Australian Government Delays Internet Filter Legislation 255
An anonymous reader writes "It seems the Australian federal government is being forced to delay the introduction of its proposed and much-hated, much-maligned Internet filter. It will not be introduced in the next two sittings of parliament, which realistically delays it until after the next election. News on withdrawing the filter, which was a promise from the previous election, has disappointed lobbying groups such as the Australian Christian Lobby."
Won't somebody please think of the children!?!? (Score:5, Informative)
The Australian Christian Lobby can go fuck themselves sideways with a 40-foot barge pole. Fucking morons.
Re:Won't somebody please think of the children!?!? (Score:5, Funny)
The Australian Christian Lobby can go fuck themselves sideways with a 40-foot barge pole.
I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but I believe they've already banned that.
Fucking morons.
Ooh, that one too. Sorry, but thanks for understanding.
Re:Won't somebody please think of the children!?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Fucking morons.
Ooh, that one too. Sorry, but thanks for understanding.
Actually I thought that was how we got into this situation.
Re:Won't somebody please think of the children!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
A brazilian writer told once that the problem with humanity started when stupid people realized they were the majority...
Re:Won't somebody please think of the children!?!? (Score:4, Interesting)
Speaking as a Christian, Lobby groups can go fuck themselves. It is ludicrous that any tiny minority that is good at fund raising, or has deep corporate pockets, can be allowed to go around parliament and have private "chats" with legislators. The way people should influence their representatives is via letters and local meetings (and the representatives should be required to keep office hours in the non-sitting season that allows workers to visit them).
Groups like the ACL don't even represent most Christians just a tiny vocal minority.
What is likely to happen here is that Rudd and Conroy will pull a Howard and pass the legislation once returned to power because they now have a "mandate". Honestly we should bring back the Greek/Roman practise and try elected officials once they have left office.
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I have a better idea, how about giving us the ability to kick them out of office if they break their promises? Sure, we'd vote every other month for a while, but in the long run I think we are better off.
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Re:Won't somebody please think of the children!?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are a Christian and oppose to this maybe you should apologize and then fight it. That or leave the religion.
That doesn't make any sense, the filter is not mandated by any Christian doctrine or authority. I understand the apologise bit because our Government apologised to the Indigenous people, but the problem is that although I support such an apology there is no reason for me personally to apologise since I personally did nothing wrong. Consider a Muslim who lives in New York, should he apologise for the WTC attacks just because they are of the same faith? If you don't support someone's actions who has similar beliefs as you, you don't need to apologise for their actions.
Please note the difference between similar beliefs and the same beliefs.
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Considering what's going down with the RCC in Europe, I'd much prefer if they would NOT think of the children when considering fucking something with a 40foot pole.
Re:Won't somebody please think of the children!?!? (Score:5, Funny)
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Not quite.
Nick Xenophon and Steve Fielding are the two useless crackpot lunatics in the Senate. Fielding has the added bonus of being a serial god-botherer (oops, I mean Family First party member). Xenophon is an independent, so likely doesn't even have anyone (not even imaginary) to help him identify when he is being a tosser.
Conroy is the whackjob pushing the filter to satisfy the other two dickheads and get government policy through the Senate.
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Um, Xenophon is against the filter, and has publicly stated this several times. I don't agree with everything he says by a long shot, but he's definitely not a crackpot like Steve Fielding or Tony Abbott. Further, independents can often be a good thing, primarily because they don't toe the party line and are more likely to vote based on their personal beliefs than what will get them a promotion to the front bench. I'd rather politicians who vote for what they believe in (even if I disagree) than vote for wh
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The Australian Senate is elected by proportional representation per state. Senator Fielding represents those constituents [newstechnica.com], otherwise discriminated against, who remain climate change sceptics, evolution sceptics, ten-finger sceptics, outbreeding sceptics and walking upright sceptics.
Promises, Promises (Score:5, Insightful)
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How about a write in campaign? Write No Internet Filter on the ballot papers for both houses.
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Sorry dude, it won't work.
I can promise you that no-one keeps track of what is written on ballot papers -- all the AEC staff and party scrutineers care about are whether a ballot paper is formal or not and the way the vote is cast.
(I speak from extensive election night experience)
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If you feel strongly about this, or any other political issue then you might want to watch this TED talk by Omar Ahmad on Political Change with Pen and Paper [ted.com].
