Aussie Minister Backs Down on Internet Censorship 211
gballard writes "After the constant furore raised by rights groups, ISPs and concerned citizens over the Australian Government's planned 'internet filter,' it seems that Australia Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is finally backing down. In a recent interview, the Minister conceded that many of the sites blocked by the filter were legitimate businesses (including, in one case, a Queensland dentist's homepage) and changed his story on whether the planned filter would restrict 'Refused Classification' websites or use the broader (and more vague) criterion of 'prohibited.'
It's a positive step, but as the article above suggests, at the moment it's only one crack in the defenses of a censorship plan with broad ramifications for Australian internet users."
Re:How long will it take people to learn? (Score:5, Interesting)
Forget their "religiosity". When are they and everyone else gonna learn that collective community blacklists don't work? Teach people how to set up and manage their own personal blacklists, which they can tailor to match their own personal values, and then get-the-fuck out of the way!
Re:Yes Minister (Score:3, Interesting)
I doubt it will go through silently anymore. I've written to, and emailed, Conroy several times detailing the absurdity of it all (he at one stage suggested [dunno if he and his office still does support this] monitoring and censoring VPN connecttions, which I stated to him is akin to wire tapping without a warrant) and haven't got a response that doesn't seem like a form letter. Or a letter that basically boils down to "it's for the children". Yeah. Right. That aside, I do think that mainstream media are finally giving the issue the (bad) press this topic deserves. It's just wrong on so many levels.
Q and A last week (Score:3, Interesting)
Conroy also Featured on Q and A last week. I also spent a great deal of Yelling at the TV watching this. He makes so many conflicting statements, it's hard to know what's really going on.
Re:Yes Minister (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:To view the show (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's an additional problem. People doing what I do for a living:
My relatively clear view of how things work on the inside is that not only senators, but many middle and senior level execs are little better than the good old BOFH. They are the voyeuristic. Whatever their pet peeve of the week is, they'll often act on it simply because they have the power to make a difference. Myself, working for the man in a little known corner of a little known secret 3 letter agency in Australia, we come across a fair old chunk of CP. Most of it, in fact the absolute vast majority of it is completely non sexual shots of single children, no toys, not an adult in sight, just a naked kid between probably about 10 and 15 years old, most of them on the beach, many of them oblivious to the camera. I guess people have a thing for bodies as they hit puberty. Good or bad? I don't really know, we usually skip it and get on with the job. The sickening kind of CP is so exceedingly rare that you'd stumble on it maybe once every other year - and report it up the chain, track it, ID the parties at either end of the link, then dump interpol on their arses. This is something we definitely do undertake with the same resolve that any parent would have if it was their child at the wrong end of that crap. Lots of success too.
Not everything on that list comes from a single government department, quite a few people have as much input as they want, too much really. As to the corporations that made it on there, that obviously doesn't happen by accident. How it happens? You're dealing with politicians and their vested interests, no more need be said.
A little bit of chair throwing happening inside government on this one, so it pays not to rock the boat, I'll stay anonymous this time.
Re:I am not an Aussie (Score:3, Interesting)
Looking up and down the page there are a few fairly valid sounding interpretations of what is actually going on.
Many years ago during the last Labour Government we had the Australia Card. This was an ID card proposal which the Government pushed for a long time. Then one day they decided it wasn't worth the votes they were losing. They held a press conferece. Said that because senator X was opposing the idea they were dropping the idea. The build up took years. The wind down took an hour. The same could happen here.
Re:Yes Minister (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I am not an Aussie (Score:5, Interesting)
And, for the record, "they" didn't take away a bunch of guns; only extremists assert that they enforced it. If you want a gun in Australia you can buy one just about
as easily as anywhere else in the world.
Please don't lie it makes us all look bad.
You can't legally buy *any* semi-automatic or automatic firearm in Australia. Many bolt action long arms are banned as are most side arms. To purchase and own a gun you have to have a signed letter from a rural landholder saying you can shoot on their property, or be an accredited sports shooter (where the guns you are allowed to buy are a heavily restricted subset of the above).
Finally the agreement to getting a gun license gives the police the power to access your home at any time without a warrant.
