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Censorship Your Rights Online

Australia Plans to Censor the Internet 523

Posted by CmdrTaco from the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up dept.
MAXOMENOS writes "The Australian government is planning to block websites used to organize violent protests, as part of a larger effort to prevent crime from being planned on the 'net." Yeah this is gonna work really really. It's working out great in China after all.
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Australia Plans to Censor the Internet More

Australia Plans to Censor the Internet

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  • well damn... (Score:3, Funny)

    by venomkid ( 624425 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @02:45PM (#4637701)
    I guess that blows my plans for www.eplanyourviolentprotestcentral.com...

    vk.

  • Another horrible loss of rights (Score:5, Interesting)

    by EggplantMan ( 549708 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @02:45PM (#4637702) Homepage
    Yet again our rights are being eroded.

    When we chose to have freedom of assembly, and freedom of speech in our rights and freedoms, we chose to enshrine it, for better or for worse; to take the good with the bad. That's right, we chose to occasionally hear or read utterances of foul words such as nigger [m-w.com], or other words of hatred or obscenity because within the realms of free speech also lie enlightened and uplifting works, such as those of Plato, Charles Dickens, or Danielle Steel.

    If the politicians see fit to take away rights from us, or from any other country for that matter, we still lose. Why's that? Because of the nature of the internet, we are all censored. The problem with censoring hate speech is the potential for continual erosion of speech rights. Next after hate speech, is critical speech. Take Russia for example, where a show named Kukli depicting political satire has been banned from television because of its critical nature. I repeat, this sort of thing is bad for all of us.

    • "We choose to take the good with the bad."???

      No. That's not how it works in a democracy, or most republics for that matter.

      When free speech and freedom of expression interfere with others' rights, they are rightly subject to dissolution.

      When organizations try to protest a group (whether it is a genetic engineering conference, world bank meeting) or individuals (abortion clinic patients) from engaging in their rights by preventing their freedoms, it does not serve the public interests or help anyone's personal liberties.

    • Re:Another horrible loss of rights (Score:5, Insightful)

      by pineappleboy ( 624544 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @03:06PM (#4637813)

      Caution must always be applied in the use of censorship. However, every state should be allowed the ability to prevent what it considers crime. If a website is complicit in some sort of criminal activity, then it should be shut down, by the same laws that apply to all other media.

      What we should be worried about is who decides what material is considered criminal. I wouldn't consider these sort of decisions a loss of rights, as the reason behind them is to protect people and property from violence.

      --

      T. Metcalf

      We never know the worth of water until the well is dry.

      • However, every state should be allowed the ability to prevent what it considers crime.
        The issue is whether the state should be allowed to prevent speach based on the speculation that it may lead to crime. This is absolute immoral, especially since the speach here is specifically political. No state has the right to do this.
        • All states do this. Even the 'Land of the Free.' What the Australian government is trying to do here is stop crimes from being planned and that's illegal in most countries. You can get convicted in the US for plotting to kill someone or planning a terrorist act, even when it's just talk. It's not a good defence saying it was just talk, hiding behind the x'th amendment.

      • Your hair splitting is worrisome (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Featureless ( 599963 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @05:57PM (#4638712) Journal
        Shoddily and over-specifically summarizing centuries of legal tradition, America has the extremely circumspect definition that only speech which "directly incites" other parties to "violence" is not "protected speech" under the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

        So in theory, in America, a website might be considered illegal if it were instructing protesters to take violent actions. But even in this, U.S. courts have at various times (though certainly not always) proved extremely conservative about what an "instruction" is - as a general rule, "let's teach the bastards a lesson" doens't qualify; not even "bring your baseball bats" would. The former could be considered rhetorical or non-specific, and the latter doesn't tell anyone what to do with the bats (could be self-defense, for instance). Only speech which names names, places, or specific acts in a totally clear and unambiguous way, such as "John, attack any police who come into your sector with rocks" has tended to qualify the speaker as a party to a conspiracy to commit a criminal act.