He talks about the best way to get your voice heard by politicians, which turns out to be a hand written letter once a month.
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Donkey votes help no one.
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Of course if Australia votes them in again, they'll say they have a mandate for this filter but the opposition is pretty much a joke. *Sigh*
Not if they don't have a majority in the Senate - while that leads to frustrating inaction on some fronts, the best advice here is to vote for a local member whose individual or party policies best reflect the interests of the local community, and then ensure that you don't vote for the same party as your primary vote in the Senate, or only do so if you're clear that you want to go with that party's whole platform.
Get more independents like Senator Xenophon in there and we'll get some accountability and ind
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and lets not forget the explosion in boat people heading for australia, which the Rudd government has failed to do anything about beside let a bunch of them escape.
this is what happens wh
Re:Promises, Promises (Score:4, Informative)
You could always vote for the Australian Sex party. They're new for this election and actually have some pretty sensible policies revolving around civil liberties, freedom of speech and keeping religious fundamentalism out of Australian politics.
Looking slightly dangerous for Rudd (Score:3, Interesting)
The opposition Liberal Party are finally getting their act together and the Labour Government doesn't want to feed them any issues to debate, so filtering is on hold.
Re:Looking slightly dangerous for Rudd (Score:5, Informative)
Frankly the Coalition scare me more then Conroy. Both the leader of the Liberals and the Nationals are ultra conservatives (not in the good way, they are religious nutbars) so voting them in would be just as bad, probably worse then another 3 years of Rudd. Personally my vote is going to a minor party (likely the greens) who, if given enough power can keep out bad legislation, just like the last filter vote.
Also Rudd and Conroy are getting a lot of heat from the Labor back bench, even Kate Lundy has openly questioned the filter after towing the party line and defending it. The prospect of Rudd facing revolt from his own party this close to an election is not a good one.
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See, I voted for Labor at the last Federal Election, and I want to like them, I really do. But it's the stupid stuff like this that means I'm going to vote for the Greens, which is something I swore I'd never do.
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The greens are turning out to be less environmentalists and more insane policy blockers of late which is kind of scary. As for the environment, Rudd should never have put Garrett there, nothing against the guy but he was definitely not qualified, minister for the environment should be occupied but
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You answered this question yourself.
Coalition 37, Labor 32
Coalition wins any vote, in case you haven't been keeping up with politics, the coalition votes against Labor on almost any issue that they can without losing votes.
Geeens 5, Family First 1, Xenophon 1.
Now with preferential voting in the two part
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We're lucky enough to have a system of Preference voting in Australia - whole in 90% of electorates it boils down to Labor vs Coalition for a representative, you can still express your dissatisfaction by directing preferences rather than voting directly for Labor. It indicates a swing against the party in their "primary vote" and if enough people around you do the same you'll push your electorate to a marginal, getting it that extra special attention.
And remember you can balance it out with a vote for an in
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I don't think Rudd will use the Double Dissolution trigger unless he's doing significantly better in the polls than he is now. And I agree- Preferential voting is a good system (Instant Run-off voting, for US readers).
Also luckily, I'm in SA, so I can vote for Xenophon.
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A question, not knowing how the politics work in Australia. Why do people vote the same old? And I know - it's happening everywhere but isn't there a way to vote someone outside the parties? Someone from your peers? If not - is it really a democracy as democracy is defined - if the parties rule, what do you call it?
Now about Internet filtering - anyone, anybody, any entity, any company or corporate, any political party, etc which supports the filtering has taken a page from where? Maybe from Germany (you kn
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is it really a democracy as democracy is defined - if the parties rule, what do you call it?
Uh, democracy as we've got it is representative, for the simple fact of expedience - if we asked for people to vote on every matter of legislation, we'd get nowhere. And the "parties rule" mode of democracy we have in Australia is the Westminster system; it's worked for a fair while in a fair number of places.
Maybe from Germany (you know when),
I'm sorry, did you just Godwin a debate on internet censorship? You don't need to refer to the Nazis to provide examples of abhorrent internet censorship - just say the filter would put us in the same
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Hi, thanks - sorry, I knew the answers before asking and the Germany reference was (a little?) thick?
