[LINK] Stop bagging Conroy, dammit!

[rene]

On Mon, 3 Dec 2012 14:15:37 +1100 (EST), grove at zeta.org.au wrote:

> http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/australia-fights-net-
> rules-as-threat-to-free-speech-20121203-2apoq.html
>
> He's a good guy.  He's just misunderstood.   He's an uber-nerd and
> doesn't come across very well.   I always knew his
> heart was not in the filter and now he tackles this.....   When I
> watched him and Turbull debate the NBN last week,
> I knew I was not wrong....
>
> Hopefully this piece will clear the FUD about Stephen Conroy....

If any so-called "FUD" about Conroy personally has been "wrong", then so 
what? If a Minister is incapable of convincing his party to have policies 
that support his own (alleged) personal opinion, then how is his personal 
opinion of the slightest relevance? 

Labor's had a mandatory ISP "filtering" policy since at least 2006, and 
Conroy's been in the upper hierarchy of the party for that entire period. 
If he didn't personally support that authoritarian policy, then he's been 
an extremely poor/useless advocate for any alternative policy.

Six-seven years down the track Conroy's recently announced/claimed success 
in "negotiating" ISP-level filtering/blocking that does not even entail the 
accountability, oversight, and transparency measures that he'd long claimed 
would exist with any mandatory or voluntary ISP-level 'filtering'.

Seems to me that many people are just so thrilled that the Labor Party has 
claimed to have ditched the breadth of its previous mandatory "filtering" 
plan, that they've overlooked that the recent announcements implement a 
blocking system that intentionally over-blocks (something Conroy previously 
criticised) and allegedly uses decades old law in an unprecedented fashion 
to 'implement' such policy, giving rise to questions about what else such 
decades-old law could allegedly be used to implement in connection with 
"filtering" and other things.

Right now, I have zero reason to have a view other than that if Labor wins 
the next election, 'scope creep' about what is 'blocked' will happen, 
either by (arguable mis-use) of decades-old law, or new law if Labor 
acquires the power to independently enact new laws.

For that not to happen, it appears that, among other things, a Minister 
with very strong views about 'open internet' etc and very great ability to 
persuade party colleagues would be necessary. All indications are that such 
a person would not be Conroy, and I'm frankly doubtful that the Labor Party 
even has such a perosn.

Irene