        Despite this unprecedently liberal view of free speech, America has not degenerated into anarchy, much to the chagrin of a number of European political philosophers.

        In the case of the websites being shut down, there are no examples of what qualifies, only a vague reference to anti-WTO organizations. Though anti-WTO protests have a repuation for violence, the organizations behind them are uniformly peaceful in nature and advocate nothing other than non-violent demonstration and, only at the most absolute extreme, vandalism or traffic violations. The most polite thing we can say is that it's often "unclear" whether or not the police or the protesters are the source of the violence in a given incident. Being more impolite, it seems that law enforcement is sent out in anti-protest activities with instructions that virtually guarantee violence ("There's a gang of young drugged-out commie agitators out there frightening citizens and stopping traffic. Here's all the clubs, pepper spray, and tear gass you need. We stand behind whatever actions you need to take 100%.") Telling it like it is, quite often the peaceful protestors get the shit gassed and jackbooted out of them without provocation, and when they post bail and go home, they see on the news that they were "violent" and thus, deserved it. Congratulations freshman, you've just passed Authoritarian Propaganda 101.

        But I digress. It appears that by U.S. standards the interdictions being considered in Australia would be in gross violation of the 1st Amendment. Obviously territorial sovereignty means this should give an Australian politician little pause. But there is also relevant international law and widely-recognized (or so we all claim at Christmas) international declarations of human rights, which muddy the waters somewhat. Unfortunately, this doesn't give politicians much pause either - in the 1st world or the 3rd.

        Ultimately, the American interpretation of the right of free speech is so strict because of constant and blatant experience with the abuse of police power to intimidate and silence political dissent - a totally undemocratic and illegal practice in almost every 1st world country... but politicians and police tend not to have themselves arrested and tried for it.

        The bottom line is that (at least up until now - I don't want to speculate about the future) we've pretty much backed off silencing political speech in the U.S., no matter how inflamatory. The infamous example is the Nuremberg Files website [christiangallery.com], a hideous screed containing a list of abortion practitioners, where names are crossed off when one is murdered. Again - no specific instructions to murder any of them, so, despite a rough ride through the courts (this one is about as close as you can shave it), it is still running.

        Americans do it this way because history has unambiguously taught them that what little reduction in "dangerous" activity you might get from trying to silence "dangerous" speech (and believe me, you don't get much) is far outweighed by the immense damage these things do to a functioning democracy.

        Incidentally - when democracy breaks down, that's when you really get violence.

        I think you're a poster child for propaganda. The moral of this story, as old as government itself, is that those in power will call any protest action "violent" or "illegal" in order to simultaneously suppress it and discredit it. Often, police agent provocateurs are even sent into a demonstration with instructions to commit violence themselves and urge others to as well, as "insurance" against particularly well organized protest groups. And that's happened in America. A loss of rights? Shutting the anti-WTO websites down because they "incite violence" is a classic case.
    • So, how do you feel about the "Nuremburg Files?" That was the web site that gave personal information on Abortion doctors in America. As they were murdered, their pictures were drawn over with a red X.

      Is this protected speech? What is the difference between this and websites that organize violent protests? Do you just like the politics of one better than the other?

      -jon

  • Sarcasm? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Moridineas ( 213502 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @02:45PM (#4637704) Journal

    I'm not sure I get it? It IS working pretty effectively in China, right? I sent some links recently about the Uighur Turks in Xinjiang (Sinkiang)province to some Chinese friends (living in America) who kept up with Chinese news sources via the web and they had never heard of anything in these articles (the existence of a Uighur Independence movement, bombings in Xinjiang, protests in the capital city of Xinjiang, etc).

    It seems to me that China's censorship works pretty damn well!
    • It works well against those who aren't actively planning violent protest. To those who are actually interested in learning about this kind of stuff, it's not that hard to circumvent it.