I'm just a little ticket about these issues, working in (kind of) IT business over 40 years and trying to fight things I know will hurt (company, corporate, enterprise or customer) later, as censoring!, hiding truth, avoiding something everyone knows now or later, etc, etc. Sometimes winning, sometimes losing but, even after retiring, can't give up.
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ultra conservatives (not in the good way
Well, that begs the question: What good way?!
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I disagree. Abbott already has a proven record of forcing it down people's throats.
(see http://www.theage.com.au/news/sushi-das/mr-abbott-minister-for-meddling/2005/11/23/1132703249708.html [theage.com.au])
Unfortunately Abbott is not on his own in this regard, I believe this may be something that Abbott and Rudd ac
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another 3 years of Rudd will be much MUCH worse then just about anything. the greens in government would be worse, because an environmental single issue party simply isn't capable of running a resource based economy. thankfully greens will only ever be a senate-take-one-seat-and-milk-it party.
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Ha, and thus far the only party to actually implement their scheme are who... But I have to ask you, do you know why Rudd was elected in the first place.
Work Choices.
It sounds like you are trying to water down a party that has been taken over by extremists and was not that moderate to begin with.
If Rudd didn't get into power things would have been very different
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lower wages = more hours worked in order to pay bills. This means higher unemployment as a side effect as companies would be getting more work for less money, with no new work incoming there is no need to retain unnecessary workers.
Apart from managing to restart foreign investment in mining, which is most of our economy. Labor kickstarted th
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We had twelve years of rule by the "ultra" conservatives until three years ago, of which time that "hyper religous nutbar" as you describe him (a boringly mainstream catholic in reality, do you describe the Prime Minister or NSW premier in the same manner given that they both hold the same position on most moral issues and attend church every Sunday as well?) was a senior minister and one of John Howards closest advisors. Under that "ultra" conservative government the closest we ever got to a mandatory filt
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I'd be more inclined to vote Liberal on the grounds that they've historically been far more concerned with staying in power and they've done that by keeping the people happy enough. Labor went in with some good ideas and a far superior approach to the election... they've just made some really awful decisions.
Best outcome I could see would be Labor getting the House of Representatives majority, then
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GOOD! (Score:5, Insightful)
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> With any luck we can get this farcical idea shot down somehow before then...
Our automatic intelligent filter has detected an attempt to masquerade the idea of a "facial shot" and intercepted your message. It won't be delivered.
Aussie network admins.
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Dead and buried (Score:2)
Not actually an election promise (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Not actually an election promise (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=100265633350951 [facebook.com]
Seems like a bit of a co-incidence.. especially because this is the second time it has happened. Last time there was a protest organised about shutting down the Tote due to insane liquor licensing - but the protest was a waste of time as a decision had already been made.
I guess politically it's a lot less damaging if they stop the protest from happening.
But maybe they've started doing next years budget and realised just how expensive this filtering nonsense will be.. and that they can safely cut it because no-one wants it. They can save face by saying "it's just been delayed".
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You mean to tell me George Bush is not a space alien?
I....
Everything I believe in.
so wrong...
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He's really just a shaved monkey. ^1
[1] http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushmonkey3.htm [about.com]
[Citation provided]
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Some obvious observations (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Stephen Conroy is spot on when he says the internet shouldn't be treated any different to any other forms of media. It isn't a magical beast, it's just another form of media (albeit more accessible and chaotic).
So there's nothing fundamentally wrong with filtering it. I mean hell, it's already illegal to *host* this sort of content in Australia.
2) It might be abused, or it filter stuff you disagree with.
I disagree with filtering material on euthanasia. However this isn't an objection against the filter itself (I mean, I agree with filtering stuff on graffiti or terrorist), but simply against the choice of application.
3) The reason it will fail is exactly the reason it will work.
It will fail miserably because anyone can circumnavigate it.
But this is exactly what makes it hard to abuse. With oddly-moralized hackers up in arms, you can bet they'll seize on any abuses of the filter and plaster them embarresingly over the internet. So the government has a strong incentive to stick within their declared uses of the filter.
So the worst objection to the filter is simply that it could mostly be a waste of time... that said, it will evolve and change and may prove useful.
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The fundamental problem with filtering and censorship now in all media is that it only draws attention to the blocked material, so the filtering can't be done transparently. You have to pretend the stuff isn't there at all to have a hope of filtering it.
