When the Australian Minister of National Enlightenment and Propaganda fires up the Great Firewall of Australia, the website of pro-euthanasia group Exit International will be among those blocked from access because of its “RC” content.

 

Exit International approached the Pirate Party of Australia and asked if they would kindly prepare instruction suitable for 70+ year olds in the art of bypassing the filter. The Pirate Party gladly obliged, the result can be seen here at computerworld.com.au

Think about that for a minute.

 

Minister Conroy claims that testing undertaken by Telstra, showed that every single website you visit being logged and checked against a blacklist, slowed internet performance by less than one seventieth of the blink of an eye.

The blink of an eye? Who’s eye? How fast could this eye blink?

In the “pilot test” that the Government commissioned, the performance results were apparently not so favourable; otherwise Conroy would be quoting them and not Telstra. In these tests by the way, it was reported that “testing criteria” was decided after commencement of tests (they made it up to produce results they quite liked), and they were carried out using a blacklist of around a 1,000 URLs.

If 0.0001 percent of www pages (of which there are about 25 billion indexed) contained content reviewed and categorized RC by Australian authorities, the blacklist would contain 25,000 URLs. I suspect that the hindrance on performance for that number may be significantly greater than one seventieth of the blink of an eye (whoever that eye belongs to).

If the URL blacklist should be less than 25,000, why is Minister Conroy so keen to spend $44 million implementing a filter for the purpose of blocking access to even less than 0.0001 percent of known indexed website pages?

Suppose that was some how good value, Minister Conroy and the Government, by their own admissions, know the internet filter will not work. Conroy claims:

“The Refused Classification Content list cannot be made public because if it was, it would simply be a catalogue to direct people to specific URLs that are Refused Classification.”

 

If the filter was other than an elaborate joke, the URL blacklist would be safe to publish publicly, because if the filter worked, nobody would be able to access them.

The Obama administration has questioned the Rudd government’s plan to introduce an internet filter, saying it runs contrary to the US’s foreign policy of encouraging an open internet to spread economic growth and global security.

Officials from the State Department have raised the issue with Australian counterparts as the US mounts a diplomatic assault on internet censorship by governments worldwide.

Responding to questions about the filter, commentary website The Punch reports today that US State Department spokesman Noel Clay has raised concerns on the filter plan.

A spokeswoman for Senator Conroy declined to comment on Mr Clay’s remarks.

This comes on the back of damming criticism for the mandatory censorship policy by two of the internet industry’s biggest players, Google and Yahoo.

 

Both companies tendered their input in a discussion paper released by the Aus Dept of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, which had called for feedback on transparency and accountability measures, 174 submissions were received in total.

The policy (if you haven’t heard) aims to “deny access” to overseas hosted internet content that is Refused Classification in Australia.

Google:

“In considering the government’s plans for mandatory ISP level filtering we have listened to many views, but most importantly those of our users.”

“RC is a broad category of content that includes not just child sexual abuse material but also socially and politically controversial material – for example, educational content on safer drug use – as well as the grey realms of material instructing in any crime, including politically controversial crimes such as euthanasia. ”

“Decisions in relation to instructional, educational, scientific or current affairs video material will often be much more complex than in relation to entertainment ‘films’.”

“Scenes of war or terrorist activity may ‘offensively depict real violence’ and rate RC when the video is not in any way ‘gratuitous violence’ or posted for entertainment.”

“Moving to a mandatory ISP level filtering regime with a scope that goes well beyond child sexual abuse material would raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information.”

“Filtering material from high-volume sites such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter appears not to be technologically possible as it would have such a serious impact on internet access”.

“We have a number of other concerns, including that filtering may give a false sense of security to parents, it could damage Australia’s international reputation and it can be easily circumvented.”

 

Yahoo:

“Yahoo are entirely supportive of any effort to make the internet a safer place for children, however mandatory filtering of all RC material could block content with a strong social, political and/or educational value”

“Innocuous sites that could be blocked include:

• Safe injecting and other harm minimization websites.

• Euthanasia discussion forums.

• A video on creating graffiti art.

• Anti-abortion websites.

• Gay and lesbian forums that discuss sexual experiences.

• Explorations of the geo-political causes of terrorism where specific terrorist organizations and propaganda are cited as reference material.”

 

I offered my own personal submission (well kind of); I wrote to the minister 6 times, rejecting the automated address I received the first time I had written. I was overjoyed when I received a note from his office today, a very speedy 3 month turn around in response.

