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Censorship Your Rights Online

New Zealand Looks at Internet Censorship 294

Posted by michael from the hobbit-porn dept.
David writes "The New Zealand Government 'Select Committee', upon reviewing censorship law, has issued a report which among other things, recommends that ISPs face compulsory licensing "in order to control their behaviour", the forcing of a code of conduct upon ISPs, and recommends the implementation of an internet filtration programme not dissimilar from that of Australia's (although it is hazy on the details of what this would mean). They're starting to become really worried about the dangers of the internet."
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New Zealand Looks at Internet Censorship More

New Zealand Looks at Internet Censorship

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  • Yes, but can their mighty filters prevent me from searching for pr0n in l33tsp3@k?

  • Can someone explain (Score:3, Interesting)

    by knightinshiningarmor ( 653332 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @11:23PM (#5474332)
    In the document it mentions ratings such as M and R16... can some tell me what this rating system is? I'm curious.

    • Re:Can someone explain (Score:4, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 09, 2003 @11:29PM (#5474359)
      M - Medium may contain low level violence,sexual content, and coarse language.

      R16 - Rated viewable only by persons aged 16 and over, may contain voilence, nuidity, and sexual content.

      R18 - Rated Adults Only, may contain explict sexual material, graphic violence, and bad 70's music.
    • I'm pretty sure those are movie ratings. M would stand for Mature and R16 would be Restricted-16. Kinda like the US system of G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17, X.

    • Re:Can someone explain (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 09, 2003 @11:33PM (#5474380)
      New Zealand film classification features two types of restriction; R, which means "you must be verifiably of a certain age to view the material". The second is a series of "guideline" classifications, which hint at the content, but are unrestricted.

      For more details, see

      http://www.movie-ratings.net/movieratings_nz.sht ml
    • I'm guessing, but since it's NZ and they're just across the straight, and I know a little of US ratings, M would be equivalent of your PG-13 or our M rating, and R16 would be equivalent to your R or our MA. I don't know about in NZ, but we also have R which is roughly equivalent to NC-17 but you've gotta be 18, not 17.

    • Re:Can someone explain (Score:5, Informative)

      by jnzed ( 645353 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @11:40PM (#5474416)
      All you ever wanted to know about Censorship in NZ:
      • http://www.censorship.govt.nz/

    • Re:Can someone explain (Score:3, Informative)

      by tigger ( 13921 )
      The Films, Videos and Publication's Act requires all films for public exhibition to be classified. There are six standard classifications which may sometimes have a cautionary note attached.

      G Suitable for general audiences of all ages.
      PG Younger children may require parental guidance.
      M Suitable for mature persons over 16 years of age.
      R Restricted to persons over 16 years of age unless accompanied by a parent or guardian.
      R16 Restricted to persons over 16 years of age only.
      R18 Restricted to persons over 18 years of age only.

  • Note to self (Score:3, Funny)

    by justin_speers ( 631757 ) <[jaspeers] [at] [comcast.net]> on Sunday March 09, 2003 @11:25PM (#5474339)
    Note to self: Cancel vacation to New Zealand, head to an Island more tolerant of my Internet porn addiction...

  • Read the report (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jnzed ( 645353 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @11:28PM (#5474350)
    It would help if people actually read the report. First, its not a 'Government' Select Committee, its simply a Parliamentary Committee. Its a report to the Parliament, which includes some recommendations to the Government (which they are not bound to implement). Second, it recommends a voluntary code of practice for ISPs, as a first step. This isn't cause of 'hue & cry' about internet censorship - which if some of the earlier commenters are correct is irrelevant anyway...

    • Re:Read the report (Score:5, Informative)

      by waynemcdougall ( 631415 ) <slashdot@codeworks.gen.nz> on Monday March 10, 2003 @01:44AM (#5474819) Homepage
      Agreed. Pages 55 onwards are specific to the Internet and the summary of recommendation are on page 68.