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That's true, but it shouldn't be about the content, it should be about toning the internet down so we have far less crime on the internet. It was never looked that way and the "pr0n" card was played.
Mess with peoples porn expect failure (which it has) but talk about the real issues like china and some of the nasty stuff that's happening there at the moment.
I urge you to watch this, story on the Australian News. It is 40mins long, but trust me when you get into the thick of the story you'll love it.
http://ww [abc.net.au]
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Well okay but how can you seriously propose to filter porn, when a major distribution mechanism is email? The proposed system which uses a database of "bad" URLs just won't work.
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4)It will cost a fuckton of money which will ultimately be passed on to the voting customers that already pay a fuckton of money for sub-par internet.
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Stephen Conroy is spot on when he says the internet shouldn't be treated any different to any other forms of media. It isn't a magical beast, it's just another form of media (albeit more accessible and chaotic).
So there's nothing fundamentally wrong with filtering it. I mean hell, it's already illegal to *host* this sort of content in Australia.
Nope, Internet is not quite like other media, at the extent that all the other media require a physical support for the information. Thus, any censorship of other media will result in somebody, not affiliated with the government, in Australia knowing about the censorship: in extreme, the censorship of that item may be made public and, possibly, debated if necessary.
By contrast, Conroy's scheme assumes censoring the Internet without anyone's knowledge (at least no one affiliated with the gov, or law enforcement), letting you defenseless in the matter of exercising your control over the power. Not that the power one simply citizen would be quite remarkable, but if you give it away - so small as it would be - you remain with what?
The above letting aside that I take pride of being able to take care of what I'm doing or suffer the consequences. I don't need my own mother to take care anymore of my actions, why should I trust the government to do nanny me???
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Assuming your answer is, "I don't!!", then your position is essentially that there should be no censorship in any form of media.
I don't and indeed I'm on the position that there should be no censorship on any form of media. That's because I don't know (more precisely, I don't admit as valid the existence) any kind of media that can cause harm by itself. Either:
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:5, Insightful)
1. The filter is not restricted to illegal material - RC material is not ilelgal in itself, no matter how many times Senator Conroy repeats the line "including material such as child pornography".
2. It is certain to be abused. Even before the filter has been created, the blacklist is intrinsically abusive in its abandonment of due process and legal recourse.
3. Ineffective laws are bad laws. If everyone breaks the law, everyone is a criminal. Is that what you want?
The filter is an abomination of human rights. Everyone should be opposed to it. If you're not, you're wrong.
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1. No. I object to any government filtering the Internet in any way. I also object to the lie that the proposed filter only blocks illegal material.
2. Yes, the blacklist is almost certain to be leaked. No, this is not any kind of excuse for infringing upon the human rights of all Australians.
3. If the rule of law is ineffective, if everyone breaks the law, then everyone is a criminal, and everyone is under threat of random prosecution - or persecution - making the people the enemy of the state. The way
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:4, Insightful)
This is a tooth and nail fight against a specific proposal put forward by the current government.
Every variation of the filtering plan that has been put forward in the media has been savaged by opponents, who are entirely correct in their criticisms. What Conroy has failed to do is provide a convincing counter-argument. In media interviews, when grilled, he often struggles with defining just exactly what it is he is proposing.
One moment it's a URL blacklist to protect children from accidental porn; another moment it's to prevent access to abhorrent material which is currently RC content. Conroy has not listened to one iota of the overwhelming feedback from members of the public; and is utterly clueless as to how to move forward from here.
I absolutely cannot tolerate such a waste of time and money on an unworkable solution driven forward by an individual who does not listen to reason for entirely political purposes.
Brushing this off as "filtering is ok in theory" is a red herring: the currently publicised intentions of the government are not ok; and all efforts by Conroy to implement such should be fiercely resisted.
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Stephen Conroy is spot on when he says the internet shouldn't be treated any different to any other forms of media. It isn't a magical beast, it's just another form of media (albeit more accessible and chaotic).
No, I see one crucial difference in the way these two mediums are being treated that I haven't seen brought up anywhere else yet.
In other forms of media the censoring applies to the creator of the media. What the filter proposes to do is censor the audience, not the creator.