The last paragraph on page 1 reads:

“The RC Content list includes child sex abuse content, bestiality, sexual violence including rape and detailed instruction of crime or drug use. The Government believes that RC content has no place in a civilized society and blocking of this material is nor an impingement on free speech.”

 

This is really beginning to f*cking shit me. It’s regurgitated by the minister and Prime Minister every occasion the policy is discussed, it’s mindlessly repeated in every main stream media article ever posted about the policy.

Yes RC does include child sex, bestiality and rape. But as Google and Yahoo point out above, it also includes so much more.

The government should be required to reveal the truth, that RC content includes; safe drug injecting and harm minimization info, euthanasia forums, graffiti art videos, certain gay and lesbian forum content, terrorism studies, scenes of war “offensively depicting real violence”, some fetish pornography, women with small breasts in porn and even porn featuring female ejaculation (when male ejaculation is quite acceptable).

If they did so though, told the truth, they would have but one solitary policy supporter, the Australian Christian Lobby.

This propaganda, choosing which facts to disclose, and which ones to omit, has been used to dodgy up surveys to in turn further the propaganda effort. It was reported that a commissioned survey reflected that 80% of Australians support mandatory internet censorship.

Crap! To begin, 1000 people only were telephoned, hardly a cross representational indication of the Australian continent. More importantly, participants were asked their opinion on the aforementioned propaganda:

Do you support the government filtering access to RC internet content that includes child sex, bestiality and rape?

 

You would have to be pretty f*cked up to answer no. Apparently though 20% of Australians are, or maybe they were just aware of the facts regarding the policy and choose not to comply with the loaded question.

An online survey on March 30, 2010 by the Age News paper was conducted without the propaganda.

Question – “do you approve of the government filtering the internet”

Response – 96% No, 3% Yes, 1% Indifferent

The Classification (Publications, Film and Computer Games) Act 1995 governs classification decisions. It provides that classifications are in accordance with the National Classification Code and guidelines.

The Code sets out that RC is applied to content which may; depict, express or otherwise deal with matters of sex, drug misuse or addiction, crime, cruelty, violence or revolting or abhorrent phenomena in such a way that they offend against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that they should not be classified.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) took action against 1365 different pieces of web page content hosted overseas in the period 2008 – 2009. This was double the volume of items actioned for the previous year. It includes not just RC material for which filtering will be based upon, but also X18+ and “potentially prohibited” content.

At the same time, the actual number of complaints received by the ACMA decreased in the period. We are told that the system is complaints driven; ACMA only investigates content when it receives a complaint. It is quite curious to see complaints decrease but actions undertaken double.

On the topic of censoring online games, page 3 of my letter from the minister’s office reads:

“The Minister for Home Affairs released a discussion paper to consider whether there should be an R18+ category for computer games in Australia. The government’s approach to filtering online games will be developed drawing on this consultation process”

 

Making shit up as they go along in essence. If R18+ video game ratings are still not forthcoming after the consultation, any online game there forth not suitable for persons aged 15 years and under will be blocked from access, if law requirements are followed.

view the complete letter here

The US Government, Google and Yahoo are the latest and biggest in a long, long growing line of critics against Australia’s internet censorship policy. But are they the pot calling the kettle black?

YouTube (owned by Google) has a growing reputation for removing user videos by the bucket load. I have a YouTube channel specifically designed for reloading content that has been removed/banned by YT.

Currently I am unable to keep pace with restoring the content that has disappeared from the site, just within the videos I have added to my channel favorites. These are not videos that violate the terms of service (although they are often claimed to), they do not contain sex or violence, they are however politically sensitive.

I’m glad Google is so concerned about “restrictions on access to information”. To add some perspective, YT generally do “take downs” upon request, so the true censorship culprits are those doing the requesting, media corporations.

YouTube recently revealed that the media company Viacom have been engaged in the game of uploading their own product to YT, only to then turn around and lodge complaint with take down request.

As for the US Government “raising concern” over the policy, this really is a twisted game they are playing, which is why Minister Conroy will probably not feel unduly pressured by the remarks.

The US Gov is at the forefront of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) which it is forcing upon the world. A balance heavily weighted in the interest of big media corps already exists under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, but ACTA is set to take these interests to unprecedented new heights.

Australian copyright law largely mirrors US DM Copyright Act due to Australia being a signatory to the 2004 Free Trade Agreement, another US policy forced upon the world.

The ACTA treaty is highly secretive. After much tedious campaigning by Electronic Freedom Foundation in the US, 159 doc pages associated with the treaty were released, but only after 1362 had been deemed as potentially violating “national security” and withheld.

