Australian Gov't Drops Plan To Snoop On Internet Use — For Now

CuteSteveJobs writes "Australian Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has been forced to back down on her government's unpopular plan to force ISPs to store the web history and social networking of all Australians for two years. The plan has been deeply unpopular with the public, with hackers attacking the government's spy agency. Public servants at the spy agency promoting the scheme been scathing of the government, saying: 'These reforms are urgently needed to deal with a rapidly evolving security environment, but there isn't much appetite within the government for anything that attracts controversy,' but a document on the scheme released under the Freedom of Information Act had 90% of it redacted to prevent 'premature unnecessary debate.' Roxon hasn't dropped the unpopular scheme entirely, but only delayed it until after the next election."

Politician and "police state" have same root word.

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> a document...had 90% redacted to "prevent premature unnecessary debate."

I think they meant to "prevent mature, necessary debate on who will be elected next election."

Australian democracy working quite well

[Jeeeb]

So the internet filter was dropped and the government has been absolutely silent on it since then. We're not going to have browser history data retention laws. iiNet won its case and was found not responsible for its users copyright infringement and we haven't seen any government attempts to introduce French/NZ three-strikes or similar laws since then either. Oh and finally games are going to get an R-rating.

All in all, Australian democracy has worked quite well these last few years and the Australian internet is looking pretty free compared to a lot of other western countries. Oh and work on the nation wide fibre optic network continues as well.

Re:90% of it redacted...

[vlad30]

No surprise its a extremely left wing government democracy privacy and what voters want is last on there list of priorities. Additionally "after the next election" also means her successor will have to deal with it, she will be lucky to keep her seat let alone her current job.