[LINK] Information controls in the Age of Information

[Frank O'Connor]

At 4:01 PM +1100 22/3/09, David Boxall wrote:
>
>There are people responsible for protecting the innocent from access and
>laws prohibiting access by others. We have laws against creation of the
>information in question.

Mmmm ... they're called parents and law enforcement officers. The 
courts offer an institution generally open to the public to apply the 
laws that have been enacted. The whole law enforcement thing 
generally tends to be open to public scrutiny and oversight by third 
parties like ombudsmen, judges and Royal Commissioners, the press, 
the media and the general public. It's open. It's accountable. It's 
responsible to its user base.

I have no problems with law enforcement. I have no problems with 
remedying jurisdictional problems by treaty, and nailing the creeps 
on the overseas sites Australian law enforcement is currently 
restricted from. Hey, if its against the law that what the police are 
for.

Unlike Conroy's bureaucrat created and edited, secretive and secret 
complaint driven engines for censoring our information ... where no 
doubt the feelings of extremists and single issue complainants will 
predominate over other more rational and balanced views ... with no 
oversight, no accountability, and no responsibility to those it is 
'protecting'.

>
>Is information control too much of a perversion of our society? I guess
>it comes down to a choice of evils.

Right. My problem is that those who are seeking to force filtering on 
us aren't taking it to its logical conclusion.

Different religions find different things offensive
Different cultural groups find different things offensive
Different political persuasions find different things offensive
Different interest groups find different things offensive
Different business groups find different things offensive
Different pluralist lobbies find different things offensive.

My point is that there is probably no such thing as the universally offensive.

So ... if we go the Conroy route, everything would eventually be 
deemed offensive. People who disseminate non-Christian views of 
Easter, non Islamic views of Ramadan, people who produce and 
disseminate beef recipes that can be viewed by devoutly Hindu site 
clients, people who include photos on their sites that show women in 
non-hijab dress, people who advocate communism or capitalism or 
anarchism or whatever political bent they subscribe to, atheists .... 
those utter bastards, people who bitch about products and services 
supplied by others, etc etc etc.

The bottom line is that the Conroy route is a slow road to 
intolerance, bigotry and a pale shadow of the internet as we know it. 
It will stifle free speech (although it will be relatively easy to 
bypass). Conroy says it will never be used to block political dissent 
.... so why did ACMA try to block Whirlpool? Conroy says it only 
amounts to censoring child pornography and child abuse ... so what 
are all those other sites blocked for?

And what really irritates is that the list itself has been so 
amateurishly put together ... with all the session ID'd, DNS hijacked 
and other addresses that suffer qualitative and technical limitations.

If this puppy goes ahead, and the Libs eventually get back in, I hope 
the first site they block will be the ALP one. I enjoy seeing 
politicians hosted on their own petard. If you establish the 
precedent then you can't scream about it after the fact.

					Regards,