🚀 go-pugleaf

> I have met Dr. Clarke.  He writes in the Australian National
>University "Link" list which if you are at all interested in matters
>of Australian law and the ethics and ethos of Australia then I suggest
>you get up your vagrant's butt (you've been in prison I understand for
>vagrancy), save up the fare to Australia and visit this country and
>talk to some of us personally.

 From 10 years ago...

 http://www.acs.org.au/news/senate.htm

Don�t Censor the Internet, Says ACS 

Keep Internet Unrestricted But Help Parents Control Access for Kids 

Monday 5 May 1997, Canberra - The Australian Computer Society today 
said the Federal Government should resist pressure to censor material 
available through on-line services. 

In a submission to the Senate Select Committee on Community Standards�
Inquiry into Computer On-line Services, the Society called for 
Australians to have unrestricted access to all material available on 
the Internet, saying that any regulation by authorities must be 
consistent with that applied to off-line services. 

"The ACS believes that most adult Australians should be able to read, 
hear and see whatever they wish, totally unimpeded," said Philip Argy,
head of the Economic, Legal, and Social Implications of Computing 
Committee of the Society�s Community Affairs Board. 

"Within that broad philosophy, we accept that the interests of minors 
justify controls or regulatory activity in relation to content that is
likely to harm them. However, the ACS is concerned to ensure that any 
controls be carefully designed so that accommodation of the exception 
does not warp the primary principle." 

While recognising the need of children to be protected from some 
material available on-line, the ACS believes the responsibility fall 
to parents to supervise their children�s use of the Internet. 

"For the most part, the ACS believes the degree of community concern 
about the availability of objectionable material to minors through 
on-line services is exaggerated. However, those people who find some 
of the material available through on-line services distasteful can 
make the choice not to view such material. And if they wish their 
children to find it equally distasteful, they should bring them up 
with a set of standards that will achieve that result," said Mr Argy. 

"We believe it is for parents and schools to implement any technical 
solutions they require to limit access to objectionable material. Of 
course there is also an educational role that can be played by the 
media and others in the industry regarding the existence of these 
kinds of solutions." 

While avoiding censorship, the ACS favours the use of ratings 
mechanisms such as PICS and codes of conduct developed by industry. 

"Our orientation is to support an "informed consent" regime, by which 
we mean a regime in which potential viewers of material on the 
Internet have the ability to appreciate the nature of the content 
before viewing it, and have the option of electing not to view the 
material, and to prevent minors for whom they are responsible from 
seeing the material," he said. 

The ACS believes laws governing material published on-line should be 
consistent with those relating to other documents or medium. 

"If Parliament wishes to suppress the dissemination of particular 
types of material, then that should be done by a law of general 
application that is independent of the way in which the material is 
disseminated," said Mr Argy. 

The ACS is also critical of recent moves to hold service providers 
liable for objectionable material, saying they should not be held 
responsible in that capacity for the content of what they carry. 

"This is a burden analogous to making Telstra responsible for 
preventing swearing in telephone conversations. It is both 
unreasonable and unrealistic," he said. 

The Submission pointed out that people using the Internet have to make
a conscious decision to view illicit or objectionable material and it 
is at that point that regulation is possible. 

If viewing and downloading objectionable material is to be prohibited 
the prohibition should be directed at the viewer/downloader. 

The ACS Submission proposed the establishment of an On-line Standards 
Forum to develop and monitor a Code of Practice for the on-line 
services industry, suggesting such a Code might include the following:
* procedures whereby material that is deemed by law to be 
inappropriate for particular age-groups is clearly identified as such;
* dealings with customers including billing, support services, privacy
and credit management; 

* provision of information to content providers on legislation which 
may be relevant in an on-line environment; 

* provision of information to users on filter software products or 
on-line services; 

* provision of information to users on the principles of netiquette; 

* complaints handling procedures for breaches of the code; 

* display of appropriate warnings on material which may offend some 
people and may be unsuitable for children; and 

* a complaints handling mechanism. 

Mr Argy said the ACS opposed any requirement that Australian access 
providers filter out data packets from addresses on some refused 
access list, pointing to the recent problems experienced in Germany 
where authorities attempted to censor material available through 
CompuServe. 

 =====================

 Photos in the article are of Philip Argy (once chair of ELSIC) who
has recently completed his term as President of the Society and Tom
Worthington who was also a President of the Australian Computer
Society.

 Mr. Argy has also made comments to the effect that it is impossible
for any person to know the legality or otherwise of a website (or in
some cases) a film until it has been viewed or imported and even then
(from a personal point of view) the ever changing nature of the
censorship scenario in Australia (one of the world's most prohibitive)
makes decision making whether to 

 a) import films from overseas or

 b) view a website

 a matter of concern given that it is almost impossible to know if
something is legal or not given that successive governments change the
laws - not on community values but on Christian doctrine that defines
sex as filth and enjoyment as something that isn't to be tolerated.

 In Australia people with this mindset are called WOWSERS !