      My summary on the key points made in the Internet section of the report are:

      1. Child pornography and other obscene material is more readily available because of the Internet (and is already illegal material).
      2. Peer to peer systems makes it harder to control the distribution of such material - suggests law changes to make clear offering files on a P2P system is "supply"
      3. Recommending that filter software be made available (ideally free of charge)
      4. Education of users should be encouraged
      5. Live shows are not covered by censorship/classification rules - "let's change that"
      6. Ability to execute a search warrant on grounds of possession, rather than trading
      7. Have ISPs adopt a code of practice - if they don't (and NZ Telecom's Xtra is noted as dragging it's heels), then force one on them.
      Nothing in there that alarms me too much.

      Child pornography is the bogey man, and the vehicle on which everything else rides, if anything extreme is going to be introduced.

      • Have ISPs adopt a code of practice - if they don't (and NZ Telecom's Xtra is noted as dragging it's heels), then force one on them.

        Well, I only have one thing to say, and that's I hope like hell Xtra (and perhaps Telstra) don't cave in, 'cause they're probably the only ISP with real force on the issue. Maybe they can use if for good this time.

        • Have you read the (draft) Code of Practice? [internetnz.co.nz]

          The listed aims are:

          • To ensure the fairness and accuracy of disclosure of business terms and conditions to the user public and community in general;
          • To improve the standard of conduct within the industry;
          • To provide public access to complaint handling and cost-effective redress mechanisms;
          • To impose and regulate industry standards;
          • To improve customer relations;
          • To protect rights of access and free speech;
          • To ensure that information and procedures are in place for the protection of minors from accessing objectionable material over the Internet;
          • To ensure that the information and procedures are in place so Internet users know how to limit access to protect a user from accessing inappropriate or objectionable material
          Note the positive phrasing - to protect the rights of access and free speech. I like that. In fact I like all of it. It seems very customer friendly. Which is why I expect Telecom's Xtra doesn't like it - it talks about the right of services being forwarded if you change providers - Xtra wouldn't like that. :-)

          The onus is on the users, not the ISP to know how to protect themselves from objectionable content.

          It suggests ratings systems like PICS. I have to say - it all looks good to me.

  • Destined to fail. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Unominous Coward ( 651680 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @11:28PM (#5474353)
    Come on NZ. Didn't you pay any attention to what happened with the "censorship" in Australia? It was a complete failure.

    Any attempt to censor the internet, short of taking over every router on the border, is destined to fail.
    • Not only will it not work, it will also

      a) Cost a massive amount of money
      b) Be a right royal pain in the ass to implement and maintain
      c) Make people point at you and laugh

      Still interested?
      • > Not only will it not work, it will also
        >
        >a) Cost a massive amount of money
        > b) Be a right royal pain in the ass to implement and maintain
        > c) Make people point at you and laugh
        >
        >Still interested?

        If you're a politician, the first two are features, not bugs, and the fact that it doesn't work, and that people point and laugh, are immaterial.

        That is, programs that cost a massive amount of money, and that are royal pains in the ass to implement tend to keep the amount of tribute required high. High levels of tribute reduces the amount of leisure time available to the serf; this is a feature, as some serfs would spend that leisure time not just pointing and laughing, but campaigning against you in the next election.

    • Australia trips me out. The country gives off this vibe of "Hey! We're a rough-and-tumble, individualistic frontier land." But when you look closer, you'll find one of the most mealy-mouthed, censoring, "Daddy Government please take care of me" political systems in the world.

      It's just a weird split.
    • Come on NZ. Didn't you pay any attention to what happened with the "censorship" in Australia? It was a complete failure.

      Any attempt to censor the internet, short of taking over every router on the border, is destined to fail.

      Come on Slashdot. Didn't you pay any attention to what was in the articles? Or just the sensational headline?

      The committee's report itself said the Australian law was a failure.

