Well, it’s finally out in the open — the duplicity and insanity that we knew would prevail. The clown prince of the Australian Internet regulatory system, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, has announced that compulsory content filtering at the ISP level is to receive his blessing.
Duplicitous because right from the start Conroy claimed impartiality, and maintained that no decision would be made until thorough testing had been carried out, and the Australian people had been consulted. Yet all along his real intent has been plain to anyone following this sorry saga.
Conroy in particular, and the Australian government as a whole, know full well that there is negligible informed support for this ridiculous scheme, yet he has chosen to pig-headedly steamroll ahead regardless of what the majority of Australian voters think.
Even the usual coterie of fringe element ratbags, the Big Brother, mind-your-business-for-you crowd, have given him the thumbs down. But that won’t stop Steve — he knows exactly what’s best for everyone else.
What unmitigated arrogance!
We may all only have one vote, but some of us have long memories and very loud voices.
Australian readers, please take a moment to go to this webpage and send your thoughts to Senator Conroy via the web form made available there
I also urge you to read the right-hand column of that page and click the link to the fact sheet on Conroy’s plans for a Great Firewall of Australia.
And to our friends in other countries: Don’t Get Complacent! Be assured your government would love to do the same, and if they can find a way to sneak it through, they will.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
As far as UK is concerned, Bill Hely already covered the situation in his article “Right to Privacy? Hah!” on November 12th. He quoted an article in the UK newspaper The London Telegraph, which claims that the current UK government is about to (Quote) “… pass legislation to require all telecoms companies and ISPs to store the following end-user communications:
* Every phone call
* Every text message
* Every e-mail
* Every website visit
This mass of data must by law be STORED FOR A FULL YEAR and be available for perusal by “authorized” bodies….” (end of Quote)
As a result of reading Bill’s article and subsequently reading ‘The Telegraph” article, I wrote to my MP Mr. William Hague. He replied to me within a week, stating :
“It is good that the Home Office has stepped back from introducing a single database to hold information from e-mails, phone calls and Internet use. However, the Government still has plans to require telecoms providers and ISPs to collect and store information on calls, texts, e-mails and website visits, made by customers. The big danger in all of this is ‘mission creep’. The problem is that the current Government has built a culture of suveillance and keeps introducing new powers to tackle terrorism and organised crime, which end up being used for completely different purposes. We have to stop this from happening.
The Conservatives have announced that any proposals for new legislation or other measures that involve data collection or sharing should be immediately subject to a Privacy Impact Assessment. Such a PIA system will ensure that government departments properly consider the impact of any data collection scheme on individual privacy, and will require them to consider the proportionality of the scheme at the outset. The Home Office should conduct the the PIA in consultation with the Information Commissioner, and the outcome of the review published and reported to Parliament.”
So, it would seem that if the current UK Labour government is thrown out on their necks at our forthcoming election in 2010 – which is the most likely scenario – this draconian legislation will effectively bite the dust!
I can only hope that nothing like that happens in Canada. But as in all cases, it’s only a matter of time before it is spread all over the WWW, I hope people take the time to find out what is going on before that happens
Terribly sad, and disgusting. I’m sure you remember every US telecom rolling over without even a blink, when President #43 asked for records. Only one company, Qwest, asked for a lawful warrant.
It’s a travesty of freedom & privacy.