A new UK Digital Economy Bill has also been drafted as a result of ACTA negotiations. It is proposed in the UK, users have their internet service disconnected if they are caught file sharing 3 times or more, “three-strikes” and your out regime.

Other measures include a ban on open Wi-Fi (hot spots) and needless to say, website filtering. Currently the censorship of internet pornography and even abuse material is voluntary for ISPs in the UK, but this new Bill places compulsory requirements upon ISPs to block access to copyrighted content.

The ACTA treaty tentacles obligate signatories including Europe, USA, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, Canada, Jordan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Republic of Korea, Singapore, and United Arab Emirates.

An EU ACTA negotiator recently promised no “3 strikes” rules for Europe, but a leaked ACTA draft would indicate otherwise, as will be the case in future for all aforementioned signatory nations.

If you would like to donate to the Michael Atkinson fund, here’s how, just make an unfavourable remark about him, on the blog of your choosing, anywhere on the net (doesn’t matter where, he’ll track you down), and you too will receive an extortion note from his lawyers Norman Waterhouse.

 

It’s a bargain really; just $20K and you can say whatever, just like free speech but not, because it costs $20K, call it $20k speech.

So ok, here’s what I think, $20K speech is terrorism, Michael Atkinson you are a terrorist and Norman Waterhouse – go f*ck yourself!

WTF? It says “CAN HAS R18 RATING PLZ?” That’s the meekest threat I’ve ever seen, it even has the good manners to say please.

 

As for a gamer hanging around his doorstep at 2am, I assume Mick is referring to his office door step although he ambiguously does not say. His private residence boasts an 8 ft tall, 1 ft thick brick wall, and there are a couple of guard dogs to get past between that wall and his front door. Perhaps that note was the work of super Mario? So how is it again that he and his family feel threatened?

In light of all the poorly chosen remarks and eyebrow raising allegations against his opponents of late, I believe Mr Atkinson has earned a case for some detailed scrutiny.

I will do him the courtesy of not assuming that his campaign will involve criminal activity and dirty tricks, and I will not say that is what I’ve come to expect from the SA Labor Party.

Mick may be doing his best to impersonate Mr Magoo, but appearances can be deceiving. Not in this case however, I believe he really is Mr Magoo but there is much more than meets the eye when it comes to dealing with Mick.

Michael Atkinson is a practicing Catholic and a founding member of Labor Unity. Labor Unity or the Labor Right is an organized faction of the Australian Labor Party (ALP).

Labor Left has in the past criticized the faction (Right) for being beholden to papal authority.

Atkinson has become infamous for many a scandal and blooper since taking government in 2002.

There was the “Ashbourne affair” – Premier Mike Rann’s former media adviser Randall Ashbourne allegedly made offers to former Labor deputy leader Ralph Clarke to settle defamation actions between Clarke and Atkinson, in exchange for lucrative statutory board positions for Clarke. Clarke testified at a committee hearing that Ashbourne was never in a position to disclose or decide anything relating to the alleged offers he was negotiating without first phoning Mick for direction.

see – Select Committee on the Atkinson/Ashbourne/Clarke Affair.PDF

As Minister for Justice, Atkinson became slightly flustered when his Dept Chief Executive Kate Lennon, was sprung trying to hide $6 million under her bed from unspent treasury.

Premier Mike Rann has gone on record in the past saying he is tough on crime and that he will “rack’m, pack’m and stack’m” in jails. In 2008 Atkinson called Deputy Chief Magistrate Andrew Cannon “daft” and “delusional” for his suggestion that overcrowded jails could justify lighter prison sentences. Mr Cannon consequently sued Mr Atkinson for defamation.

Magistrate Cannon won a cool $175,000.00. Cabinet thought the defamation was a simple blooper anyone could make and decided therefore that tax payers would pick up the tab for Mick, which ended being $211,000.00 after interest and government costs.

Mick caused outrage once again in 2009 with more stupid comments, this time in relation to a group of Aboriginal gang members whom he said were “pure evil” with no hope of rehabilitation.

Atkinson said he was weary of “hand-wringers” with a “1960s hippie” outlook on life who were stopping the state Labor government from giving young Aboriginal boys a better life behind bars.

“Among the gang of 49, there are a hard core of about 12 offenders who (Catholic priest and social policy leader) Monsignor Cappo, not just me, say are beyond redemption.”

Let’s have a brief look at one example of the influence the Catholic Church wields on Government with its commercial activities led by Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Adelaide Monsignor David Cappo. This gives insight into one of the forces propping up our Attorney General.