  • Off-shore Isp? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by finalfantasydog ( 111845 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @11:29PM (#5474357)
    The amount of Intrustion that governments want in our surfing is starting to irriate me greatly. This is all the more reason to get off-shore hosting and off-shore isp's going on

    as I refear you to past slashdot link
    http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/07/09/ 223521 5&mode=thread

    I was just curisous, as the intrustion on liberty is really starting to bug me, What if anyone thinks of the possiblty of an off-shore isp, using satillites or other types of communication.

    I might not like people looking at some of the things they look at, But I certainly don't want the government cenorsing things.
    • I agree completely. The government (NZ's, the US's, or any other gov't) does NOT have a right to tell us what we can and cannot view. It is NOT their job. Their job is to protect us from murderers, rapists, and theifs (spouse beaters are just as bad as murderers and are therefore grouped in that category). Everyone else is harmless (relatively).

      • Re:Off-shore Isp? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by meowsqueak ( 599208 )
        You've completely forgotten about market economics - supply and demand: Child pornography encourages the abuse of children. Making it easier for the authorities to catch these people is a good thing - it is these people who *encourage* the production of such porn, and hence *encourage* the abuse of children (no matter what country they are in). I'm a NZer and I'm more than happy with this - people who view child porn intentionally need to be removed from normal society and prevented from further encouraging the trade. There's been a fair bit on the media here recently, some TV/radio news articles about how they track down offenders, etc. Justice Minister Phil Goff makes it quite clear that they are *not* talking about 'adult material' - they are mainly concerned with child pornography and the possibility that the problem might become worse. Until very recently, the penalty for trading C.P. was up to 2 years in prison, and for possession - a $2000 fine. It's now up to 10 years for trading and 2 years for possession (IIRC). The underlying issue here is the exploitation and abuse of children, especially for the purpose of creating sexual material. One of the persons interviewed about this on the national radio programme (I forget who he was - but related to C.P. investigation I think) said he knew of no cases involving the actual abuse of children for the purpose of creating pornography *within* NZ, but we have a fair share of traders, and there's a perceived need to restrict the growth of this destructive vice before people start making the stuff here. NZ is a fairly safe society I think. We have a commissioner for children too - we like to think we take the safety of our children quite seriously. If you want to view or trade in child porn - go elsewhere, we don't want you here. Yes, the government has a role in protecting us from murderers, rapists and thieves, but that includes putting a stop to any industry that harms an individual or group of society, which is what C.P. does. C.P. is not harmless, it's evil spreads far further than the viewers PC.

    • Off-shore Isp? There is at least one attempt (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Dukeofshadows ( 607689 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @12:41AM (#5474646) Journal
      There is a group trying to do this that claims to have formed their own nation on an old oil rig off of the UK. It is the "country" of Sealand, population of ~12, and it actually issues passports. I don't have the website, but Google does. The UK deems them a target for possible takeover since they were running questionable financial transaction through their servers, and they'll allow anything but child porn on their servers. I dunno about taking them over, but the idea is at least sound in theory: buy your own oil rig, with investor help, and do nothing but run huge anounts of servers on it for profit.
      • Sealand is actually based on an old anti-aircraft platform a few miles off the south-east coast of the UK. It's story is fascinating, and you can learn more at Sealandgov.com [sealandgov.com]. They don't issue passports as far as I know, though there is the entirely virtual Republic of Lomar [republic-of-lomar.org] that does. A company called HavenCo [havenco.com] is currently investing in Sealand, hoping to tap into a market for government jurisdiction-free hosting, co-location, etc.
        • I saw a BBC report on Sealand in respect to data protection - apparently they have had a lot of enquiries from financial companies for off-site data backup. I think that everyone in this business has reviewed their backup strategies following 9/11, and given that this is not a major cost item for an investement bank, there is no harm in having your data in a different jurisdiction, as well as in a different location. Of course this may be a response to the New York Attorney General's investigations as well.

