🚀 go-pugleaf

 I address this in response to the Australian Senate Interenet
Censorship report, which I find chilling and unacceptable.
 
 To the members of the Senate Committee, interested parties,
politicians and anyone in Australia interested in this report I would
like to take the opportunity to freely and democratically express my
opposition to their findings, and also their apparent naivety with
respect to the medium they have spent so long investigating.
 
 There are a number of aspects with regard to this report I would like
to address.  The thrust of my arguments is that the Internet is a
GLOBAL network of networked computers linked together via a wide range
of  protocols which cross not only interstate, but also national
boundaries and that attempting to frame legislation locally with
respect to a world wide facility is not only fraught with dangers with
regard to freedom of speech, but also fails to acknowledge that there
are many cultures outside of Australia, and that in using this medium
I seek to understand and embrace values and cultures that are not
necessarily Australian.
 
 One recommendation of this ill conceived report is that it recommends
implementing laws banning the use of the computer services to
transmit, obtain, request, demonstrate or advertise material "which
is, or is likely to be, Refused Classification (RC), or to be in a
restricted category because it is likely to cause offence to a
'reasonable adult' as described in the (Australian) National
Classification Code." and also recommends making it mandatory for
Internet Service Providers to issue PIN numbers to those who want
access to "restricted" material.
 
 I repeat. The Internet medium is a global medium !!

 I am writing this in Sydney, Australia but I am posting it to a
dedicated news server in the United States of America using the NNTP
protocol where, after having hit the "send" key, it will be posted to
the remote news server immediately and probably within 24 hours
propagate to Australia.  I do not have the permission of my ISP via a
PIN number,  the Australian Computer Society ( I am a member of the
Australian Computer Society, using their "acslink" service by which I
am bound by ethical considerations of acceptable use, and hence would
not use the facilities of this news-server to post, obtain or view
illegal material currently banned in Australia  such as pedophilia
specifically banned under the Crimes Act of NSW. ]

  I use this news-server in the United States because it is "dedicated
to news" and therefore carries a far wider variety of newsgroups from
around the globe than can be found locally on the Access-One
(Australia] NNTP news server.  It not only carries a wider variety of
newsgroups, but the articles remain on-line longer. and despite being
10,000 kilometres away in California has a faster response time than
the local server in Australia ( sigh )
 
 If the Senate Report is accepted by the government how is the
Australian Computer Society or Access One to control my access to this
or other similar commercial news-servers via a PIN number ?  This
message is posted locally and sent globally via the NNTP ( Network
News Transport Protocol ] and will probably reach Australia ( from
California ) using the same protocol.
 
 The Senate Committee is possibly aware that the HTTP ( Hypertext
Transport Protocol ] is also a protocol which allows a user to reach
out to countless thousands of computers and computer networks not only
in Australia but also in Kuwait, Israel, Germany, the United States,
the United Kingdom and scores of countries around the globe, each with
different cultures and values.  Again the mind boggles when I attempt
to understand how my local ISP can control which computers I connect
to via a PIN number.
 
 Other global protocols are the SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol]
for e-mail, and FTP ( File Transfer Protocol ] for the transmission of
files.  I can use these protocols to access any computer anywhere in
the world at any time of day or night.  Some computers are addressed
via a name such as www.microsoft.com but others have nothing more than
cryptic IP addresses such as 123.456.987.321 which tell me nothing
about their location, nor the nature of the content they may carry.

 I have in the past used the "telnet" protocol to access Bulletin
Board Services in Ohio and California.  I use a telnet program called
"CRT" to log onto such an overseas BBS via the Internet and using the
long established QWK mail protocol simply request that the content of
various "conferences" (sight unseen), together with personal e-mail,
(sight unseen) be converted into a QWK packet, archived using a
compression program called ZIP and transmitted via  ZMODEM over
telnet.  This mail would in the majority of cases not be encrypted,
but before transmission neither I, nor anyone else would have any idea
what might be in these conferences.  During transmission the data
would appear as nothing more than a random sequence of characters,
albeit readily unarchived via "pkunzip" and once unarchived easily
read ( using a QWK based mail reader such as " Bluewave" ).  Such
packets ( sight unseen] might contain UUENCODED binary data, some of
which could be converted to viewable images, and _might_ contain
material likely to be "cause offence to a reasonable adult" such that
it _might_  ( if ever submitted to a government body in Canberra ] be
"refused classification" if it were a publication or a film.