Now I'm of the opinion that total freedom of speech isn't necessarily a right I feel everyone needs. The greater good of our society trumps the rights of the individual when it comes to banning things such as child pornography, hate speech (at its most extreme), and shouting fire in a crowded cinema. I have no problem with these things being illegal, and the authorities coming down on those responsible for such things.
But don't persecute the audience. (with the exception of child pornography, where there is a clear link between the creator and the consumer)
Freedom to listen is a much more important right than freedom of speech
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Now I'm of the opinion that total freedom of speech isn't necessarily a right I feel everyone needs.
Then please please PLEASE stay home playing Yahtzee on election days from now on. Trust me, it's way more fun than having your voice heard. Everyone's doin it.
And don't forget to pay your fine! :)
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:5, Insightful)
The point to walk away from this with is not that internet filtering is alright in principle, but rather that state filtering is wrong in principle in ALL forms of media.
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:4, Interesting)
You think the state censoring racial hatred or child pornography in various forms of media is WRONG? I assume you're joking.
Yes and No I'm not joking.
Personally I believe documents on racial hatred reinforce existing racial hatred, it's ludicrous to suggest that they create it from scratch. I also don't feel that suppressing the relevant documents is effective, the history of religous persecution is ample evidence of this. Restricting access to the materials does make it difficult for those who oppose them to read it and address their grievances or develop counter tactics.
The argument for censorship in this matter is an argument for thought crime and I'm not sure it can be dismissed lightly. I don't give two hoots if someone wants to sit at home beating off to drawings of children. Having sex with a minor is a crime and anyone who does so should be charged. I haven't seen any solid evidence that the first leads to the second, there are reasonable arguments that porn provides an outlet which helps prevent the sexual act.
my filter proposal (Score:2)
I for one am against any sort of filter because it is necessarily a regulation on ISPs and I prefer the government stay out of my private business transactions. However, I can imagine some people would like a filter and the best way to supply that filter may well be to do it at the ISP level. A government "mandated" filter should be a mandate on ISPs, not on end users. If I want to opt out, it should be as simple as calling my ISP and saying "I don't want that", or better yet, a web interface to turn it
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The internet is NOT media. It is a medium. Of course it should be treated differently to broadcast media.
We are talking about censoring COMMUNICATION here, not fraking superbowl commercials.
it's already illegal to *host* this sort of content in Australia.
Precisely, so what does this achieve? Why allow the Government to grant itself that much power over public discourse when there are already tools in place to address these concerns.
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Filters do treat the internet different from other media.
Can the government order that distribution of a newspaper cease? Not in any democracy - they would need to go to court and prove that the newspaper breaks the law. A judge or jury would decide the case in public.
Filters allow the government to order distribution of websites to cease without having to prove in court that they broke the law - and usually with no judicial oversight, and in secret.
Britain slightly different as there it a self appointed bu
Re:Some obvious observations (Score:4, Insightful)
There are several things wrong with this comment. Most of them have already been pointed out, so I'll just add this. There are two other communications media that the internet is similar to: mail and telephone. Yet we don't see these media censored the same way that Conroy is proposing to censor the internet.
The filter already is abusive. The distinction between the filter and its application isn't relevant to this argument. Stuff is filtered or it is not.
Apparently the government has no such incentive at all. They're delaying this, after all. Whether they admit it or not, they actually have a strong incentive to simply drop this idea. They will certainly lose votes over this. The question is how many, and it occurs to me that this may well be one of the main reasons for putting this off.
It's hard to take this seriously; it's as if you haven't read or understood the real objections:
It's not just a waste of time and money. It's a breach of faith on several fronts.
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But this is exactly what makes it hard to abuse. With oddly-moralized hackers up in arms, you can bet they'll seize on any abuses of the filter and plaster them embarresingly over the internet. So the government has a strong incentive to stick within their declared uses of the filter.
So the worst objection to the filter is simply that it could mostly be a waste of time... that said, it will evolve and change and may prove useful.
You don't want to wait that happen. Eventually the government will become having a face so thick that they just outright lying to the citizens. China has already set the example, and I surely you don't follow the shit.
http://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-hans/%E8%BA%B2%E8%B2%93%E8%B2%93_(%E7%B6%B2%E8%B7%AF%E7%94%A8%E8%AA%9E) [wikipedia.org]
In 2009, a 24yo Man died while being detained. In the press release, official stated that the suspect died from head trauma by hitting the wall when playing hide-and-seek.
http://news.mylegist.com/ [mylegist.com]
Elections are coming, Labor wants votes. (Score:5, Interesting)
Rudd knows just how unpopular the filter is, even if it only loses him 10% of the votes it's enough to scare him as he got in by a gnats wing in 2007.
