Agmates

The Rudd government is in the process of introducing net filters that will give them total control over what Australians can access on the internet. This is not about fighting child po***graphy, you can already do that yourself by downloading the free net-nanny software.

This is about censoring anything that the government deems to be “unwanted material”. If you trust this government or the next one to be the sole arbitrator of what you can and can’t access on the internet, then do nothing. If you are thinking that than just remember the Haneef case, children overboard, AWB wheat scandal etc, etc, etc.

If the Rudd Government gets this legislation through, it will give them complete control over the internet. Australia will be a net-nanny state that has no peer in the free democratic world. Our peers will be in China, Iran, Turkey & North Korea.

If you don’t trust this government and any future governments to have the same control over Australian internet that the Chinese and Iranians governments have then here is what you can do about it right now.

The absolute best thing you can do is write (not email, they rarely read it) to Minister Conroy, PM Rudd and your Local Federal Member and Independent Senators.

From the EFA’s web site:

A personalized letter to the Minister sends a powerful message: We don’t like the policy, and we care. Letters can be sent to the Ministerial office:

Senator Stephen Conroy
Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
Level 4, 4 Treasury Place
Melbourne
Vic 3002
.

And the Prime Minister

The Hon Kevin Rudd
Prime Minister
PO Box 476,
Morningside
Qld 4170

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You can find your local federal members contact details here. An alphabetical list of Federal MP’s.

The 2 Senators that hold the balance of power are particularly important to write to.

Independent Senator
Steve Fielding
255 Blackburn Road
Mount Waverley
Vic 3149
.

Independent Senator
Nick Xenophon
212 Grenfell Street
Adelaide
SA 5000
.

If you’d like to write to another Senator you can find their contact details here.

If you’re not sure what to say, you might wish to use the following as a template. You can just cut and paste this onto a word document or go to the bottom and click on the names of the people you’d like to mail to.

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Dear Minister,

As an Australian and an internet user, I have serious concerns about the mandatory Internet filtering initiative.

Given the importance your Government has attached to modernising Australia’s broadband network, pursuing a policy that can only slow down and increase the costs of home internet access seems misguided at best.

Australian households are diverse, and most do not have young children, so mandating a one-size-fits-all clean feed approach will not serve the public well. I don’t think it is the Government’s role to decide what’s appropriate for me or my children, and neither do most Australians.

Given the amount of Internet content available, the Government will never be able to classify it all and filters will always result in an unacceptable level of over-blocking.

I feel that the time and money could be spent in better ways both to protect children and improve Australia’s digital infrastructure. Australian parents need better education about the risks their children face online.

Trying to rid the Internet of adult content is futile, and can only distract from that mission.

I and the Agmates community urge you to stop this legislation. Please see our concerns on the Agmates web site http://www.agmates.com/blog … and type internet filtering into the search box at the bottom of the right hand column.

Sincerely,

(Your First & Last Name)

City / Town & State

I have posted off a letter to the 12 MP’s and Senators below. Each name is linked to the word document that I’ve mailed.

If you like just click on each one, change your contact details from mine at the bottom, and then print it off. Write up an envelop with the address, pop on a stamp and your done.

Just use or change one of them for your local member.

Senator Stephen Conroy

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd

Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Turnbull

Leader of the Nationals Warren Truss

Senate Nationals Leader Barnaby Joyce

Leader of Opposition in the Senate Nick Minchin

Leader of the Australian Greens Bob Brown

Independent Senator Steve Fielding

Independent Senator Nick Xenophon

Independent MP Tony Windsor

Independent MP Bob Katter

Independent MP Rob Oakeshott

The government must not be allowed to tamper with Australians right to ‘freedom of speech’ - not now, not ever.

So if your care about maintaining your personal freedom send your letters and THEN email this to everybody you know and ask them to do the same. Here is a number of links that will help you explain whats happening.

1. Internet Filtering Is dangerous because Australians Have NO Constitutional Right To Freedom of Speech

2. Journalist Glenn Milne – Too Many Holes In Rudd Governments Internet Filter

3. Government Tries To Gag Internet Filtering Critic

4. Internet Filtering Explained – 2 Videos

Good, now if you have sent your letters see if you can get just one other person to do it.

