Australia Air Travelers' Laptops To Be Searched For Porn 647
bluetoad writes "Australian customs officers have been given the power to search incoming travelers' laptops and mobile phones for porn. Passengers must declare whether they are carrying pornography on their Incoming Passenger Card. The Australian government is also planning to implement an Internet filter. Once these powers are in places, who knows how they will be used."
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is porn illegal in Australia now?
Nope. FTFA:
Patten said if the question was designed to stop child pornography being smuggled into the country then the question should have been asked about "child pornography", without encompassing regular porn.
Because you totally need to bring a hard drive into the country to bring along CP, you can't use those newfangled technologies like encrypted network connections and proxies to get around it.
What a giant circle jerk of pretending they are helping the victims.
Censorship (Score:5, Insightful)
Censorship is not only morally wrong, it is ineffective. You chase your tail wasting time and money often to accomplish nothing.
When will people learn?
...and? (Score:3, Insightful)
What is it with these nutcases and pornography? ...but sending your own people to an obscure war on the other side of the world to involve them in shooting at civilians, that's okay?
"Eeeeeeek, a woman showing a naked boobie! How horrifying!"
PCI compliance and encryption (Score:5, Insightful)
What if my laptop is encrypted because of PCI compliance? What if it is against the law in my country for me to compromise confidential information, but now Australia demands to see it? Does this mean American businessmen can't travel ao Australia with company laptops?
Or will Australia not search encrypted laptops?
Note to self (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
What can they do if they find it?
I dunno. Download it? Maybe they want to make sure your porn is on the up-and-up?
Maybe the guy who pushed this rule is actually addicted to porn and wants to create a giant archive of it all, print it out and then roll around in the pages. Who knows? Often these people who are so hellbent on getting rid of "offensive things" turn out to be even more deviant than the ones they are attacking.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
What a giant circle jerk of pretending they are helping the victims.
Now how can you say that? They are ASKING you if you have porn on your computer. Surely no self respecting kiddie porn pervert would disgrace himself by LYING, would he?
What exactly is the criteria for such searches? (Score:2, Insightful)
And what exactly is this hoping to achieve anyway? If someone wanted to smuggle illegal porn into Australia a laptop isn't exactly the most efficient means, just use public email systems and some basic encryption. Unless the government is going to demand that all home PCs have monitoring software enforced there's no way that stopping the 'smuggling' of software can even be considered.
Or maybe that's actually what they want
Wow. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not being Australian, I have to ask, "What does the Australian government have against business and tourism?"
Yes, sir, officer (Score:4, Insightful)
Now just define 'porn' for me.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
I imagine this could have serious consequences for Japanese and other Asian travelers were images of child porn (i.e. anime and manga) are perfectly legal. In Australia such drawings are outlawed, even though there's NO victim in this so-called crime. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I don't know why our Aussie cousins put up with such nonsense, and do not demand repeal of these laws that infringe upon the individual rights of both artists and users of the art. Freedom of expression is given to us by our Creator (god or nature) and no government has legitimate authority to take away that right, anymore than it has a right to cut off our hands or gouge-out our eyes.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or just use TrueCryp and create a hidden partition.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
I imagine this could have serious consequences for Japanese and other Asian travelers were images of child porn (i.e. anime and manga) are perfectly legal.
Tough shit. My handgun is completely legal the United States. If I take it into another country where it's not legal I'm going to be charged. Maybe the Japanese should leave their kiddie porn at home when they travel to the West?
Re:PCI compliance and encryption (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably it just means corporate and national security outfits will have all sensitive data pass through a nice strong VPN connection. The laptop you carry through customs will be freshly formatted and ready for any amount of probing.
If you're not afraid of retribution you could have a text document sitting on your computer's desktop explaining the situation and advising their nanny state to please sod off. Include a link to here. [nelsonhaha.com]
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Please. why does this have to be so complicated? A flash drive will do. Maybe a 16GB one which is like $30 US? Keep it in your pocket, and they won't even know you have it. Hell, keep one in each pocket, and you have 32GB of porn coming in the country.
Re:PCI compliance and encryption (Score:3, Insightful)
> Does this mean American businessmen can't travel ao Australia with company laptops?
That would be my reading of this law, yes.
Personally, I already have a travel netbook, with a very limited set of data on it. Partly because it means a search isn't going to find anything interesting, partly because it means if I lose the laptop it's a lot less of an issue.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
What can they do if they find it?
I dunno. Download it?
The simplest solution is to somehow get porn producers within the MPAA umbrella. Charge customs officers a licensing fee for being able to search travelers' porn stashes. Better yet, sue them for piracy for viewing legitimate users' porn. It would be worth it just to see the clash of the giant douchebags. Does opposing douchebaggery cancel out and leave the world a happy place?
Re:PCI compliance and encryption (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't an issue of whether or not I'm carrying porn on the laptop. If I have an encrypted laptop, I can't hand over the password to anyone, and yet Australia will demand I do exactly that.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Agreed. This is a political play -- an agenda create by those who don't have a clue what they're doing and are too arrogant to consult technical folks that do. It will fizzle when they realize it's fruitless or the media winds no longer blow in a favorable direction.