  • Censorship (Score:5, Funny)

    by The_dev0 ( 520916 ) <[hookerbot5000] [at] [gmail.com]> on Sunday March 09, 2003 @11:30PM (#5474364) Homepage Journal
    Firstly, I just want to say that if it is anything like Australian Internet censorship, it won't make any difference to the majority of users. It is just about having ISP's give the option for filtering to their customers. Secondly, am I the only one who waved their mouse over the damgers of the internet link and expected to see goatse.cx as the address?

  • wha? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 09, 2003 @11:38PM (#5474405)

    "Our concern is not really to stop people looking at pictures; it's to stop the abuse of children involved in the making of this [hardcore] material," and where there is a clear case of child sexual abuse, no jurisdiction will defend it, he says.

    Whoa, did I read that right? A government official saying something reasoned and intelligent when it comes to child porn? A clear understanding of the underlying problem? No blanket statements? No fear of the new medium? No desire to put everyone in jail and pull out the innocents later? No "gateway to other crimes" theories? No fallacious logic ("95% of child abusers have some form of pornography on their computers. Therefore, there's a 95% chance that anyone with any porn on their computer is a child abuser.")?? This guy has an actual concern for children, and doesn't just use "save the children" to advance an agenda??

    Damn! All we have here is John "Under God" Ashcroft. If everybody is as clued in as this NZ guy, I'll take the censorship, thanks!

    • Re:wha? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You can relax, they're probably lying. "Save the Children" has been a stock diversionary tactic since Prohibition. It's a means to get a law enacted (who doesn't want to save children?) which can be 'enhanced' later.
      Sex with children is almost globally illegal and only the smallest fraction is recorded for Internet distribution. Censorship would be a very, very inefficient means towards these claimed goals. I'd wager the true goal is elsewhere.

    • Re:wha? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by catsidhe ( 454589 )
      Theoretically the Australian Consitution was written so that New Zealand could become a member state of Australia at any time, on equal footing with the other 6 (plus a few territories).

      IMHO, this is utterly arse-backwards. Given New Zealand's continual and consistant common-sense, thoughtfulness and ethics, and contrasted with Little Johnny 'Arse-licker' Howard, not to mention NZ's relationship between native, colonial and immigrant populations, and its generally progressive and humane social policies, I would like to make a suggestion:

      Please, please, please, could Australia become the West Island of New Zealand?
      We'll provide the army, if you show us how to maintain a universal public health system! We'll help get rid of your possum problem if you can heal the rift between the Aboriginals and the government!

      Waiting in hope.

    • Amazing...a public official with clue...the end of the earth is upon us!

      That's fine...you can take the censorship. I, however, prefer to think for myself.

      However, your conclusion is wrong in that once people have the illusion that their leaders are clueful, then they're easier to contain and control...and censorship is part of that.

  • Kiwi Censorship (Score:2, Insightful)

    by malia8888 ( 646496 )
    A government that tries to "protect" through censorship scares me.

  • Common Carrier Status!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Myriad ( 89793 ) <(myriad) (at) (thebsod.com)> on Sunday March 09, 2003 @11:42PM (#5474423) Homepage
    Argh, this kind of thing is really the wrong direction to be taking things.

    Personally I believe that ISP's should be given the same common carrier [radiation.com] status as phone companies: they are not liable for any content traveling through their system.

    This would not prevent them from being able to act against persons violating the law. Ie: kiddy porn is illegal in most countries. If you try to host kiddy porn, you are breaking existing laws and can be nailed with traditional laws and warrants.

    Not hosting the content on the ISP? Then why should the ISP be responsible for someone elses actions? Help them find the source, sure, but again under already established laws.

    If you arrange to have someone killed via the phone that does not make Ma Bell an accessory to murder.

    If when planning terrorist activities any carrier could be held liable then I'd save to say it's time to lock up every phone & cellular company - they're aiding and abetting terrorism!

    So why should it be different for the net and ISP's?

    Protect the children?? When are we going to protect ourselves from this ridiculousness?!

    Blockwars [blockwars.com]: a realtime multiplayer game similar to Tetris.