Just copy and paste the URL address that is at the top of your browser bar at the minute into an email and send it to everybody in your contact list with a message of what it is about and encourage them to send letters and send this onto there friends.

Have your say! Please let us know by way of comment when you have sent you letters, the feedback will encourage others.

An explanation of what the Rudd Government’s Internet Filtering will do to Australians. The guy in the video swears a couple of times, but it’s a comprehensive explanation of what Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is up to and what we can and should do about it.

The guy strongly supports EFA’s stand on the issue, here is EFA’s Dale Clapperton on Sunrise:

Have your say!

If nothing else raises your concerns about the Labor Government introducing mandatory filtering on the Australian internet – this should.

In a report from the Sydney Morning Herald:

The Federal Government is attempting to silence critics of its controversial plan to censor the internet, which experts say will break the internet while doing little to stop people from accessing illegal material such as child po***graphy.

Documents obtained by us show the office of the Communications Minister, Stephen Conroy, tried to bully ISP staff into suppressing their criticisms of the plan.

Mark Newton, an engineer at Internode, has heavily criticised the Government and its filtering policy on the Whirlpool broadband community forum,

Read Mark Newtons 1st Letter to his Local MP Kate Ellison, Minister For Youth & Sport which details his criticism.

Here is the incredible lengths this government is prepared to go to stop any dissension. Why would we trust them to arbitrarily decide what sites can and what sites can’t be accessed by the Australian public?

On Tuesday, a policy advisor for Senator Conroy, Belinda Dennett, wrote an email to Internet Industry Association (IIA) board member Carolyn Dalton in an attempt to pressure Newton into reining in his dissent.

“In your capacity as a board member of the IIA I would like to express my serious concern that a IIA member would be sending out this sort of message. I have also advised [IIA chief executive] Peter Coroneos of my disappointment in this sort of irresponsible behaviour ,” the email, read.

It is understood the email was accompanied by a phone call demanding that the message be passed on to senior Internode management.

Newton said he found the bullying “outrageous” and Senator Conroy was “misusing his influence as a Commonwealth Minister to intimidate a private dissenting citizen into silencing his political views”.

What Senator Conroy and the Rudd government is attempting to do here is really scary stuff.

Colin Jacobs, chair of the online users’ lobby group Electronic Frontiers Australia said: “I’m not exaggerating when I say that this model involves more technical interference in the internet infrastructure than what is attempted in Iran, one of the most repressive and regressive censorship regimes in the world.”

Have Your say!

Leading Australian Journalist Glenn Milne [pictured] is also concerned about the Australian Governments plans to filter the internet.

The stated aim; to black out illegal content such as child po***graphy. But this mandatory filter would also apply to “other material” or “unwanted content”.

Who would decide what came under the latter two legal categories is unclear.

If Australia adopts such a system it will be the only Western democratic country in the world to have done so.

On a less sinister note Milne quotes two examples of how filtering blocks unintended sites: The first was from a trial done in Britian:

When researchers in the UK examined filters and tapped in the word “socialist” they were blocked.

Why? Because “socialist” also contains the product name

“Cialis” – an anti-impotence drug, fakes of which are often sold on-line.

The second example comes from Australia’s own former communications minister Helen Coonan:

The Department has its own filter system for obvious reasons. But when the then minister tried to order some strawberry muffins online she also was blocked.

The filter didn’t like the word “muff”.

Communications minister Stephen Conroy [pictured] won’t clarify what ‘other material’ or ‘unwanted content’ he plans to block, but has indicated that over 10,000 web sites would be blocked.

This is extremely concerning when you consider:

.. the Australian Communications and Media Authority site blacklist which currently stands at 1200 and includes predominantly child p**n and ultra viol**t sites.

The existing blacklist has been developed as a result of public complaints and ACMA receives only about 70 complaints per month.

(more…)

The Australian Governments move to introduce internet filtering is possibly the most sinister move by any Australian Government to curtail freedom of speech and democracy that this country has ever seen.

The US government tried to introduce filtering into that country but failed because the right to freedom of speech is enshrined into it’s constitution and the US courts rejected the move to protect that right.

Australia has no such rights to free speech in its constitution and hence our right to freedom of speech are not enforceable by the courts.

Although the Australian Constitution does not have any express provision relating to freedom of speech, the country has made efforts to defend this fundamental right. For instance, Australia is a signatory to the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (”ICCPR”), which seeks to guarantee everyone the right to freedom of expression.