The fact that they tried to enforce the gun ban (which it effectively is) and failed miserably as can be seen by the ridiculous amount of gun violence in the country for the last few years doesn't mean they didn't try their hardest. Just that they're incompetent.
Oh but at least people don't use a gun when they commit suicide now...they're just hanging themselves instead - Trends in hanging and firearm suicide rates in Australia: substitution of method? [flinders.edu.au].
So long as they kill themselves with rope and not a gun makes the anti-gun nuts all warm and fuzzy I 'spose.
Re:To view the show (Score:5, Interesting)
On Q&A on the ABC The smarmy newspaper "columnist" that was giving Sen. Conroy dreamy looks all night gave himself away as well "Why should people be allowed to read Jihadist literature" plus the constant fall back to "Well in a civil society x *should* be banned" argument with of course him deciding what's civil and what's not.
This is not and never was about child porn.
And I've got to say, the internet losers (sorry harsh but they *were* classic examples of) who were there didn't help things at all. Dear 4chan losers, your internet memes are funny to you on the internet and in your dorms with your loser mates, but in the real world and to the average man on the street they're embarrassing and weird. You did *far* more harm than good to the perception of the anti censorship argument with your childish rubbish and mealy mouthed tired soundbites. Did someone seriously stand up and say "1984 is a warning not a manual" in real life on national TV? Yes yes they did and I gotta say it doesn't translate....at all, not to mention wasting time that someone who actually had a reasonable point to make could have used. Oh and everyone watching groaned and face palmed except Conroy who smirked at the easy pickings.
Seriously if that's the best you can come up with, regurgitating +5 slashdot comments, don't bother standing up and opening your mouth.
Re:Censoship? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well (Score:4, Interesting)
If we have indeed finally passed the stage where every single story on every website is an un-funny April Fool's "joke"...
What worries me more about stories like this (in any country) is not that anyone thought they could filter a country, or indeed DO (there are countries where this sort of thing is already in place, don't forget) but that no-one questioned HOW it got so far so quickly. Someone, somewhere made a decision to affect every Internet-using citizen in a country and nobody batted an eyelid. You can bet your life if they'd added 1% to Internet connection costs, there would have been uproar. But it took until the lists were ballsed up, leaked (illegally?), those lists were banned in several countries, the news of this all hit the web and from there the mass media, etc. before anyone really decided that, actually, this might not have been the best course of action to embark on.
I don't expect politicians to have morals - they are given to them by their voters and their fundraisers - but I would have at least expected some sort of two-way consultation on this beforehand. The users said no, the ISP's said no, so who exactly did they ask and who pushed it through anyway? Someone, somewhere must have asked "is this even possible, is it going to cause trouble?" before it got near a trial phase.
I could also understand it if it came the other way - an ISP decides to implement it for its customers and it gains traction... a bit like Phorm in the UK (targetted advertising delivered by proxying all web traffic at the ISP side).
There's nothing I hate more than a "decision"/"vote" that has already been decided and even if it hits vast opposition STILL gets implemented. It just makes me detest the person/entity that tried to make me think there was a decision to be made and never trust them ever again. It's like redundancy negotiations - by the time it's GOT to the point where you're announcing that there MAY be redundancies, you already know who, what and how many and everything else is a pointless paperwork exercise to pretend you don't and to fiddle the numbers to come to the same conclusion as you want. The second you reach that point of announcement, you KNOW that you're either in or out and there's no way back. (I've never been made redundant, but I've seen several of these pointless exercises first-hand).
Here's a clue - before you go affecting more than 10,000 people's lives, ask around and see how people feel (those affected and those not) by telling them every consequence that YOU know of. It'll prevent a lot of stupidly embarassing political mistakes.
Re:To view the show (Score:5, Interesting)
Dear 4chan losers, your internet memes are funny to you on the internet and in your dorms with your loser mates ... Did someone seriously stand up and say "1984 is a warning not a manual" in real life on national TV? Yes yes they did and I gotta say it doesn't translate....at all
Firstly I don't see why that statement is so bad, although yes I realise one must be careful of 1984-style comparsions, for fear of triggering "But we're not as bad as that, therefore it's okay" fallacy in response.