    • Someone should sue MaBell for the contnt of their networks...Maybe then ppl would see how stupid ISP filtering is.

    • If when planning terrorist activities any carrier could be held liable then I'd save to say it's time to lock up every phone & cellular company - they're aiding and abetting terrorism!

      Assuming you have room in the jails. Which would also be full of people from paper, pen and pencil making companies together with postal workers.

  • NZ Government Decisions (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Coryoth ( 254751 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @11:45PM (#5474442) Homepage Journal
    About 2 years ago the NZ government was taking submissions with regard to changes to copyright law, particularly with regard to digital copyright. A small campaign was mounted here to try and get enough submissions against DMCA style laws here, and I must admit that we were listened to and considered. At this stage any mooted changes haven't made it as far as a bill to be passed, so we don't know exactly what they'll do, but it has looked promising.

    In general our government has shown some willingness to be somewhat open minded in considering technology issues, and to actually listen to what real tech people have to say, so hopefully this bill being considered will actually end up being fairly moderate and well considered.

    There is still hope.

    Jedidiah
    • If the Labor government in UnZed talked to their fraternal comrades across the Tasman (currently in Opposition at the federal level), they'd find out that Labor here has figured out that trying to impose censorship is a waste of time. Letting parents install filters if they want to keeps everyone happy, except the wowsers who want to ban everything except Disney films. They all vote Conservative anyway, so why worry about keeping them happy?
  • They want to steal our internet filtering laws? Don't they realise that they just don't work. Our system is complaints based and is restricted to Australia only, so what did the Aussie porn sites do? They went over seas.

    Not only that but in the couple of years it has been running, the system has recieved less than a hundred complaints in total. ISPs are required by law not to host naughty material, and provide filtering software if and when the user requests it. And we all know how well shit like Net Nanny works don't we.
  • Relevant fact: The population of N.Z. is about 4,000,000.

  • Do it or we'll force you! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by ashkar ( 319969 ) on Sunday March 09, 2003 @11:59PM (#5474494)
    "We're pretty hopeful that the outcome from all this might be more people making a real commitment to self regulation rather than seeing some draconian regulation introduced."

    How is forced self-regulation any different than a law that does the same thing? It's like saying "give me your lunch money or I'll kick your ass and take it!" Admittedly, less ass-kicking is involved, but otherwise you feel just as bad.
    • How is forced self-regulation any different than a law that does the same thing?

      If you have a law, you need exact standards, and legal precedents on what is, and what is not legal. But if the government is just merely threatening to do so, without giving explicit standards, by guess is that the ISPs will overcensor whatever they find that might be considered bad. This is likely to be arbitrary, without appeal and throwing suspicion at anyone trying to oppose it. The ISP is at essencially no risk when overcensoring, while at risk when undercensoring. Lacking standards, and exact filters, they _will_ err on the safe side.

      Kjella

  • Where is my tinfoil hat? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EverDense ( 575518 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @12:07AM (#5474522) Homepage
    [sarcasm]Of course this is all about stopping pr0n, and NOTHING to do with stopping people from being able to download movies and music.[/sarcasm]

    Funny how groups in both Australia and New Zealand starting kicking up a stink about "Filtering", so soon after visits by american "entertainment" industry lobbyists.

  • Good old Telecom... (Score:5, Informative)

    by The Ancients ( 626689 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @12:07AM (#5474525) Homepage
    This is a country where the imcumbent Telco also owns about half of the Southern Cross Cable [southerncrosscables.com] - the main data connection into the country (oh, and guess who owns another portion...).

    This is a company that also limits the bandwidth available to customers through specific ports (think P2P). It doesn't matter that the customer has paid for the connection - they still tell (force?) you to use it as they want.