 However such data isn't a publication or a film .  Nonetheless what
material can be refused classification and thus be 'classified' RC?
 
 Here Australia is very very vague, simply defining it as content
which "depicts, expresses or otherwise deals with matters of sex, drug
misuse or addition, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent
phenomena, in such a way that offends against the standards of
morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable
adults."

 Now there are millions of "reasonable adults" in the United States,
some of whom are highly educated respected members of a true
democracy;  a democracy which recently overturned the CDA act of the
United States as being unconstitutional and counter to the spirit of
free speech.  Am I to take it that I can rely on these persons as
being "reasonable adults" with respect to the "Refused Classification"
provisions of the Australian Act, or is there an inbuilt assumption
within Australia that the "reasonable adults" referred to are
Australian citizens or perhaps residents of Australia ?  I can only
reiterate that this is a global medium and I am using it to access
global content from a variety of cultures.
 
 The act doesn't say that the reasonable adults referred to are
necessarily citizens or residents of Australia, simply that they be
"reasonable adults". 
 
 Now I turn to the phrase "revolting or abhorrent phenomena".  My
reading is that some "revolting or abhorrent phenomena" _might_ be
acceptable to some "reasonable adults".  What kind of "revolting or
abhorrent phenomena" might such "reasonable adults" find acceptable ?

  The wording implies that there are presumably two types of
"revolting or abhorrent phenomena" - "revolting or abhorrent
phenomena" acceptable to reasonable adults ( wherever or whomever they
may be ] and "revolting or abhorrent phenomena" unacceptable to
"reasonable adults". 

 Before hitting the "retrieve" key to access such "revolting or
abhorrent phenomena" the recommendations of this committee place me in
a dilemma in that not only am I uncertain as to where I can find a
"reasonable adult" to verify that the material I am about to access is
acceptable and therefore lawful within Australia, but that I must also
do so within a time frame of several seconds, whereas material
submitted to Canberra for classification can be subject to heated
debate as to acceptability, as demonstrated in the .pdf formats of the
committee hearings themselves.
 
 I would request that the Australian government, and state governments
within and outside Australia carefully consider the implications of
such proposals.
 
 As a person who has long used bulletin board services within
Australia in a completely deregulated environment, only to discover
that many of them "dedicated to the free exchange of information and
ideas" have closed under the continual deliberations of this long
winded, long standing committee.  Put simply a number of "sysops"
(Systems Operators) I have spoken to have expressed concern about
pending legislation that could see them fined or jailed and have
closed their facilities, and the effect has been that where once I
could debate in a friendly and in some cases not so friendly manner
various topics relating to sex, religion, politics, philosophy and
humour with people locally and around the globe, in a majority of
cases such facilities are no longer available.
 
 People who have been calling Fidonet Bulletin Boards within Australia
for the past 10 years or more are probably aware that much of this
network has now collapsed within New South Wales and that where there
was once an eagerness to express ideas without fear, there is now fear
and trepidation against saying or posting something that may be
unacceptable to a few individuals in Canberra, or various isolated
unrepresentative lobby groups.
 
 It used to be said that in cyberspace "one should not seek to offend,
but that neither should one be easily offended", for the nature of the
medium is to challenge ideas and to speak and post freely.
 
 This is different to the national press or television where news is
often presented with bias and where debate is impossible.
 
 I post this in Sydney Australia to a news-server in California and am
desperately seeking a "reasonable adult" who finds "revolting or
abhorrent" content acceptable.... not that I necessarily wish to view
such things.  I find mud and rain both revolting and abhorrent, but do
not wish to be jailed for viewing muddy pigs or inclement weather
conditions...
 
                                                Bob

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Bob Bain, Sydney Australia
bobb@acslink.aone.net.au
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