[LINK] More ASIC -- internet filterer, worse than Conroy's

[Jan Whitaker]

Bumbling ASIC heralds new internet censorship era

http://www.crikey.com.au/2013/05/16/bumbling-asic-heralds-new-internet-censorship-era/
<http://www.crikey.com.au/author/bernardkeane/>Bernard 
Keane | May 16, 2013 11:33AM | EMAIL | PRINT

ASIC has been revealed as the agency behind the 
blocking of a Melbourne education website, using 
a hitherto-unused internet censorship power.

An inept regulator exercising a hitherto-unused 
internet censorship power has been revealed as 
the source of the accidental blocking of a Melbourne education website.

[snip]

<http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/ta1997214/s313.html>Under 
s.313, a carrier or carriage service provider must:

” 
 give officers and authorities of the 
Commonwealth and of the States and Territories 
such help as is reasonably necessary for the 
following purposes: enforcing the criminal law 
and laws imposing pecuniary penalties; assisting 
the enforcement of the criminal laws in force in 
a foreign country; protecting the public revenue; 
safeguarding national security.”

ASIC in effect used this power to censor the 
internet, in the course of which over 1000 sites 
unconnected to the target site were blocked, 
including Melbourne Free University, which was 
told nothing by authorities or its ISP about why.

ASIC is one of Australia’s most inept regulators, 
with a string of courtroom defeats marking its 
efforts to enforce corporate law. Despite its 
record of bumbling, last year ASIC used the Joint 
Committee on Intelligence and Security’s inquiry 
into data retention to demand an expansion of its 
power to intercept internet and phone communications.
[Gee, look how well that's working out....]

ASIC’s use of the s.313 power opens the 
possibility of a de facto internet filter scheme 
with less oversight  than the filter originally 
proposed by Stephen Conroy in the government’s 
first term. As LeMay correctly notes, a filter 
comprised of individual requests from a variety 
of regulators asserting they are “enforcing 
criminal laws” or “safeguarding national 
security” is  harder to monitor or hold to 
account. As Melbourne Free University discovered, 
it is also very difficult for businesses and 
organisations accidentally blocked to discover who has blocked them or why.

In Tuesday’s budget, the government announced its 
abandonment of the internet filter scheme would 
enable a saving of several million dollars. It 
has been replaced with a “voluntary” filter 
scheme limited to sites identified by Interpol. 
That filter is a minimal one compared with both 
to the original Conroy proposal, which would have 
targeted a broader range of allegedly “illegal” 
content under Australian laws, and the one 
available via s.313, which is driven purely by 
the internal interpretations by regulators of 
what is “enforcing criminal law” or “safeguarding national security”.

[snip]


Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
blog: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
business: http://www.janwhitaker.com

Our truest response to the irrationality of the 
world is to paint or sing or write, for only in such response do we find truth.
~Madeline L'Engle, writer

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