But aren't these two responses complete opposites? The problem with 1984/police-state comparisons that they come across as too serious and doom-mongering, which is the very opposite of light-hearted jokes and Internet memes. Consider the style of protesting at the anti-Scientology Anonymous protests - the fact that they can be seen having a bit of fun about it helps suppress the "But there are worse things to worry about, stop being so serious" response.
Seriously if that's the best you can come up with, regurgitating +5 slashdot comments
Yes, posts with "+5 Interesting" are obviously of no value ;)
Fight back! (Score:5, Interesting)
I am sick and tired of the lowlifes in power trying to capitalize on "child porn" by using lies and intimidation in order to get even more control over everybody.
It is time we fight back using the same tactics. Make them feel the heat. Get them on the defensive.
Whenever a person (and I use the term broadly) calls CP something which isn't, he or she must be painted a paedophile.
Use the broadest brush possible, I don't care whether it's moral or not anymore: whoever screams "paedophiles!" is projecting and must be a closet one himself.
- You consider that picture I took of my 3yo in a bath sexual? What kind of a sick paedophile are you???
- No, I just want to protect the children from the predators...
- Yes, dirty predators like yourself! You should be locked up! I'm calling the paper.
Make it dirty. Make it personal. Make it hurt.
Re:To view the show (Score:3, Interesting)
How so? Like how the filter wastes money that could be better spent on law enforcement? Or how the filter encourages a false sense of security in parents and guardians, while having little if any real effect? Or that the filter encourages deviants to go further underground, making it harder for law enforcement to detect, track and pursue them? Or maybe the way the filter distracts from much more important and much more real problems of general internet safety? Or perhaps that the filter is based on a secret blacklist that could be easily co-opted to restrict political and civil rights ideas that our children might have an interest in?
You mean like that? Yeah, our "dirty tactics" don't even need to be lies. Shame about the other side.
Re:I am not an Aussie (Score:3, Interesting)
But if you were referring to the NRA, you should have said so. You gave the impression that you were judging the general populace of the USA.
Keep in mind that below I am referring only to the USA, and I make no claim that it is true of anywhere else. But as counterintuitive as it may seem, it is indeed true of the United States. Given the following facts, maybe the NRA's position is as not as strange as you seem to think. And pardon me if at times I characterize this as a left-wing vs. right-wing issue; historically the left wing here has been anti-gun-ownership while the right wing has been pro. But there certainly are exceptions.
There have been few studies of the subject of crime and gun ownership that could even remotely be called unbiased, comprehensive, or reviewed. However, then have been a couple that have been very well done. And the results are very surprising to some people. For example:
"[in a] study by Prof. Gary Kleck and Doctors for Integrity in Policy Research (DIPR). Kleck found that the defensive uses of firearms by citizens amount to 2.5 million uses per year and dwarf the offensive gun uses by criminals. Between 25-75 lives are saved by a gun for every life lost to a gun. Medical costs saved by guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are 15 times greater than costs incurred by criminal uses of firearms. Guns also prevent injuries to good people and protect billions of dollars of property every year."
Many years ago, this same Dr. Kleck, a self-described liberal Democrat, and his research partner undertook a study intended to prove that gun control laws were effective. It was by far the most comprehensive study done up to that time, and made extensive use official Government figures compiled by the Department of Justice, the FBI, and other agencies that kept statistics on crime. The results were so surprising to him that he "switched sides", as it were, and joined the NRA (even though he is still a liberal Democrat). The fact that his own study caused him to change philosophy is a good indication that it lacked bias.
To date, there has not been one serious, legitimate research study in the United States that has concluded that gun control laws have been effective in reducing crime. In fact, the political left has not even tried to undertake any such study, for the simple reason that if it is honest, they already know what it will show, and if it is not, they know will be caught. There have been a number of thin excuses for "studies" by smaller groups that purported to demonstrate that gun control laws in the United States are effective, but without exception they were found to be seriously flawed or downright frauds. However, there has been little criticism of the studies by Kleck et al. that have turned out to be valid.
So I admit that the sarcastic remark I made in my original post here was based on my own experience and cultural context, and may have been unjustified. But you have been guilty of the same. The facts do not support your opinion of the people of the U.S., nor even of the NRA in particular.