Australia to censor the Net

Colleagues, friends and cyber miscreants (spelling check pls)

In Australia right now there are bold attempts to out rightly censor the Internet. This is not the first attempt by the Rudd Labor Government (factionally aligned to the Right) to censor the Internet through its diabolically named clean feed proposal but it is by far the most vigorous and open attempt. The first effort to censor the net was in December in 2007, just weeks after being elected the Rudd Government was maneuvering under the safety of Christmas being the media and social attention.

If you haven’t been following this story closely or don’t particularly understand the Orwellian language being bandied about, the essence of the Government’s proposal is to force Australian Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to filter the content of their services and that of the Internet before its supplied to users. Not only are the suggested mechanisms to be deployed virtually useless in actually filtering the Internet it will promote a great level of uncertainty and unease towards the Government regardless for its reasons for another intrusion into our private lives and our human rights.

There appears to be no valid or plausible reason given by Senator Conroy, Rudd, Gillard et al in defending the Government’s efforts to forcibly filter the Internet, yet it is something that the Liberal/Nationals Coalition will support despite its vigorous public positioning. And with that support the Greens, Xenophon and Fielding cannot force a change in policy. It will no doubt be sold to Australians as a way of protecting us from the terrorists. So far the ALP government has refrained from using that gem, although if it begins to feel too much heat one has to wonder when it’ll be used.

It is simply a toxic abuse of powers by the government to limit freedom of information, freedom of speech and freedom of association without our express permission. There is nothing clean about the proposal and eventually will have nothing to do at all with stopping the nastier elements and terrorists. This is something citizens in the US experience; they can have their electronic communications monitored at any time of the day without probable cause or purpose. Indeed the parallels to the kind of filtering brutally enforced by the Chinese government comes to mind with these kinds of proposals.

If you’re reading this post, please let your local federal Member of Parliament know that you’re against the so-called clean feed proposal.