I've worked at quite a few businesses that promoted very similar -- doomed to failed because we're business people and don't have any idea what we're doing -- initiatives.
Re:So... (Score:2, Insightful)
What if I tell them that under my clothes, I am pornographic? Will they strip-search me?
Re:copyright vs material (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:PCI compliance and encryption (Score:2, Insightful)
Yea, because they only search your laptop if you answer yes... /facepalm
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Or do you think there really are impossibly proportioned cartoon people in the real world, with emotions other than those that the artist has attributed to them at the exact time being pictured? Do they have a family history? Are they going to grow up in later life and abuse other cartoon people?
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes the real question is in the "declare" part.
If you say "no" in good faith and they find you with "anything", things can get legally interesting as you lied on your paperwork.
Citizen journalist, authors, speakers, protesters with story time limits can all face a long time wasting legal choke point.
Sitting in detention as they appeal the fine point of "declare" and the material found on their computers.
Days later they are released with a no comment due to privacy laws from the federal gov. Their story/work lost and reputations damaged.
Buy a new HD/ssd before entering Australia and install only productivity apps.
Encrypt anything in/out while networking in Australia and buy a new HD/ssd on exiting.
Re:travel effects? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe you were hoping for a +Funny mod, I don't know, but what you _think_ a healthy sexual relationship should consist of is entirely irrelevant.
Now, in case you also didn't bother to RTFA, here are a few choice quotes for you:
"Australian customs officers have been given new powers to search incoming travellers' laptops and mobile phones for pornography, a spokeswoman for the Australian sex industry says."
"If you and your partner have filmed or photographed yourselves making love in an exotic destination or even taking a bath, you will have to answer 'Yes' to the question or you will be breaking the law."
Customs confirmed the new reference to "pornography" on the Incoming Passenger Cards and the search powers, acknowledging that searches conducted by officers may involve the discovery of "personal or sensitive possessions".
So if you and your significant other decide to take nude photos and you say "no" to having pornography, that could mean an arrest. Not to mention answering "yes" and having to show it off to strangers, low rent strangers at that.
And I don't even want to think about what happens if you do declare "yes" to be law abiding and a particularly conservative guard/cop/agent happens to uncover a few pictures of your 3 year old son running naked through a sprinkler on a summer day.
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Ageism at its best. Puberty in women is usually between ages 15 and 17. There's not much happening at the age of 18.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
a gun is dangerous
A gun is no more dangerous than a motor vehicle, but that's rather beside the point that I was trying to make. If you visit a foreign country you have to abide by the laws of that jurisdiction. I don't happen to agree with Saudi Arabia's laws regarding women but I wouldn't suggest that my sister fly there and try to rent a car as an act of civil disobedience.....
Re:So... (Score:2, Insightful)
you don't want things like goatse, tubgirl or microsoft in your porn, do you?
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
pAussies (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
A gun is no more dangerous than a motor vehicle
You try casually walking into a bank with a ford mustang concealed on your person before donning a clown mask and sticking the place up..
Fact is, a gun's primary (and arguably only real) function is to shoot (at) people, a motor vehicle's primary function isnt running people over..
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'll help you get that legal the second you can get cartoons of Mohammed legal.
SO... (Score:3, Insightful)
Have they worked out a good, legal definition of what constitutes 'porn'? If they haven't then you;d better not take *any* gadget into Australia.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is only the latest in a string of censorship proposals that the government claims are targeted towards protecting people from child pornography.
The whole idea of protecting people from kiddie porn is just ludicrous. The laws are supposed to be about protecting the _kids_ from being exploited, not "protecting" adults from being exploiters (if you consider downloading free stuff from the internet to be "exploitive"... IMHO the exploitation has already happened and anyone downloading the content isn't doing anything to help the exploiters unless they are paying for it).
the smurfs (Score:3, Insightful)
are having intercourse with the teddy ruxpins, while the cabbage patch kids are fellating the my little ponies
the tamagotchi orgy centers on aang the last airbender and spongebob square pants is using the tentacled kate gosselin dildo on adam lambert and dick cheney ...
oh i'm sorry, you meant define porn IN GENERAL, not my specific porn, sorry
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
You are over complicating this. They are not going to subject every computer that comes into the country to forensic analysis. Mac or Linux command line: "tar -czvf archive.tgz ~/porndir;rm -rf ~/porndir" or if you use Windows just use the built-in compression system. Better yet, put all your porn in your Dropbox or other cloud storage. Then when they ask if you any porn on your laptop you can honestly answer "no". Of course there was... and there will be again ten minutes after you get to your hotel room... but right now there is honestly no porn. A national firewall is clearly not going to block popular cloud storage providers.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
so that those in power look "tough" on cp crimes? ;)
duh!