The legal fraternity is dominated by Catholics and Catholics are a big part of the right wing of the Labor party. Remember Mick is a practicing Catholic, has a law degree (goes without saying being the AG and Minister for Justice), and was a founder of the modern day Labor Right (Unity) faction.

From the Independent weekly
by Bill Nicholas
March 2008

VS1 is the new corporate headquarters for SA Water, one of the largest SA government departments, which is bringing people from three sites to the new tower. It is built on land that fronts Victoria Square which included a two-storey office block and the old tram barn.

The Rann Government sold the block of land, comprising some 8000 squ m, to the Catholic Church Endowment Society Inc. in December 2005 for $5.874 million.

That’s around $734 per square metre. This compares with an average price of around $1500 per square metre that was the going price at the time.

The Deed of Agreement was signed in October 2003. The purchase price was $5.34 million exclusive of GST (included a contribution by Government of $160,000 toward remediation of soil pollutants on the site).

So the Catholics bought well. “Fair enough,” everybody said. “They need the land for a gymnasium and to give the St Aloysius College girls a bit of room to swing a cat.”

But the next step was what caused a swarm of developers to take a collective jealous sigh: the Rann Government prepared a select list of three developers to come up with a new home for SA Water. And guess who won the competitive tender? The Catholic Church Endowment Society.

The new SA Water building is thought to have more than 20,000 squ m of lettable space. At $350-400 per square metre – the going rate – the annual revenue to the church will start at around $7 million a year and may be as high as $8 million.

If you assume a yield of six per cent on the sale of the developed property, the capital value on completion will be somewhere in the vicinity of $120 million.

But the question on many minds is whether the terrific deal that Monsignor Cappo’s church has pulled off with the SA Water building is a function of his honorary position as a member of the Executive Committee of Cabinet.

Cappo, the second highest ranking Catholic in SA, along with super-rich mining entrepreneur Robert Champion de Crespigny were appointed to the Executive Committee of Cabinet in June 2005.

 

Interesting stuff, but there is even more behind our Catholic Mick than the world’s most powerful church.

www.sensational-adelaide.com

Atkinson has a good law degree from ANU but has never practised as a lawyer. After graduation, Atkinson worked as a political staffer and was recruited by Don Farrell’s ‘Shoppies’. As well as being politically Labor Right, the Shoppies – more correctly the Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association – is Australia’s largest union by numbers and is also very stable, having had the same management for decades until the elevation of Peter Manilauskas to the local throne, replacing Don Farrell who finally got his Senate seat.

It’s interesting to see how bulletproof Attorney-General Michasel Atkinson is. Rann has wanted him out for years, but Atkinson is backed by the all-powerful Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association. Rann is only the junior partner in the SDA/Rann government, with former SDA boss Don Farrell still calling many of the shots.

Another very important aspect of the SDA is that it carries the mantle of the late departed DLP – the formidable Democratic Labor Party, aka the Catholic arm of the Labor Party. Atkinson’s father was the leader of the DLP in SA, which gives Michael Atkinson dynastic protection.

Atkinson isn’t going anywhere, whatever he does. If the SDA deserted its men, it would have no business being in government.

Most schoolchildren would see through Atkinson’s bumbling defences against the accusations against him in the “Randall Ashbourne Affair” and in the Kate Lennon “Stashed Cash Affair”, and the Wasted Quarter Million affair.

Generally, the charge against Atkinson is basically of lying and dishonesty. In no case has Atkinson been able to clear his name – the disputes have generally been ‘closed down’ by government action.

The SDA seems to see the government as a job network. If you are close to the SDA, your chances of getting a comfortable well-paid job within a Minister’s office, or on boards and committees is maximized.

Peter Louca, a former SDA heavy, is now chief of staff to Michael Atkinson and was a candidate for Mayo in 1996. Shannon Sampson, a former industrial officer for the SDA, is an adviser to Michael Atkinson.

SDA boss Peter Manilauskas, now one of the most powerful men in SA, was appointed at the age of 27 to the board of WorkCover.

Peter’s young brother Rob, sister Elizabeth and his ex-girlfriend Elizabeth Hollidge are on the public payroll. All three dragged from dreary, difficult jobs in private enterprise and now grazing peacefully on the sunny pastures of the land of the free lunch, fat government pay packet and not much work.

Come on in – there’s still plenty of room at the trough, and the money’s fine! Just leave your ethics at the door if you don’t mind.

Rob Malinauskas was in his early 20s and employed as a cadet journalist at The Advertiser when he was appointed to a position in Deputy Premier Foley’s office with a salary of almost $90,000 pa.

