🚀 go-pugleaf

Irene Graham (rene@thehub.com.au) wrote:
: The Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) has released an "Issues
: Paper" calling for public comment as part of their Investigation into
: the Content of On-Line Services (which is being carried out at the
: direction of the Minister for Communications and the Arts).  
: 
: It seems to have been snail mailed to respondents to the DCA inquiry
: but not the Senate inquiry - just the sort of belated Chrissy present
: I wanted ;-)
: 
: The Paper and related info is on-line at:
: 	http://www.dca.gov.au/aba/hpcov
: 
: Submissions close at 5 pm, Fri 16 February. Amazingly, an E-mail
: address has been provided as the preferred method for lodging of
: submissions - online@aba.gov.au.
: 
: It's a complete mystery to me why such a paper has been released
: *after* the DCA and Senate Committee inquiries/recommendations and
: after some States have already enacted legislation. It's certainly not
: clear how it fits with those - although in the Senate Committee Report
: Part 2, the ABA Chairman is quoted as saying there is scope for a
: "complementary level of civil law" below the criminal laws being
: developed by Censorship Ministers. How many laws do we need?
: 
: It appears that either the intent of the ABA's paper is to reconsider
: all aspects regardless of prior recommendations, or, their proposals
: are intended to supplement recommendations by the Senate Committee and
: DCA. 
: 
: If the latter is the case, the Senate Committee's recommendation that
: R and X material be banned nation-wide (as it already is in Qld)
: becomes of even greater concern. One of the ABA's proposals is that Oz
: ISPs be required to block access, entirely, to a list of "refused"
: sites and newsgroups. 
: 
: I have a vision of the Net in Oz where it would not only be illegal
: (and hence risky although not impossible) to request or transmit
: information which is legally available via other media, but where it
: would be increasingly difficult to actually access such information as
: an ever growing list of sites is "blocked" by ISPs.

Who would control this blacklist?  Faceless bureaucrats somewhere, no
doubt.  And which sites would get blacklisted?  Don't kid yourself --
this list is not for dedicated kiddie-porn sites.  Things that might
end up here are sites carrying drug information (i.e., hyperreal.com),
opinion or material deemed "harmful" by whichever ideologues dominate,
or any sites which act as proxy servers to bypass this.  One could 
even imagine authoritarian Australian bureaucrats issuing threats like 
"modify the such-and-such page as we say or you go on the blacklist" to
overseas sites.

Would everybody comply with the blacklist?  Maybe not, but only a few
providers (such as those who have overseas links) would have to, and
they'd have too much to lose not to.  Would it be possible to bypass
it?  Perhaps, using overseas shell accounts and proxy servers. 
Would such evasion be then made illegal?  Possibly.

-- 
   "but it's much to late you say for doing this now we  acb@cs.monash.edu.au
 should have done it then well it just goes to show how  //www.zikzak.net/~acb
   wrong you can be and how you really should know that  Disclaimer:  Wibble.
       it's never too late to get up and go" - The Cure