This should be amusing... (Score:3, Insightful)
These days my personal laptop has a copy of my family photo archive. (All perfectly innocent... unless you find sunsets and landscapes arousing...) I'm sure this is true of a LOT of people, perhaps even the majority of people who travel with laptops. I suspect my current archive is smaller than average, a few thousand images, under 5GB if I recall. Skimming quickly through this meagre archive is not a quick exercise
If they really intend to inspect every single image on every single incoming laptop then they had better have lots of employees who are not likely to fall asleep...
Re:So... (Score:3, Insightful)
even more deviant than the ones they are attacking.
It does make sense. It is difficult for people to believe they are not normal (when it is in a bad way.) So they assume everyone else cannot control themselves either, and so try to impose the blame for there own lack of self control on others.
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
"I'll help you get that legal the second you can get cartoons of Mohammed legal."
Start working, show me a law (outside of Muslim/Islamic countries) that makes it illegal to draw Mohammed.
Re:Censorship (Score:3, Insightful)
Censorship does not need to be perfect to be politically effective.
Don't confuse apathy or poor education with censorship. There was an article in the last Time that was with someone paralyzed at Kent State. What proportion of those born after that in the US know anything other than having heard the name once?
Re:So... (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm sure with some modification the engine could run on other liquids.... like those bottles of flammable liquid they pimp at airports - perfumes, aftershaves, and booze.
Hell, even if they take your chainsaw away you could probably cause plenty of problems starting a fire with the fuel (and lighters) they sell in duty-free!
They managed to stop people bringing their own drinks off the back of an alleged attack, meaning people now have to buy drinks from the airports/airlines. Oh, and they increased the check in times too, so more time waiting about in hot, air-conditioned environments.
I wonder if they will close their duty free shops if an attack is tried on a plane using stuff bought from DF. I seriously doubt it, and if this comes true, then it just highlights how customer safety will always come second to profits.
Re:As an Australian, what a joke... (Score:1, Insightful)
Now, I don't support chlid pornography any more than the next person
I refuse to acknowledge that child porn is a problem worthy of special attention.
It's just the latest item in a long line of hysterical garbage. Nothing more than an emotional manipulation tool for politicians and a set of attention-seeking tools for the media. As if they even care about the problem. Addressing the symptoms is so much more useful to them.
I won't accept it. I won't prefix my comments with, "I'm not a paedophile" like some pathetic scared cow.
Let's be frank. Men women and children alike get raped every single day. Sometimes the sick fucks who do this capture it on video. There's nothing you can do about it. We can get revenge afterwards but we can't prevent it. Ever.
Now you're thinking, "There must be something we can do." NO. No there isn't. This isn't a videogame or a TV show - some problems cannot be solved. You can attack the symptoms all you want but you'll never change human nature and you'll hurt plenty of innocent harmless people in the process. That's the ugly truth.
I don't say this out of lack of compassion. My girlfriend was raped. I know the terrible psychological damage it does. I know what it does to a person more than any dipshit who prattles on about it on a news show.
Actually there is one way to stop child rape: the total elimination of freedom and self-determination. All you have to do is compromise the fundamental, time-worn and proven ideals of western civilisation. Drop it all for a police state or worse. With omnipresent paranoia and control, you can completely protect some classes of individuals.
You don't want that. It isn't worth it to sacrifice all of our lives and values so that a few can be spared from suffering. It isn't an improvement.
Sounds disgusting right? That's reality. Some people will die or suffer horribly no matter what. We can only make a choice to minimise the suffering, and history has shown us the necessary decision: Live free or die.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
So they don't have child porn but by that point nobody likes them and you can send them to jail for having the image from a popup in their temporary internet files.
fantasic!
you know what would be easier?
if we just did away with these court things. they're really just a hassel anyway.
Re:PCI compliance and encryption (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:2, Insightful)
Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
But more to the point, if someone downloads CP from usenet (or similar service) and thus there is no indication to the producer/creator that it was being consumed, how is that encouraging more creation of the product?
History repeating itself (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Australian here- It's pretty simple really.
We have a political system where, instead of directly voting for a prime minister, we instead vote for our local representative; the party with the most seats gets to elect the prime minister. Essentially.
The problem comes when the two main political parties own almost equal seats, but many seats are "safe" seats. Think Texas. Is a Democrat ever going to be elected in a landslide in Texas? Nah. Is a Republican going to take San Fransisco in a landslide? Nah.
So, politicians focus on the marginal seats. Think Florida, which could go either way.
It just so happens a number of those seats are, currently, in and around Adelaide; a highly religious, conservative city known as "The City of Churches". So, politicians on all sides of the political spectrum are metaphorically sucking the bible belt's dick in order to get those precious one or two seats, which means they can keep/gain government.
Which means our current administration is pushing through knee-jerk think-of-the-children legislation while the opposition is basically screaming "US TOO BUT BIGGER, BETTER, MORE KNEE-JERKY."
It's pure horseshit and doesn't represent the will of the Australian people at all.
Re:So... (Score:1, Insightful)
Obviously, it's not. That's merely a justification used for the laws.