    Prices for data? 128kb/s ADSL with 5GB monthly cap - NZ$65

    up to 8Mb/s (usually around 2MB/s) ADSL (home) 500MB per month $49 1GB per month $69

    up to 8MB/s (usually around 2MB/s) ADSL (home or business)

    600MB - $62

    1200MB - $120

    1800MB - $176

    3000MB - $292

    5000MB - $458

    10000MB - $888

    20000MB - $1800

    These are NZ$ (multiply by .6 to get $US equivalent) plus 12.5 % sales tax, and ISP fees, as this is just for the data flowing over Telecom's [jetstream.co.nz] network.

    And you thought sensorship was our biggest problem - I don't see why are they would sensor us anyway - it's not like we have the means, financially or technically to access much anyway.

    And /.ers thought there wasn't a need for ASCII porn... ..k

    • I don't like New Zealand Telecom any more than a lot of people here, but it's not fair to slag them just because of those prices. The Internet in New Zealand has always been expensive.

      Firstly, your currency conversion rate was slightly on the high side. It's not 0.6, it's about 0.56. Secondly, if you don't like the Telecom port blocking then you have plenty of alternative ISP's to choose from that offer competitive rates and services.

      Apart from that, New Zealand is an Island nation, so what do you expect? National traffic has always been dirt cheap, but most people can't live on national traffic because there's almost no useful content here.

      Compare this with the US, which has a massive localised infrastructure where the majority of content that people want is nearby. International traffic isn't in as much demand, and it doesn't cost any extra because it's not a huge overhead for the ISP's on top of the national infrastructure already available. If 100 million Americans all suddenly wanted to access Australian content on a medium term basis, international charges in the states would go through the roof.

      Irrespective of how much money they have, it cost Telecom a lot of money to get the Southern Cross cable laid, and in an age where many applications are beginning to demand a lot of bandwidth, there's still a limited amount of bandwidth that can flow through it.

      The combination of everyone wanting international traffic and only having a limited infrastructure to provide it with leads to the international traffic cost that we have.

  • Seriously though (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cranos ( 592602 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @12:18AM (#5474559) Homepage Journal
    I know I've taken some cheap shots at the Kiwis but from what I've read of the articles they are looking for a sensible way to balance the rights of their citizens to look at porn with the oh so real fact that shit like child porn, beastiality and snuff movies do exist on the web.

    If they can come up with a way that manages to both protect their citizens rights and make inroads into the production of the sick shit then all the better for them. God knows we need some one to re-think the Internet cencorship laws here, thankyou Chief Luddite Alston.

  • transitive property of 'objectionable' (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ses4j ( 307318 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @12:20AM (#5474570) Homepage
    I just wanted to bring out two paragraphs in the secondary link (dangers of the internet) about the transitive property of 'objectionability', in case some people missed it:

    The status of an encrypted file under the censorship law (Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act) is very broadly defined. If a file can "by the use of a computer program" be converted into an objectionable file, then the original file is judged to be objectionable.

    However, for any two arbitrary bit strings a program can be written to convert one into the other, so strictly according to the legal definition every file is objectionable.

    That is a great example of TERRIBLE law-writing. I mean it sounds all la-de-da at first glance, but don't people re-read these things? How can you sign something into law when it clearly implies that every file on every computer is 'objectionable', and thus illegal. Dammit! Laws are important and writing them like that is negligent!

    Laws like that only go to convince me that the government is too incompetent to make any important judgments for me. If they'd only stop trying, they might not come off like such buffoons and we'd all be winners!

    • Re:transitive property of 'objectionable' (Score:5, Funny)

      by mr_exit ( 216086 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @12:45AM (#5474662) Homepage
      in New Zealand sloppy wording of this kind of thing happens quite often.

      They recently had an update to our liquer laws which essentially made it illegal to transport alchaol anywhere. Trying to get that beer you bought at the supermarket home in your car? nope, not without breaking the law.... Try going to a friends house for a party with a nice bottle of wine without being in public while doing it.
      • in New Zealand sloppy wording of this kind of thing happens quite often.
        They recently had an update to our liquer laws which essentially made it illegal to transport alchaol anywhere.

