National Censorship Plan Offensive, Says Aussie Shadow Minister 116
downundarob writes "Senator Nick Minchin, the Australian Shadow Minister for broadband, communications and the digital economy, has written (or more likely a staffer has written) this interesting article on the Australian Federal Government's continued zeal to enforce ISP-level filtering in Australia. In the article he posits that 'Underlying the Rudd Government's plan to screen the internet is an offensive message: that parents cannot be trusted to mind their children online.' Meanwhile, we wait for filtering trials to start, trials that have been delayed and which have next-to-no support among the industry. Telstra BigPond — Australia's largest ISP — has refused to take part, comparing internet filtering to 'like trying to boil the ocean.' The third largest, iiNet, is prepared to participate to highlight flaws."
has written (or more likely a staffer has written) (Score:3, Insightful)
Why did you feel you had to mention this? The authorship credit is to Minchin, not J. Random Staffer, not Kevin Rudd.
Stick to the facts.
haha boil the ocean (Score:4, Insightful)
it's amusing to watch Obama atm, we had a very similar flurry of hope and dreams when Rudd was elected here. now look what we have, internet censorship, rolling back of benefits to seniors and families having babies and a string of empty promises.
give it just a little time and that shine will rub off revealing the politician underneth.
Re:So... (Score:1, Insightful)
Let's look at it from another angle.
The censorship plan is really a giant signal to Internet bad guys that Australian law enforcement and intelligence gathering sucks, and that there is a disconnect between policy makers and intelligence gathers/LE. Anyone within the intelligence community would be able to point out that the smart bad guys would get around the censorship via technical or tactical means; that should have been enough to scrap the plan if their true goal was to stop the supposed bad guys.
So that leaves us with a couple of other hypotheses as to what their true aims are. One possible hypothesis is that there are other goals for this program. Possibly BIG-GOV surveillance, like the NSA program in the USA.
One thing is for sure, once this program goes through it sure as shit won't matter to my slow assed, and continually dropping out, optus connection.
Re:So... (Score:1, Insightful)
What does McCain have to do with Australia?
Be careful, minister (Score:5, Insightful)
If parents cannot be trusted to mind their children online, they cannot be trusted to vote you in the next elections...
Re:So... (Score:4, Insightful)
Censorship is always offensive. It starts with one person or one group declaring that they hold the superior view and way of life. They do not.
Re:How does this "protect the children"? (Score:1, Insightful)
Pedophiles adapt: "Hmm, I can't find pictures of naked kids... guess I'll just kidnap one myself"
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is how it always works: (Score:4, Insightful)
This is how it always works:
When one party has control and the other is the opposition, the party with control moves forward the agenda and the opposition opposes it.
When an election happens and they switch sides, the new party in charge who used to be in opposition of the agenda now moves it forward while the party who is now out of power opposes it.
The agenda of world centralization of power and increasing control over the general public always moves forward.
Re:Shadow Minister (Score:3, Insightful)
No - Minchin does not have any sense. It's just the "broken clock" principle at work here - the government's position is *so* wrong, that the opposition's default position of denigrating *anything* the government does (or proposes) happens to be right.
BTW, the current government was much the same when they were in opposition - in fact, their lack of *effective* opposition was a major reason they were in opposition so long. The NSW Liberal/National coalition (the conservatives) are in the same position - the current NSW government should have easily lost the last two elections, but the opposition has been so inept that Labor has won by default each time. I'm a socialist, but I would have voted for the Libs in NSW if they'd been able to put *any* kind of effective opposition together.
Of course, the majority of what Johnny's government did was wrong on so many levels. Johnny had a plan to turn us into his ideal "nasty society", and to a large extent it worked. It's going to take a long time for the healing.
Re:Shadow Minister (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally I think the way the good senator got his seat is a fucking joke. Anyone remotely interested in the wishes of the people would say to themselves: "I only got 2% of the vote, I should resign and force a second election". This guy says: "HaHaHa, suckers!". I'm also skeptical of anyone who is so hell bent against lewd behaviour that they see it corrupting society [wikipedia.org].
These are the type of people who come up with "sex offender lists" that include drunk collage streakers and people going for a piss against a tree. The reason they do this is to draw suspition from themselves and dilute the meaning of "sex offender" to the extent it includes everyone. I'm not suggesting an Aussie senator could be a rock spider, just that by taking up his seat he has already demonstrated he is not interested in what his constituents think/want/need.