    • China blocking: real time (Score:4, Interesting)

      by MacAndrew ( 463832 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @03:08PM (#4637822) Homepage
      Check out Harvard project [harvard.edu] for the latest on the battle. Looks like the Chinese are pulling ahead.
    • It was sarcasm, but not sarcasm about China. It was sarcasm about the fact that western (god I hate that term) democracies seem to be in a rush to abandon their basic principles and emulate repressive governments.

  • Retaliation (Score:5, Funny)

    by DarkHelmet ( 120004 ) <mark&seventhcycle,net> on Sunday November 10, 2002 @02:46PM (#4637709) Homepage
    The Australian government is planning to block websites used to organize violent protests

    So in response, will the US violently ban Crocodile Hunter from TV? God I hope so...

    • That reminds me of an American documentary on the rattlesnake. This scientist goes walking around the desert for ages, and can't find one. Then he finds the hole one lives in and sits outside it for three days waiting for it to come out. Then the doco ends. Steve Irwin would have just found a big stick and poked into the hole till the snake came out.....

  • The Great Firewall of Australia (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Alethes ( 533985 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @02:47PM (#4637725)
    Did anybody ever really think applications like Peek-A-Booty [peek-a-booty.org] would have to be used in "Free" nations? Perhaps we're not paranoid enough.

    Can somebody with a clue about Australian law an politics explain what recource the Australian citizens have against this measure?
  • How, are they going to block proxys too, what will stop a group from setting up a site in a diffent country and using a proxy in that (or another country) to view it.

  • You must presume .... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Raiford ( 599622 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @02:49PM (#4637740) Journal
    that a protest is going to be violent. How does this kind of thing fit in with the Austrailian Constitution? Must be something in there about a right to assemble. Just more money and job security for the lawyers.

    • Re:You must presume .... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by the_womble ( 580291 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @03:12PM (#4637836) Homepage Journal
      Exactly.

      This is fine if a website openly advocates violence. What about websites that advocate non-violent protests that are likely to lead to violence, or imply support for violence rather than explictyly supporting it. What about non-violent but illegal protest (Gandhi broke a LOT of laws and went to prison for it).

      I suspect that a lot of non-violent protest will be suppressed too, especially if they belong to groups that are a real nuisance to the authorities ("anti-globalization" and anticapitalist sites for example).

      As the parent post says this is going to lead to a lot of presumtions being made.

  • Europe, too! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by WiggyWack ( 88258 )
    And don't forget about Europe! They're outlawing hate speech [wired.com].

    And these days, anything said that doesn't go along with the ideas of the majority or the most vocal is considered hate speech.

    • Re:Europe, too! (Score:3, Interesting)

      by foqn1bo ( 519064 )
      And these days, anything said that doesn't go along with the ideas of the majority or the most vocal is considered hate speech.

      No, anything said that is hateful or elicits violent and/or opressive behavior against people is considered hate speech. It just so happens that as of the last 50 years or so this doesn't go along with the ideas of of the majority of the civilized world. So rest assured that you wouldn't be arrested for complaining about taxes, or whatever other poorly reasoned ideas you had in mind.

    • Yea I hate that....

  • So does that mean (Score:5, Funny)

    by oliverthered ( 187439 ) <oliverthered@hotmail. c o m> on Sunday November 10, 2002 @02:52PM (#4637751) Journal
    That there going to block this [army.gov.au] web site?
  • I feel new sympathy for furriners who don't understand why there are two senators from Montana but only one representative.

    E-Crime Law Reform Working Party,

    What, like a political party?

    State Opposition Justice spokesman Lawrence Springborg

    So.... he's, like, the justice minister in the opposition's shadow cabinet?

    A police ministers meeting in Darwin

    WTF is a police minister? You have more than one? Is that like a District Attorney, like a chief of police, or something? It's a cabinet post?

    Senator Ellison's decision to give the new Australian Crime Commission the power to investigate cyber crime.