        Hardly restricted to New Zealand. Best example IMHO involves US Congressmen getting upset by the implications of a bill they passed on campaign finance reform...
  • First you come up with something no one can argue about. "Child Pornography is evil","Communism is the greatest threat to liberty in the 20th century","Al quaidah has forever changed the way we view the world", "Germany was stabbed in the back", They are all the same. Things everyone knows to be true and no one will ever take a stand against.

    Second, you come up with a solution, and assert if your solution isnt followed, the terrible menace will destroy everything held dear in the world. EX. "if we don't monitor terrorists use of the internet they will attack again","Its perfectly allright to entrap child pornographers because they are scum beyond belief and if we didnt we couldnt catch them","we must purge anyone having communist ties from positions of influence in hollywood","The enemies of the fatherland must be eliminated".

    Third, well by the time it gets to three its to late. Something precious and irretrievable has been lost by this point. Its not retrievable but has to be fought for all over again and takes more than a bit of luck to build anew.

    To borrow from Ben Franklin :
    Those that would trade their liberty for temporary safety diserve neither.

  • Oops...Scratch NZ (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 10, 2003 @01:02AM (#5474713)
    ...off the list of places to go when the US completes its transition to a full blown police state.

  • They may take our lives, but they will never take (Score:3, Funny)

    by lpontiac ( 173839 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @01:25AM (#5474775)
    .. our sheep porn!
  • Was I the only one who expected the dangers of the internet link in the post to point to Mr. Goatse?

  • Censorship is the product of small minds. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by leereyno ( 32197 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @02:38AM (#5474988) Homepage Journal
    What I just can't comprehend is why anyone would WANT to censor the internet. It is a sad and silly lie that anything anyone might see, hear, or read is somehow going to alter their personality or corrupt their character. Yet on a daily basis I see people acting on this idiocy as if it were fact. I've seen mothers fearful that their daughters are going to listen to Britney Spears for fear of them somehow turning into harlots. I've seen this kind of behavior and this kind of attitude all my life and I STILL can't figure it out, at least not by using logic or common sense. The only conclusion that fits the facts is ignorance, foolishness, and maybe even a little mental illness. The thing that suprises me most is how people forget what it is like to be young. Their memory is selective at best. They may remember some things, but they completely forget that young people know how to think. They lack experience of course, but that doesn't make them into human tape recorders. It doesn't make them any more "impressionable" than anyone else.

    Censorship is a tribute to the destructive power of stupid people in large groups.

  • I'm always curious how they sepperate search engines spider action from average Joe's porn lust? I am a programmer and so I experiment with spiders that index and copy files from the web, usenet, gnutella, irc, etc. I get a lot of sick shit that comes over the Net to my spiders.. probably more porn than any of these small time traders could imagine. I am always wondering if so crazy government spook is just waiting to come knock down my door, arrest me, and steal my computers so that they can claim to have made a huge porn bust. My spiders don't look for porn but they still find it. I keep copies of everything they find (cached) but that doesn't mean I actually am looking at this stuff. Sure some of the porn I look at but not the sick shit like children and snuff.

  • How to censor people... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nogami_Saeko ( 466595 ) on Monday March 10, 2003 @02:49AM (#5475029)
    Just remember, any time you want to censor someone on the internet, you have the catch-all "Child Porn" to enable you to do so!

    Never mind that it might also "accidentally" stop music/movie trading, and the government "might" expand it later to include prohibiting other sites that, say, are critical of your government, policies, companies, etc...

    Thin edge of the wedge...

    N.
  • If parents wants to censor their kids, they can invest in the software on their own. This is typical big brother tactics that leaves the general populace even dumber because they don't activly have to make choices and think.

    There are no substitute for caring for your children and giving them the time they deserve.
  • As a security consultant who has, time and time again, run into large AND small ISPs (t-dialin, wanadoo, etc) who are unresponsive to emails sent to "abuse@...", I think the notion of requiring them to be licensed and to HOLD them to certain standards of behavior is great. After all, why should they be like any other utility?
  • Nope, don't like it.

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