Australian Govt Censors Notes From Secret Anti-Piracy Talks 177
An anonymous reader writes "It looks as if the Australian Government really doesn't want the public to know what's going on in its closed-door talks with ISPs and the content industry. The Attorney-General's Department has applied the black marker to almost all of the information contained in documents about the meetings released under Freedom of Information laws. The reason? It wouldn't be in the 'public interest' to release the information. Strange how the public seems to have a high degree of interest in finding out what's being talked about."
That'd because it's probably discussing (Score:5, Interesting)
The Australian government has "a special room" in almost every single ISP with a machine capable of taking a full duplication of traffic for almost any customer. This applies to phone networks as well.
I know someone who installs this equipment, he will not even TALK ABOUT it online, he literally won't type it in an email, IM or messaging system of any kind. Offline it's difficult to get info regarding it out of him.
Those boxes, to my knowledge do not require a warrant, the government can just remotely log in and start recording. Obviously they can't use the data in court without some kind of warrant but the equipement is there.
Posting this anonymously I will assume is enough - I don't have much more information than that unfortunately. If anyone else does, please feel free to reply.
Public interest (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that I disagree with their view here, but the summary makes the mistake of conflating 'the public interest' with what is 'interesting to the public'.
Re:Internet Villain of the Year (Score:4, Interesting)
The OP was making a false equivalency to the fall guy for a religious rebellion to freedom.
I challenged that pointing out that Fawkes is not a symbol for freedom at all, he wasn't even the guy in charge, he was the guy who was caught (Catesby and Percy weren't). As a result, my point is not a strawman but rather, the expression of the old saying "better the devil you know". We know Conroy will be controlled.
BTW, pointing out James I was religious is a bit of a strawman, pretty much it's trying to say "It's OK to do something bad because Janey is also bad". That whole period of English history went from Christian Tyranny to Protestant authoritarianism to reformation years ahead of mainland Europe.
A lie said enough times (Score:4, Interesting)
The liberal policy is to say "No" to everything that Labor does, this will lose them a lot of votes.
Seems to have worked pretty well for the Republicans. Congresses approval is around 10%, yet half the population still supports this now reactionary political philosophy. Who's to say that Abbott cannot make ground out of contrarian hatred. After-all, plenty of people hate the Labor and the Greens, and Abbot has a large media complex that will back him all the way. A lie said enough times... just saying.