    I thought you had a parliament? Why is a Senator handing out new police powers, anyway?

    I assume that the ACC is your shiny new sinister agency in charge of government repression.

    • Re:Any Aussies wanna explain the local polibabble? (Score:5, Funny)

      by fishexe ( 168879 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @03:48PM (#4638003) Homepage
      I thought you had a parliament? Why is a Senator handing out new police powers, anyway?

      Because the Emperor has just ordered the Imperial Senate disbanded, and the senator in question made grand moff. Fear will keep the local systems in line, fear of this battle station!
    • E-Crime Law Reform Working Party,

      Is a council of the relevant cabinet members in the six state governments (and the two territories), and the federal government, to coordinate their reponse to the "monstrous threat of E-crime".

      State Opposition Justice spokesman Lawrence Springborg

      Is the opposition Party's spokesperson on justice matters. Yes, he's in the shadow cabinet.

      WTF is a police minister?

      The minister responsible for the oversight of police. Each of the six state governments has one. Yes it's a little strange, but law and order is one of the state government's major responsibilities. They aren't a chief of police, they are politicians (but here the chief of police isn't an elected position so the political element of a US police chief's role is handled by the minister).

      I thought you had a parliament? Why is a Senator handing out new police powers, anyway?

      Either this is something that can be done by regulation (ministerial decree, essentially) or the legislation will get through Parliament without much debate (which seems likely if all the States have agreed to it as well, as every single state and territory government is run by the party in opposition federally at the moment).

  • Even in the holy US of A... (Score:5, Informative)

    by MacAndrew ( 463832 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @02:58PM (#4637771) Homepage
    ...the gov't is empowered to block communications aimed at organizing violent or illegal acts, such as a riot. Now, the rule is a strict rule, and so the threat of violence must be specific and imminent (the classic Supreme Court case held that a Klansmans calling for generic "revengement" at a rally was not censorable, despite his poor grammar). And criminal speech is not protected ("Let's rob that bank.").

    The problem with the Australian move is not so much that it's anathema to free speech as it is stupid, much like the White House "encouraging" the craven networks not to broadcast Osama bin Laden's tape because it might have secret signals in it (more likely that was a cover story for plain old political reasons). There are far too many routes of alternative communication to make such measures any more than symbolic.

    As the great Justive Homer would have said, "D'oh."
    • Well, the media HAS been giving out too much information with publicly announcing those tapes. The first time we saw him, he didn't have a cloth behind him, so one of the media outlet analysts pointed out that they could probably figure out his location by the landscape. Well, of course, Bin Laden caught on and now he has a big sheet covering up the landscape (and his probable location).

      There was way too much information that the media covered, as usual. I'm surprised the snipers were actually caught with the amount of detailed information that the media put out. ("Well, he's not shooting kids, so they're safe." Next day: "Oh, he just shot a kid!")
      • ...if the US wants to embargo or edit the videos for specific security reasons, that's OK (I hadn't heard the sheet thing! was the analyst smarter than our intelligence?). They could have broadcast the audio with a still, or whatever. It makes me nervous to suggest we need to censor the bad guys, and I don't like that the networks did it voluntarily on vague reasons from the feds. I still believe that the administration's reasons were primarily poitics (no!), and if I'm wrong there goes my argument. :)

        With the snipers, it's not widely known that the final descriptions of them and their car, including license plate, that were broadcast and which led to their identification by a trucker, we "leaked" to the media. Some of the press noticed, however, that the leaks were coming from a lot of different directions, suggesting that's what law enforcement wanted. Publicity was generally managed carefully but erred on the side of openness because with the snipers the gov't really needed citizen help (I live in Arlington, VA).

        So both sides use each other -- symbiosis.
    • Actually, I do not believe that the government can block those communications (prior restraint). What it can do is apply criminal penalties to those who intentionally foment violent activity.

      But then IANAL, thank goodness :-)
      • What it can do is apply criminal penalties to those who intentionally foment violent activity.

