[LINK] More ASIC -- internet filterer, worse than Conroy's
Marghanita da Cruz
marghanita at ramin.com.au
Fri May 17 11:19:28 AEST 2013
Hi Jan,
Seems the Melbourne Education site was collateral damage,
from the regulation of the ISP - under the telecommunications act?
Marghanita
Jan Whitaker wrote:
>
> 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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--
Marghanita da Cruz
Ramin Communications Pty Ltd
http://ramin.com.au/
Phone:(+61)0414-869202
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