The question is will Rudd shelve the plan or just carry on regardless after the next election. Personally I don't want to find out but I cant vote for that hyper religious nut-case, Tony Abbott as he'll probably turn around and do something worse so personally my vote is going either to the Greens or an independent against the filter.
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There's the idea that Labor are "clearing the decks" at the moment- we've seen the Emissions Trading Scheme, the replacement insulation scheme and the internet filter all go within the last week. Rudd can then ride the GFC, hospitals and education through to the next election and reintroduce some of these proposals come next year
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By hyper religious, I assume you mean that earlier on his life he entered Seminary, intending to be a priest but changed his mind. Or did you mean to refer to the fact he has strong catholic based beliefs. This is important because the term hyper-religious has massively different connotations to our American colleagues, where it could/would imply that he was a member of the literal truth of the bible pentacostal brigade. At least he's been honest enough to say outright was his beliefs are, and cope with the
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I've already written to my rep at a local and state level. I think a lot of people have that's why Labor's back bench is making some noise about the filter. If the Pirate Party AU feild a candidate they will definitely get my vote.
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He was going to be a priest but he screwed up, and down, and sideways, and anything nearby in a skirt that didn't move fast enough.
I'd call him a "Godless Christian" in that he's doing it for appearances but in his own words has broken every commandment but one. His beliefs are whatever it takes to get the job done and change daily.
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Abbot was one of John Howards closest advisors while they held power and the closest we ever got to this kind of censorship was requiring ISPs to offer Net Nanny as a download to their clients.
The liberal party is far more diverse than Labor, the conservatives hold a tiny balance of power in the Liberal party at this moment but the liberal left-wing side of the party are always ready to take over the party leadership if the conservatives go too farm, and as we've seen it can happen in an instant.
The Austral
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Yes I know but...
The greens do not always vote with Labor on all issues (note: this greens did not vote for the filter or ETS, which buried them both), this means that labour cannot force through unpopular policy as the Greens are more afraid of losing my vote. So we get Kevin back in but he is still beholden to the minor parties. This is tradition
no fair australia (Score:3, Insightful)
the usa has long been a world leader in hypocritical simplistic moralizing "christians"
don't be nosing in on our turf and our monopoly now
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I know you're a yank but please, as a sign of respect switch your Spool Chocker to En_AU for this thread.
kthanksbye.
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the usa has long been a world leader in hypocritical simplistic moralizing "christians"
don't be nosing in on our turf and our monopoly now
It's not turf nosing, it's a franchise. They have one in Canada too!
Another piece of legislation delayed? (Score:2, Interesting)
<rant>
Oh, and as to the Australian Christian Lobby and all those other extreme conservative political groups - don't mix reli
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Perspective (Score:2)
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TFA is published by a Murdoch newspaper, so you can imagine where the bias is.
The sad thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The sad thing is... (Score:4, Informative)
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This means that the only people made happy by it's ability to block terrible shit on the interned will be those ignorant folk with kids most vulnerable!
I intend on filtering my home
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> I think it is completely stupid, since anyone can arbitrarily get around it.
Well, this is one of the great fears about it. Since people will be able to trivially bypass it, people most certainly will. Not only will they do it, they will make software and publish articles about how to do it. And then out of severe embarrassment, the government will react with new laws that make it illegal to own, sell, or distribute material about how to bypass the filter. Now suddenly whole classes of software and
Re:The sad thing is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Why on earth is this being framed as the creation of religious people?
The Labor party are the secular, technocratic left wing party in Australia, the Liberals are the "religious conservatives". Yet it is Labor, not the Liberals (who had power for twelve years and never spoke about it) that are trying to ram this down the country's throat.
And to prove it the leaked blacklist had *anti* abortion websites banned. Hardly something that would make the religious people happy!
It's not religion that's the problem here, it's authoritarianism, which the current Labor party unfortunately (since I voted for them) have in spades.