        Before or after the violent action is actually commited? In other words, is this pre-emptive law enforcement? We arrest you now for nothing to keep you from maybe doing something actually bad tomorrow?

        Oddly enough, this is amongst the many wonderful pieces of logic used to justify Prohibitions I and II here in the States.

        Anyway, rereading the article, this is not about applying criminal penalties after the fact. This is simply censorship ("...will look at upgrading federal powers to block certain websites.") of anything the Aussie government deems 'used to organize protests'. It is no different than banning the use of printing presses to print things that are 'dangerous'.

        • Yes, it can be applied without the actual commission of violence. In other words, the crime is the advocacy of violence, and does not require actual violence.

          The article is about Australia, which may have different rules.

    • Re:Even in the holy US of A... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Ian Bicking ( 980 ) <ianb@nOspaM.colorstudy.com> on Sunday November 10, 2002 @04:24PM (#4638236) Homepage
      Interestingly, we recently had a global justice protest here in Chicago (you know, WTO/IMF, etc -- in this case it was an associated organization, Trans-Atlantic Business Dialog). It was rather odd, because by far the biggest publicizer of the event was the Chicago Police. It had far, far more coverage than the Oct 26 peace protests, despite being a last-minute organization effort, much smaller, and generally not a big deal among the leftists in the city.

      Ultimately, it has been complete peaceful -- which is not odd, since absolutely no one had suggested any violence whatsoever. The only question was whether the CPD was going to instigate violence, but then with all the publicity they set up there were cameras everywhere. Not that most media won't bend over backwards to avoid showing police violence. But they were actually interupting programming to cover the protest, and the number of police were roughly equal to the number of protesters.

      Anyway, it was hard for me to understand why the police and city government would do such a thing. The protest was looking to be pretty minor and not well organized -- the CPD practically saved it. Of course, they did it through fear-mongering (but there's no such thing as bad publicity, yada yada -- some will argue with that, of course).

      But I've noticed, especially reading comments here and elsewhere, that a large portion of people have fallen under the sway of these reports. They believe that the protesters are violent thugs, even though by far most violence is caused by police. They believe these protesters are like locusts, who come into their cities and disrupt and destroy before moving on.

      I suspect that the government is trying to sway people into thinking that empassioned political speach is inherently violent and should be made illegal. If this law does okay in Australia, I would not be surprised if it came up in the US -- probably under the guise of being anti-terrorist.

    • If a bunch of idiots conspire to trash a city
      amidst a demonstration, the US is empowered to
      arrest them, using their Web banter as as
      evidence of conspiracy. But to block the sites
      at the ISP is not within the US's powers.

  • Ban the corporate media websites (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 10, 2002 @03:07PM (#4637817)
    As somebody who organizes said "violent protests," I'd like to suggest that the Australian government ban access to websites like WashingtonPost.com and other media websites that routinely contain editorial content that advocates international violence (war) and terrorism (government violence that is illegal and violates human rights).

    How about Australia? Are you hypocrites or just interested in censoring controversial opinions?

  • Another Issue... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RAMMS+EIN ( 578166 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @03:09PM (#4637827) Homepage Journal
    Leaving aside the debate on wheter or not censoring can be a Good Thing, I just want to say that the Australian government at least does it the right way. They block sites they don't want their citizens to see, rather than suing them for something that might be perfectly legal in the country the site is located. The latter method, in my eyes, would amount to extending their jurisdiction beyond the borders of their own territory. At least they're not doing that, so they're not affecting the rest of the world. The Australians can decide for themselves what to do with the censorship.

    ---
    The right half of the brain controls the left half of the body. This
    means that only left handed people are in their right mind.

  • Surprised? (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by Ost99 ( 101831 )
    I'm not.
    I've been to the land down under, and it's one of the more fascist countries I've visited. They are even worse than the US.