Elizabeth (Peter’s sister) scored a job in Attorney-General Atkinson’s office as a liaison officer. Elizabeth Hollidge (Peter’s ex) managed to find employment as an adviser in Michael Atkinson’s office (and a rewarding gig on the Development Policy Advisory Committee).

Michael Atkinson’s wife is an employee of the SDA.

 

Given Atkinson’s associations, and given the Federal Communications Minister’s very similar associations, it all becomes remarkably clear why Australia has no adult ratings for video games and is about to become retarded with nanny state internet filtering, despite these policies being in complete opposition to all common sense.

The ABC reports that “the Australian film and television industry has lost a case against a major internet service provider whose customers downloaded pirated movies and television programs” – Hooray!

 

The legal action followed a five-month investigation by the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft.

The companies claimed iiNet infringed copyright by failing to stop users engaging in illegal file sharing.

Justice Dennis Cowdroy said it was “impossible” to find against iiNet for what its users did.

Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft executive director Neil Gane said he was disappointed with the decision.

Mr Gane said he was confident that the Federal Government would now review the laws surrounding copyright infringement.

The entertainment companies compiled their evidence by hiring two investigators to subscribe to iiNet and then begin trading files using different BitTorrent networks.

They kept track of what movies and TV shows they were sharing, when they downloaded them, and the ID numbers of the computers they were sharing these files with.

 

My opinion: Media companies should not be trying to penalize end users, or their ISP for sharing files, particularly when the media companies actually took part in the sharing.

Sharing files online should be no more illegal than permitting a neighbour to view a purchased DVD disc. If an individual was charging for the property of a media company, that’s theft, but even then why pursue the ISP that individual subscribes to?

I find Neil Gane’s expectation that Government will now review laws, very troublesome, I wonder what inspires his confidence.

In readiness of the fourth coming mandatory internet filtering, laws have already been written into the Broadcasting Services Act which obligates ISPs to execute “denial of access” for anything identified as “prohibited content”.

And then on Feb 2nd 2010, there is this – Senate passes net interception Bill.

This is all seems to be pointing to the painting of a disturbing image for the manner in which people will access (or not access) the net in future.

Although Hillary Clinton recently denounced internet censorship: “Countries that restrict free access to information or violate the basic rights of Internet users risk walling themselves off from the progress of the next century”, in truth the grimy finger prints from the hand of big brother being smeared all over the internet in Australia, would appear to be originating from US government policy.

Angus Kidman of crikey.com reports:

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) spearheaded by the US government, which apparently doesn’t think its existing draconian proposals in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (which Australian copyright law largely mirrors, thanks to the 2004 Free Trade Agreement) go far enough.

The proposal has been debated at a series of meetings between stakeholders since 2007, and while confirmed information is fairly scant, earlier leaked documents suggest that as well as covering physical piracy, ACTA will try and enforce copyright in the digital realm, meaning the same kind of ISP-level meddling that’s associated with current internet censorship proposals in Australia.

Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade:

“The participants in ACTA negotiations do not intend for the ACTA to target individuals, the privacy of individuals or the property of individuals where those individuals are not engaged in commercial scale trade in counterfeit and pirate goods.”

What DFAT doesn’t discuss at all is the highly secretive nature of the treaty process. A prolonged legal campaign by the Electronic Freedom Foundation in the US did eventually result in 159 pages of documents associated with the treaty being released but only after 1362 had been deemed as potentially violating “national security” and withheld.

Open government seems to be playing second fiddle to the demands of the IP protection crowd, which counts deep-pocketed software makers and movie studios among its most verbal supporters.

 

Policy measures for combating copyright theft on one hand and censoring internet content to “protect children” on the other, may seem unrelated at a glance but only if you believe the lies.

As far as I am concerned, the protecting children line is a lie, how can government possibly filter 25 billion World Wide Web pages with any effectiveness whatsoever? In addition, certain organisations, ones that have a large enough profit margin, will enjoy exemption from being filtered.

In example, management from SecondLife have stated they have government assurance that they will be unaffected by filtering. How can this be when some areas of SL host the most heinous of debaucheries to be found in any online gaming platform, anywhere on the net?

Denial of access to internet end users by big brother to protect copyright law, and denial of access to protect children from undesirable content are both two sides of the same coin. Coin literally. Allowing people of the Earth to have freedom of choice, is not in the interest of the small minority, over privileged who puppeteer our governments and own all the big media companies, when they have a monopoly to maintain.