information relating to its installment? Im watching some old countdown and bandstand clips from the 70's on tv now and wow australia is so serious now in comparison. Oh well they'll never stop rock n roll and thats all i need to be free.

[Sparkster]

Its ironic that Labor painted itself as the team who understands our I.T infastructure needs and wanted to be all internet savy for the young voters who "understand" while lampooning old man Howard.

If this *does* go ahead, there is going to be a massive backlash, many voters will he aghast at voting for the oxymoronic Liberal party and hedge towards the Greens.

They will never control our internets!!!