    They are the country the most wiretaps per citizen. They still treat the aborigines as second rate citizens, and they inprison imigrants in consentration camps.

    China is Australias morst important trading partner. Now wonder some strange ideas come back from China.

    - Ost

    • Re:Surprised? (Score:2, Informative)

      by thargor66 ( 527953 )
      Now thats bullshit if ever I've heard it.
      Most wiretaps per citizen, I don't know so I'm not going to argue that point.

      Aborigines aren't second rate citizens. There are MANY high profile aboriginies in Government and other areas, such as sporting. Aboriginal people have access to effectively interest free government provided home loans, they are guaranteed places at university and they get more government support than any european descent person does. I'm not saying that conditions are perfect for every aborigine in Australia and I'm not saying that there hasn't been 2 centuries of persecution but the means is now there for them to take hold and turn it all around.. and plenty have. There are isolated communities which are impoverished, agreed. But I can point to various US Indian communities in the same state.

      As for the crap you are spinning about imprisoning ILLEGAL immigrants. We do exactly the same as the US and the UK and 1/2 of bloody Europe. The only difference at the moment is we have so bloody many that the time it takes for a recent illegal immagrant to get completely through the system can be between 6 months and 2 years. As the levels drop back down again, time will decrease and it will be a non issue like it was 10 years ago. Unfortunately with our huge borders (we have way more coastline than the US) and our low population (less than 20 mill) we get known as an easy arrival. Of course they don't realise that only 5-10% of the land is actually livable, the rest being desert.

      China is one of Australia's most important trading partners along with the US, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan. Shit, we send 1/2 the wheat we grow every year to IRAQ, so I suppose we must all have terrorist insticts?? That's the lamest argument I've ever come across.

      I think the view you have of Australia is purely coloured by your own personality and being an easy target for derogatory media.

    • Re:Surprised? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Idarubicin ( 579475 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @06:23PM (#4638843) Journal
      I've been to the land down under, and it's one of the more fascist countries I've visited. They are even worse than the US.

      How did this get modded Interesting, rather than Flamebait? If one reads the article, one finds that Australia has decided to pull the plug on websites that are used to organize violent protests. Such websites are illegal in the United States as well, however the legal tests for shutting down such sites are stricter in the US. The First Amendment does not protect speech that advocates specific criminal acts. That's why you're not allowed to put Wanted: Dead or Alive posters of abortion doctors on your web site. Similarly, posting notices to the effect of, "The WTO is meeting in Seattle next week, bring your Molotov cocktails" would also be illegal.

      Only very specific threats are typically considered unprotected speech, however. You can publish bomb recipes in the States, or make general calls for revenge, that might be unacceptable in other jurisdictions. Australia has chosen to accept a slightly broader definition of what constitutes inciting violent or criminal activity. Slight difference in degree, not a difference in kind. Many other countries (Canada, for one) have similar policies. (And, IIRC, Canada is usually reviled on Slashdot for being a Socialist/Commie/pinko nation, rather than a Fascist one.)

      They are the country the most wiretaps per citizen.

      They are the country with the most reported wiretaps per person. I'm sure that the FBI, CIA, and NSA are just models of honesty and transparency about that sort of thing, since they're such good USAPATRIOTs. Ahem.

      China is Australias morst important trading partner. Now wonder some strange ideas come back from China.

      Canada is the United States' biggest trading partner. I'd love to know what strange ideas Americans are getting by that route.

  • Goes along with illegal *expressions* of hate... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @03:21PM (#4637878) Homepage Journal
    Glad i live in the US where speech is still sort of free and we can almost speak our mind.

    As long as i dont discuss decryption, copy protection, anarchy, discuss political issues before elections, how to get around taxes....

  • Difference between Defamation and Satire (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jpt.d ( 444929 ) <abfall&rogers,com> on Sunday November 10, 2002 @03:42PM (#4637981)
    State Opposition Justice spokesman Lawrence Springborg said that despite the federal proposals, he would introduce a Private Member's Bill on defamation in Parliament today. It would call for defamation to be an indictable offence with up to five years' jail on conviction.

