Aussie Gov't To Introduce Bill That Would Require ISP-Level Censorship 200
bennyboy64 writes "iTnews reports that the Australian Government has announced its intention to introduce legislation that will make ISP-level filtering mandatory for all refused classification material hosted overseas. The Government intends to amend the Broadcasting Services Act in August 2010 to enforce the filter, and expects the filter to be operational within a further twelve months. 'The report into the pilot trial of ISP-level filtering demonstrates that blocking RC-rated material can be done with 100 percent accuracy and negligible impact on internet speed' Senator Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy said." This despite, as reader Sharky2009 writes, the trial run showing that "a technically competent user could circumvent filtering technology based on ACMA’s blacklist."
Re:Wake up Australia (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Wake up Australia (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Leave australia Alone (Score:3, Informative)
I think people would be right to mod you down.
Firstly, Australia & America have been friends since WW2 when the shock of the british defeat by japan in the asian theatre(most importantly, the loss of singapore) lead to australia moving further from britain to america for defensive pacts, which would lead to trade, etc etc.
Secondly, that has _WHAT_ to do with internet censorship?
Re:Wake up Australia (Score:1, Informative)
"those who would give up an essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety"
just because you are not smart enough to understand the quote doesn't mean that the person who said it was crazy. first get yourself educated then you can make comments on one of the smartest minds of the 19th century.
Re:What happened Australia? (Score:1, Informative)
" Perhaps you could enlighten us on what you think really is significantly different now."
I'll take a guess..
Both major political parties run by folk who wear religion on their sleeves.
There was a time not so long ago when an Australian politician's religiosity was not something that was flaunted.
Now we have politicians happy to be seen at megachurch events, and a prime minister who chose to announce additional funding for chaplains in schools at the national conference of the Australian Christian Lobby.
In recent news.. "A study of the characteristics of 2422 political speeches between 2000 and 2006 shows that politicians doubled their use of Christian terms.."
More censorship, 2am lockouts and other new rules on clubs etc, school chaplains in our supposedly secular schools, taxpayer funding of religious event 'world youth day' .. coincidence??
Re:Wake up Australia (Score:5, Informative)
That would be Benjamin Franklin who said that, I believe, and I don't see anywhere where he is suggesting the wholesale slaughter of those who oppose liberty.
Re:Of course... (Score:2, Informative)
Guy is a fucking turkey. iinet only took part in the trial to prove how idiotic it was, anyone who has a ssh tunnel to somewhere in the rest of the world can immediately bypass this foolish plan, and that has been pointed out to him. Repeatedly. Should I mention the turkey thing again? Not even to mention stenography, gpg encrypted emails, etc, etc, etc. This guy is without a doubt the biggest dumbfuck in the current Labour government.
Why don't we vote the other guys back in, I hear you ask? Why, because in Labour this kind of turkey is somewhat rare, whereas the Liberals/Nationals has a good half dozen or so wack jobs even loonier than him. Why are so many extremists attracted to politics in Aus? Because capable people stand to make way more in the private sector, and those very few capable people with a strong sense of ethics tend to join a party with an ethical basis, such as the Greens, who have yet to make enough traction to make useful changes to the fucked up political culture in this country.
And for what it is worth, the legislation is still just a twinkle in Conroy's eye, it hasn't even been tabled in the house of reps yet, let alone pass a hostile senate.
Re:Wake up Australia (Score:1, Informative)
Independent Senator Nick Minchin
Nick Minchin [aph.gov.au] is a Liberal, not an independent. Did you mean Nick Xenaphon [aph.gov.au]?
Re:Wake up Australia (Score:5, Informative)
I refuse to believe that there is a whole continent-sized country with two and only two political parties.
Well, believe it or not, that's how it works in Australia, both practically and politically.
We have a compulsory, preferential voting system here. This means that in most cases, you actually have to vote for one of the two major parties.
The way this works is as follows: say there are three candidates, Labor, Liberal and Green. Every voter must put them in order, 1, 2, 3. Then all of the 1s are tallied up. The candidate with the least 1s gets eliminated (say, the Greens candidate). Then all of the votes for that candidate are re-allocated according to which of the remaining two candidates got voted 2. In this way, in a typical Australian electorate, 100% of the votes will ultimately be divided between the two major parties.
So let's say I really, really don't want to vote for one of Labor or the Liberal party. Well, that's a shame for me, because at the end of the day I have to rank one of them last and one of them second last, and because of preferential voting the one I put second last will get my full vote after all of the other parties have been eliminated.
On top of this, voting is compulsory. Even if a decent sized chunk of highly motivated people go out and vote for the Greens, the fact that all of the sheep will also be herded out of their pen to vote whether they like it or not means that the major parties inevitably get a very large default vote. Stick a non-political person in a voting booth and tell them they have to vote and chances are they go with what they know, which is either the government or the main opposition party. Compare with the USA where something like 40-50% of people don't vote, IIRC.
Add to this that most Australian cities have one or sometimes two newspapers, and that we get serious political coverage on only one TV channel which many intellectually lazy Aussies wouldn't watch because it's the boring government channel. All of our newspapers are actually owned by either Murdoch (in which case they are sympathetic to the Liberal Party) or Fairfax (in which case they are sympathetic to the Labor Party on the whole).
Politically, Labor and Liberal hate each other but not as much as they hate the minor parties. So they spend a lot of time either discrediting or outmaneuvering any small party they see as a threat. For example, they both demonize the Greens as a bunch of environmental crazies who all want to take heaps of drugs and have orgies in the forest. A few years ago there was a far right party with a bit of clout ("One Nation") which the government promptly dealt with by subsuming most of its policy positions on key issues. That party is all but dead now.
Re:Wake up Australia (Score:3, Informative)
In the house of representatives they don't get elected, as a general rule. The only minor party which consistently get lower house seats are the Nationals but they only run in rural electorates and campaign on rural issues. They also have a permanent coalition with the Liberal party and there usually aren't any Liberals running in the same electorates as Nationals candidates.
The minor parties and independents only get a handful of Senate seats. Each state elects six senators at each election. Again preferences are counted, but because the whole state is counted in the one pool it's easier for them to get over the line.
At federal elections you do need to number all the boxes for the House of Reps. Some states let you just vote 1 for your candidate. For the Senate you can number all boxes (yuck) or just put a 1 in your chosen party/independent's box. If you do that, you're still preferentially voting, you're just choosing to use the preference order that party has nominated.