Other issue on table: software patents (Score:2)
I hope this doesn't overshadow the upcoming legislative changes regarding software patents. There's pretty much no activism on this right now:
swpat.org is a publicly editable wiki, help welcome.
The who? (Score:2)
>Australian Christian Lobby
You mean the Australian Taliban.
We have the same here. They call themselves Southern Baptist and Dominionists.
--
BMO
voting green (Score:2, Interesting)
A few of the Aussies here have mentioned their disappointment with Rudd and greater dislike of the opposition, and have expressed their intention to vote dreen or independant.
If you wish to keep legislation such as this from passing its important to understand how the Australian government works.
firstly there is the Upper House: parliament. Here you find the Prime minister, Ministers and back benchers. Voting for anyone other than either of the two major parties here is basicly a wasted vote. In most cases
Re: (Score:2)
err, you got the Upper & Lower the wrong way around. And remember you have options such as voting for independents and directing preferences; the Greens are partly to blame for blocking the ETS because it didn't go far enough rather than working to improve it, which goes to show they're still very much an absolutist party.
Re: (Score:2)
Just a note- not all ministers are Lower house members. Defence Minister is Senator Faulkner, for one.
Re:voting green (Score:4, Informative)
Ummm ... you do know you got that exactly wrong, don't you?
The Upper House is the Senate.
The Lower House is the House of Representatives.
Together, they make the Parliament of Australia.
And voting anything other than Labor / Coalition in the House of Reps is far from a wasted vote. It's been a while, but we have had minority governments that've had to cuddle up to minor parties in the HoR in the past. It's not quite like the crazy 'major parties take all' system in the US. Not yet, anyway...
Re: (Score:2)
Congratulations, you've got it completely bass-ackwards.
The LOWER house is the House of Representatives (Green), where you will find the PM, Govt reps and the opposition. Usually "owned" by the government of the day (in terms of majority) - anything cane be accepted and sent up to the Senate for debate.
The UPPER house is the Senate (Red) where legislation is often rejected, and where a balance of power is more common (translation: Govt and main opposition often hold close to a 50% split, and where the balan
Graphic (Score:2)
Here's a graphic to go with the protests about this:
http://user.interface.org.nz/~gringer/pics/censor_blacker.png [interface.org.nz]
Most Australians want a filter (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm against internet filtering as much as most Slashdotters, but the evidence is that most Australians want a filter. Have a look here: http://hungrybeast.abc.net.au/stories/internet-filter-survey-results [abc.net.au] This was a survey carried out by a program aimed at young hip tech-savy viewers and yet their survey showed that 80% of responders agree that filtering is a good idea. The filter would be democracy in action, it is we who are the vocal minority in opposing it not the Australian Christian Lobby in supporting it.
Re: (Score:2)
One very important thought (Score:3, Insightful)
It would be wise to remember that the same people who would stop you from viewing an adult film may be back next year to complain about a book, or even a TV program. If you can be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you can be told what to say or think. Defend your constitutionally protected rights. No one else will do it for you. Thank you.
But hey, we'll still have the NBN! (Score:4, Funny)
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that the Australian government will build a new $43 billion national broadband network, connecting 90% of homes to 100-megabit fibre internet. "We believe that fast broadband is absolutely essential for our nation's future", he said.
"Telstra has raised issues with the amount of bandwidth usage this will produce, given we're still hooked to America by tin cans and string, but our Great Firewall of Australia [newstechnica.com] Internet filtering project should keep usage down to reasonable levels at near-dialup speeds. We promise you won't go over your download cap."
The Great Firewall will reliably block all illegal material, child pornography, terrorism and unAustralian thoughts.
"Not only are the contents of the list illegal," said Senator Stephen Conroy, " but revealing the list is also illegal, and so is linking to someone linking to someone claiming to reveal the list. So we're blocking Google Search. Having to use Anzwers should keep usage right down."
Calling it, the "single largest infrastructure decision in Australia's history," Mr Rudd said the project would employ up to 37,000 people a year monitoring citizens' net access, reading their email and correcting spelling errors in their football forum posts.
A consultative process will determine the regulatory framework for the network. "We're considering getting Senator Fielding to do it personally," said Senator Conroy, "since he's the dickhead who demanded the censorship in return for his votes. Hopefully it'll melt his brain. Bloody balance of power. At least Xenophon's bloody sane."