    The case of defamation in the article might have certainly not been satire, but there is a wide blur line here.

    How can somebody make an honest joke (about somebody) and not get penalized.

    Case in point: Royal Canadian Air Farce [airfarce.com] (note: you can download episodes off of their website)

    Their entire show is pretty much satire on people. Politicians mainly. Their imitation of Chretien has to be the best. This show might be cut and dry humour. But many satires are not quite as far on the humour spectrum.

    Please tell me how you can distinguish them.
    • How can somebody make an honest joke (about somebody) and not get penalized.

      IANAL, but common law in most countries has built up a set of principles by which defamation lawsuits are judged. Generally, the limits of acceptable comment are much broader when discussing a bona fide public figure, like a politician. It is accepted (in both common sense and common law) that politicians will be subject to scrutiny (and ridicule) within reasonable bounds. Satire is almost always acceptable, in part because on television shows like Royal Canadian Air Farce it is obvious that humour is intended, and remarks should not be taken as gospel truth.

      In the media, different countries have different standards for news reporting. In the United States a plaintiff must show malice on the part of his or her defamer--very difficult, which is why so much sensationalistic crap can be published as "news". In Canada, the bar is lower--the news source must demonstrate that they had reasonable grounds to publish their (otherwise defamatory) assertions. In other countries, YMMV. In all cases, there is (or should be) a responsibility to separate fact from opinion from humour.

  • Hold your horses (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NightRain ( 144349 ) <rayNO@SPAMcyron.id.au> on Sunday November 10, 2002 @03:56PM (#4638040)
    Aren't we all maybe jumping to conclusions here? I mean there is one throw away line about blocking certain websites.

    Just like the last couple of times the government raised a stink, and threatened to block stuff, it will just be smoke in the wind. Look at their plans to stop Australians gaming online, and also the laws on hosting material 'not acceptable for children to view' in South Australia. They both had some sort of motions passed, and then got washed away into irrelevancy due to the complete inability of the govt to enforce the laws they formed on the matter. Either that, or the laws they formed were so watered down as to be pointless.

    The Australian government can't and won't bring itself to the stage of actively proxying all international and national traffic and parsing it for hints of illegal plans for violent protests. Instead, they will pass some sort of motion that forbids Australians from hosting such a site on an Australian server, whilst completely ignoring the possibility of internation hosting etc. They will be seen to be doing something by the people who don't know better, and the people who do know better will just get on with life as if none of this ever happened.

    Sure, this is a bad thing in so far as the precedence it sets, or rather in the precedence it re-enforces, but it will make no difference to anyone in the end.

    Ray

  • Why is this ALWAYS brought up? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by GauteL ( 29207 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @03:57PM (#4638049)
    I'm thinking about smugly stating that "it will never work"

    What difference does that really make? Some people will find out what they want, but the problem with taking away rights DOES have an impact wether or not it truly works. If some people can get around the blockage, there are still lots of people who do not have the knowledge to do so.

    The same goes for taking away fair-use rights with copy-protected CDs and the like. The fact that they with lots of effort can be circumvented is besides the point.

  • Guilty until proven innocent? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @04:28PM (#4638263)
    "The Australian government is planning to block websites used to organize violent protests, as part of a larger effort to prevent crime from being planned on the 'net."

    If they're inciting a riot, then charge them as such and let them defend themselves in a court of law. It looks like this law is designed to let the government decide by itself whether a website is planning a crime and lets them block it all by themselves without first charging the owners with a crime.

  • This isn't the first time they tried this (Score:3, Informative)

    by Shackleford ( 623553 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @04:37PM (#4638303) Journal
    It seems that once again, the Australian government is going out of its way to censor the Internet. You may recall this story [slashdot.org] for example, where the South Australian goverment tried to censor web sites, newsgroups, and mailing lists with "adult-themed" content.

