South Australia Outlaws Anonymous Political Speech 352
Sabriel writes "If you're online in South Australia and want to comment about the upcoming state election, be prepared to hand over your real name and postcode first — because this month it becomes illegal to do so anonymously (even under a pseudonym). Media organizations must keep your details on file for six months and face 'fines of $5000 if they do not hand over this information to the Electoral Commissioner.' This abomination was passed with the support of both major parties (Labour and Liberal), and to quote its sponsor, Attorney-General Michael Atkinson, 'There is no impinging on freedom of speech, people are free to say what they wish as themselves, not as somebody else.' Apparently incapable of targeting a few impostors without resorting to 'nuke it from orbit' legislative tactics, Atkinson has forgotten that protecting anonymity is important to the democratic process; hopefully both major parties will get a reminder come the polls on March 20."
I'm not Australian but... (Score:3, Interesting)
I would have mixed emotions about this. On the one hand, there's Thomas Payne, who would have hanged had the British known who was posting those flyers. Anonymity is part of free speech.
OTOH, if you hear something good about a candidate, it's good to know that it was an oil company executive or an RIAA goon who who is so enthusiastic about that particular politician.
Re:I'm not Australian but... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the right to be anonymous is more important than knowing who said what. You just know that the politicians put this law in place so that they could harass or politically destroy those who would speak against them. It's a "strategic *law* against public participation".
Censorship is the road to fascism.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
WTF is with Australia lately? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Obligatory Soviet Russia joke: (Score:4, Interesting)
Stop working and go steal stuff. What do you have to lose?
N.B. This is not legal advice.
Re:I'm not Australian but... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, I don’t.
If a cop says I turned left at an intersection where there’s a sign saying “no left turn”, I’m guilty unless proven innocent. They don’t even have to reveal their tape footage from the car showing whether or not I actually did.
Innocent until proven guilty is a pathetic lie that’s maintained to placate us.
Re:system (Score:3, Interesting)
In the US, you're fucked. In pretty much all European countries, large parties grow and shrink even though they rarely fall completely. For example, here in Norway in 2001 Ap acted like an ass and went from 35% to 24% in the election. In 2005 Høyre lost 7.1% and FrP gained 7.5%, shifting which was the biggest right wing party.
It may not shift the overall balance, but US politics would be way different if they had to fear the "New democrats" or "New republicans" taking their seats, not just the antichrist on the other side. Australia, seems to have some fucked up variation of the same, according to this page [wikipedia.org] the Greens got 7.79% of the votes and zero seats. That is defective democracy by design.
Re:Obligatory Soviet Russia joke: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm not Australian but... (Score:4, Interesting)
No, it'll just make them sure that now they'll be identified and possibly "stopped" by those who don't appreciate their positions.
Your boss is a militant for party X? You'd better don't say anything bad about them, or you'll find yourself out of a job.
1995 US Supreme Court precedent in support of anonymity:
http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/93-986.ZO.html [cornell.edu]
Why is this bad? (Score:3, Interesting)
The right to free speech is not the right to anonymous speech. The proverbial soapbox was never anonymous. Why should political speech be anonymous? I can see how it might make some folks happy, but I don't see why it has to be right. Just let me vote secretly.
Re:Australian citizens, PLEASE do the right thing. (Score:3, Interesting)
It's only impossible because voters are stupid and gullible. It certainly is possible for non-party candidates to get elected, and it does happen once in a blue moon. For instance, 10-15 years ago, Jesse Ventura was elected governor of Minnosota, even though he was an independent. It was a complete surprise for the Dems and the Reps.
However, he didn't get re-elected; he spoke his mind too much and offended voters, such as by saying that religion is for weak-minded fools; not that I disagree, but voters are so simple-minded that one little thing will make them not vote for you. Somehow, they think that whoever they vote for should agree with them in every way and never say anything "offensive", so we wind up with politicians who are liars and only say things that will help them get elected, not things they truly believe. So after one term of Jesse, they went right back to the corrupt Dems and Reps they tried to get away from before.
Independent and 3rd-party candidates run all the time for elections at most levels. It's rare they get elected. People complain about the two main parties, but they never want to vote for anyone else: it would be "throwing their vote away" or somesuch.
Honestly, I'm not sure how you can have a non-corrupt government at all. I don't think it's possible. It does seem that unelected governments (like in China) are far more effective than elected ones, although they don't always do the right thing.
Re:Australian citizens, PLEASE do the right thing. (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's a question for you:
If democracy works so well, why is it devolving into this same sort of scenario everywhere we look?
If democracy works so well, why are we now in the position of having to vote the bastards out? how did they get voted in to start with??