HELP! Australia under direct Christian attack!

I thank you also, Robert.

Indeed there's been an intelligent and polite protest, but it makes little headway against the outraged moral minority Christians who have this magic Child Protection spell that tarnishes all protesters as paedophiles.

If she floats, she's a witch.

I bet the next thing they censor is anything containing the words Australia and censorship.

Not sure I trust the greens on this.

What is it that you feel you can't trust about how they might respond to this censorship proposal, Deb?
I suspect their response will be not all that much different to my own response. And to the others we've seen here.
But let's wait & see.

I find that one issue parties who don't really expect to have to play it with the big people (and take the extreme heat that happens when you really have some power), except on their one issue, tend to wilt.

Also, they often don't have a properly evolved platform about general things, and seem subject to the offer of deals in relation to their major issue.

The christian right will get very nasty on this, and Bob Brown, while used to the crucible on green issues, is an openly gay man who will be subjected to extraordinary ****, I would expect...given the bigotry about gay men and paedophilia.

But, I think the big thing is likely to be the deals that get offered.


We'll see.

(Tying to not get too bogged down by discussing the Greens at the expense of the thread topic.)

The Greens aren't a one issue party at all, but I'll grant you they're (obviously!) a minority party. But so were the Democrats & look at their achievements in their heyday. I approve strongly of a lot of the Greens' policies, particularly regarding Education.

On matters of trust over this potential internet censorship legislation:
I don't trust Tony Abbott (Liberal leader) not to be influenced by his extreme right religious beliefs.
I don't necessarily trust Kevin Rudd to adhere to ALP policy (whatever the issue) when it doesn't suit him. In any case, his (Labor) government is responsible for this (potentially backward) legislation.
I feel very confident that I can trust the Greens to argue what I'd want to be argued against this policy in parliament.

Proof that I sent your Prime Minister a piece of my mind.

Tunnel out my friend using the tor network or a million other ways of doing so.

If they can not read your traffic they can not block or censor your internet traffic.

A non-problem for people with just a little know how.

Rubbish !!!

Australia, crazy place. I hear their toilets spin the wrong way too.

T
K
O

Technically it isn't my problem. I live in NYC. I just wrote a letter supporting those critical to the program.

But your definitely right. Those people in the know will find ways around the filter. The ironic and sick thing is that the people and illicit files whom the government is allegedly trying to prevent (child porn and what nots) will most certainly find their ways around the filter without a doubt.

So all the Australian government is doing is wasting several hundred million Australian dollars on a virtual Marginot Line. <<DAMN>> I could have used that metaphor in my letter.

Feel free everybody to use it if your writing a letter to the Australian government... if I can get the literary credit of course.

Nope. Crazy controlling government.

There was hardly a ground swell of public demand for this!

But, should anyone have to do a work around to communicate with citizens of a country with a freely elected government? In any case, if some things are to be censored, they are not going to know what else has been. They will know what is available to them, but not what is not.

AN OPEN LETTER to PRIME MINISTER RUDD:

The Hon Kevin Rudd MP
Prime Minister
Parliament House
CANBERRA ACT 2600

Dear Prime Minister Rudd:

In your hands is an amicus letter in support of my Australian friends and global neighbors regarding our collective opposition to Australia's faulty and ill-conceived Cyber-Safety Plan. In theory, the ACMA program as seen by an outsider is by its immediate nature well meaning and filled with good intentions. As described in the Australian media, the trial run illustrates that the program is a moral and ethical failure by practice.

In a recent ABC News article, one Senator Conroy said, "Our pilot, and the experience of ISPs in many western democracies, shows that ISP level-filtering of a defined list of URLs can be delivered with 100 per cent accuracy." That is stuff and nonsense. There is no way an internet filter is 100 per cent accurate. That claim is preposterous and as grandiose as it is impossible to verify.

The Chinese have been filtering out so called unwanted information from their countries superhighway far longer then Australia has. The Chinese mandate that a particular program be installed onto every computer in the country. The Chinese program is called “Green Dam-Youth Escort,” and it too aims to protect kids from stumbling upon violent, pornographic, homosexual, or drug-related websites and images. According to an article in the Christian Science Monitor, the Chinese filtering program is actually a national security risk to China itself because of its faulty nature and its functional vulnerability to hacking. According to the New York Times, the program can double as an information collector. Anybody respecting the sanctity of personal privacy should take heed of the parallels between the two countries’ filtering programs. In that same NY Times article, industry experts and civil libertarians forewarned that the software could be a Trojan horse for greater Internet control. That may not be the purpose of the Australian program but the infrastructure will be laid down for further (and more devious) politicians to exploit " a potential danger that should never be accepted in the first place.

Though by design, your program may not directly curtail freedom of speech, the hidden consequences of indirect censorship and faulty direct censorship are too high. Innocent and innocuous sites have always been caught up in the faulty nature of the blind and careless filter. Political, social, and morality based sites will be wrongfully censored and not just illegal pornography and other assorted digital vice based leagues. The previous history of this faulty software medium confirms that indirect censorship will occur and that is inevitable fact.

I implore you to throw out the cheap parliamentary parlor tricks that are only shallow attempts at political expediency and bureaucratic maneuvering. Repeal the mandatory filtering program. By instituting this policy, you are aligning your country with the tyrannical likes of China, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. This government sponsored spyware is despicable and could be used to further a disgruntled politician’s misguided and irrational social value based agenda.

Keep Australia from becoming an internet black hole. Also as an important member of the Australian government, keep an eye on ACMA. The dangers of precedence exist within the vague nature of this mandatory program. If they are the ones to determine what can be censored from the eyes and minds of Australia, if the moral winds change, you just might find your favorite spiritual site blocked from your computer. Then what will you do, especially if you supported the censorship program in the first place? It will be too late then.

A concerned friend,

Tsarstepan
Stephen A.

As I said, we'll see.

The Democrats are a shining example of what I am talking about...remember Meg Lees?

I hope you're right.


I like the greens too....

Last time I did it, I actually got a reply!


Not that it addressed the issue I raised at all....but it was funny.

Good man, tsar!

Now do you want the email addresses of the major newspapers to send letters to the editors?

Cool!

Of course. She betrayed the Democrats. Nothing to do with what they were supposed to stand for. I'm sure she's despised by many of them to this day.

I'm waiting for Get Up....but they seem to be all focused on Copenhagen.