    Australia's government does not seem to like to the way the Internet is lacking restrictions to free speech, and neither do many other governments. And one has to wonder if this strategy will work. Violent protests can still be organized without the Internet. Have violent protests not been organized long before the Internet was used by protesters as a medium for communication? And how can they know which protests being organized will be violent or not? Many people may show up at a protest with no intention to be violent, but keep in mind that it only takes a few people to start a riot.

  • S11 - I was there, this is true (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anarchofascist ( 4820 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @04:48PM (#4638350) Homepage Journal
    Read this, the best and most accurate report [vicnet.net.au] about the first "violent" protest in Australia, the unfortunately named "s11" protests on the 11th of September 2000.

    The police were indeed mad, there were thousands of protestors, all as calm and determined as could be, and successful. The first day they were forced to ferry in the conference candidates individually by helicopter. Bill Gates called off his .NET speech at the nearby conference centre. On the order of a hundred thousand protestors, all behaving themselves, standing in front of the gates to the site.

    Violence - one or two people wanted to attack the police lines, they were well and truly calmed down by a dozen to half a dozen people each.

    Anyway, read the article [vicnet.net.au]. It's all true afaik.

  • Australia (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mbrod ( 19122 )
    Of all the countries that has a hard on over Internet censorship and spying, why Australia?

    I don't see a lot of crime their, where is the justification?

    • Re:Australia (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Australias last federal election was held just after september 11, so of course we got the most conservative, racist, backward government on offer at the time.

      About a hundred Australians just got killed in a terrorist bombing in Bali. The population is scared and riled up and so the government can do whatever it wants under the guise of protecting people. This law is nothing, they can arrest kids now without having to notify a guardian for something like 48 hours. People can just disappear in Australia... no trial, no lawyers, nothing. The only thing stopping this being used for policial purposes is the trust of the federal police and intellegiance agencies. The army and intellegience agencies of Australia have already been discovered to be working in concert with the government to cover up policy issues.

      Internet censorship is rife because some very very conservative politicians from backwaters end up with political clout due to nearly balanced numbers in the upper house. They block large, economic actions (for example, many-billion dollar sales of public assests) until they get conservative laws passed.

      Fact is, 90% of voters and 99% of politicans don't know and don't care how the internet works, this law is simply part of a law and order campaign to get votes. Next week they'll implement 3 strikes or something.

  • Ban Hotmail! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by danimrich ( 584138 )
    Ban Hotmail! I'm sure a lot of protests are organized via e-mail and mailinglists. Seriously, how can anyone think that this is going to suceed? Even China has resorted to physically, rather than technically, restricting internet access.

  • some details. (Score:4, Informative)

    by squidinkcalligraphy ( 558677 ) on Sunday November 10, 2002 @07:03PM (#4639048)
    The main site in question is Melbourne Indymedia [indymedia.org], an open publishing site. As part of the collective, I have first hand knowledge of the crap that's been flung around regarding this.

    Firstly, the NSW police minister asked the federal government to censor the site (and two others; noWTO [cat.org.au] and s11 [s11.org] , neither of which host any violent content) under the existing Australian internet censorship legislation. However, the Australian Broadcast Authority did not find anything illegal with the sites, and did not censor them. So the government has decided this is not good enough and wants tougher legislation to block dissent.

    As for melbourne indymedia, the main post in question [indymedia.org] was one which does suggest to people different ways of dealing with police at protests. Being open publishing, the comment is the persons own view. Whether or not one agrees with the comment, it is important to have a discussion about it, and that is exactly what happened; a heated discussion follows the original post.

    People always flail their arms about `protest being OK as long as it is within the law.' But what if the law is unjust? Are people not entitled to defend themselves against a fascist police force?

    What I find particularly ironic is that the Australian Labor Party, founded on the ideals of civil disobedience (unions et al) are now the ones who are trying to quell any dissent whatsoever.

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