Although some parts of the treaty have been implemented into law in Australia, the government has not implemented the free speech provisions and therefore they are not technically enforceable by Australian courts.

The influential Jolt Digest which is an online companion to the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology argues that the proposed internet filtering is not only something Australians should be fighting tooth and nail to stop but the rest of the free world should be protesting against it as well.

The article states:

Australia Poised to Begin Internet Filtering Program Unprecedented in Scope for Modern Democracy

By Debbie Rosenbaum

If the presumption that democracy depends upon the widest possible access to uncensored ideas, data, and opinions is true, then there is cause for great alarm as one of our nation’s closest democratic allies moves to drastically curtail this foundational freedom within its boarders.

The Australian government will likely enact legislation that will make sweeping, compulsory Internet censorship a startling reality for all Australian citizens. Spearheaded by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, and backed by $44.2 million from the government’s $125.8 million Plan for Cyber-Safety budget, the planned filter (part of the NetAlert program) will render Internet access in Australia similar to that in Iran or China.

By enacting such far-reaching, mandatory Internet censorship, Australia joins more repressive governments including those in China, Cuba, Iran and North Korea.

What is insidious about the Australian Governments moves to filter the internet against po***graphy is that it won’t work.

In Australia, the majority of Internet traffic – and the bulk of illegal content – travels over peer-to-peer networks, which are unable to be censored by current filtering technologies.

Second, the filtering program itself leads to negative externalities for all web users, including those that have no interest in the blocked content. Statistics suggest that about 1% of websites blocked by modern filters are blocked accidentally, thus creating unnecessary and unwarranted censorship, or “overblocking.”

Additionally, even as Internet users demand ISPs deliver content faster than ever before, government studies indicate the filter “would result in a slowdown [ranging] from 18% through to 78% of current, unfiltered speed.”

The worrying upshot is that the Labor Government knows the following:

1. Filtering won’t stop child po***graphy.

2. Australians have no constitutional or court enforceable legal right to ‘freedom of speech’

3. Filtering with slow the internet for Australians, which by world standards is already ‘ordinary’.

If the Government and Minister Stephen Conroy already know this, then what is their real motive? The Harvard Law Journal is quite clear on what it believes:

Digital media is a powerful platform for spreading political opinions, religious views, personal perspectives, and other core speech. Just a few years ago, the Internet was barely a part of political campaigning, yet it has become an important, low-cost tool for candidates and political activists all over the world to get their message out.

For example, when the military government of Myanmar cracked down on protests by Buddhist monks in 2007, citizen journalists used blogs to share vital information – acting as a vital resource for traditional news outlets.

Even when nations disagree, the Internet allows dialogue to enhance understanding. Palestinian and Israeli children exchange videos documenting their daily lives. In Iraq, American and British soldiers – as well as Iraqi citizens – share their experiences with YouTube audiences around and the world.

As a new media technology, the Internet empowers people. It has provided access to information, unprecedented in its scope, low-cost, and speed. It has revolutionized communication across the globe, providing both feasible and inexpensive access for everyday people.

If we accept the argument that uncensored speech is fundamental to a thriving democracy, then more is at stake than mere Internet censorship in Australia.

The Journal see the move as something that should be opposed by every free person & society on the planet.

All nations, organizations, and individuals who believe in the promise of free speech, and its broader importance to human rights, have an ethical obligation to oppose this Internet filter.

Freedom of Speech is vital to freedom of thought, the engine of democracy. It helps drive innovation and the free exchange of ideas.

We Americans, with our strong Free Speech tradition, have long reaped the benefits of an open society; the United States should especially oppose Australia’s filtering proposal.

Censorship of this magnitude in any democratic society is a threat to the citizens of every democratic society.

Bear in mind that if this legislation is introduced the Government or any future Australian Government could and probably would at a flick of a switch block your access to sites that scrutinize and critisize their activities – like Agmates or any number of site where you can express your views and opinions uncensored .

There are two things that need to happen here.

1. This legislation is an unprecedented attack on our democracy and rights to freedom of speech, it must be stopped.

2. The second is that we must have legally enforceable rights to freedom of speech included in our constitution, if Australia is to remain a healthy democracy and we as individuals – a free people.

Have Your say!