Digital Liberty Coalition anti-censorship march, Canberra 21 March 2009

March in March is an upbeat event to give people an opportunity stand up, be heard, and hold the government accountable for their plans of forcing mandatory censorship on a very unwilling public.

With a mix of live entertainment of bands and DJs, speakers from all sides of the political spectrum and other special guests, the day will be topped off with the annual Canberran Skyfire Festival, just for us ... okay, maybe not.
So whether it's the social activism, the free gigs, or the big bangs in a V for Vendetta-esque climax in prime position at the front gates of Parliament, come along!

This is YOUR opportunity to stand up, your TIME to say no to censorship, your chance TO BE HEARD!

Where and When?
1pm at Federation Mall, Canberra ACT on Saturday 21 March 2009

Exclusive Brethren take a political hit

This was sent out by The Greens late on Wednesday 18th March. Thought I might pass it on.

The so-called 'Exclusive Brethren clause' in the Fair Work Bill was knocked out by a 33-31 vote in the Senate tonight.

Moved by Greens Leader Bob Brown and supported by the Government and Senators Xenophon and Fielding, the long-held provision for Exclusive Brethren businessmen to refuse union entry to workplaces has been removed.

A large contingent of Exclusive Brethren elders left the Senate gallery after the vote.

Senator Brown thanked the Government and Senators Fielding and Xenophon saying parallel provisions privileging the sect which exist in all states except Victoria should also be removed.

I looked up Hansard and found that the senators who sided with the Exclusive Brethren were all from the Coalition - Abetz, Back, Barnett, Bernardi, Birmingham, Boswell, Boyce, Brandis, Bushby, Cash, Eggleston, Ferguson, Fierravanti-Wells, Fifield, Fisher, Heffernan, Humphries, Joyce, Kroger, Macdonald, Mason, McGauran, Minchin, Nash, Parry, Payne, Ronaldson, Ryan, Scullion, Troeth, Williams.

Mackie's Mate
Maclean, NSW

Guest Speak is a North Coast Voices segment allowing serious or satirical comment from NSW Northern Rivers residents. Email ncvguestpeak at live dot com dot au to submit comment for consideration.

The Big Joke Comedy Festival, Bangalow 26-29 March 2009

Poster from The Big Joke website

Bangalow is holding its third annual comedy festival at the A & I Hall between 9am to 6pm daily on the 26-29 March 2009.

Details of the comedy line up, times and ticket costs are here.

Come along and blow those global recession blues away!

Well that really pulled me up short........

Sitting at the bus stop minding my own business this week when my eye spied a piece of graffiti neatly written in black Texta.

Justify Your Existence

A command which certainly left me somewhat chastened because almost every reason I could dredge up was so patently self-serving!

Have a go yourself and see how you do.

Hey Google, you're banned! Wikileaks has published an alleged Australian Government URL blacklist

Prime Minister Rudd and Senator Conroy continue to pretend that they are still in control of the proposed national mandatory ISP-level filtering of the Australian Internet.

However, with Wikileaks publishing an alleged Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) blacklist from mid-2008 and new mirror sites becoming available (as Wikileaks sites and known mirrors become difficult to access due to congestion), it is apparent that they are beginning to get some small idea about what users of the Internet can accomplish when they put their minds to it.

Having read an online article, which linked an article, which linked an article et cetera, I finally found the hard information as it were and immediately collapsed in a gleeful heap - a Google group was on the list right near the top.
Not only that, the discussion group listed was mainly all about the technical difficulties associated with Mozilla/Sea Monkey/Firefox/Linux.

Now that's the worst sort of p#rn in the world. Shame, Google, shame!

Sharing the honours with Google, I also found a legal betting website, a consortium of design consultants, a site that comments on Internet culture and a very Internet savvy dental practice.
Other reports indicate that the list also contains a tour operator and a boarding kennel.

But the true laugh of the moment was this brief report:

The list was originally believed to be the ACMA blacklist, but Communications Minister Stephen Conroy issued a statement within the last hour or so which said it was not, despite having some URLs in common.

Conroy has also condemned the leaking of the list, threatening criminal prosecution to the person who originally made it public.

Which would mean that Conroy would be instigating prosecution based on a fake blacklist?

The lesson in all this for the Rudd Government is fairly straightforward. Although Australians are generally law-abiding and infrequently given to demonstrating social unrest, at heart we harbour an almost anarchic response to being told to obey for the sake of obeying (our betters).

What if you gave an Internet censorship party and nobody came?

What if you gave an Internet censorship party and nobody came?
This bad dream is coming true this month for Prime Minister Rudd and his Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy.

A lone Foad has belled the Australian Communications and Media Authority cat by making a 'complaint' which saw that body place an anti-abortion website page on its URL blacklist, issue a take down notice and threaten to fine a server host around $11,000 a day if it didn't immediately get one of its clients to remove the offending URL from a forum page.

Small problem though.
Partially obscured Wikipedia screenshots of the banned URL are on the web as I write and, using that meagre amount of information, major search engines in Australia and around the world not only still display this indexed site but the site can be opened, searched and the page reached. [please note that the anonymous researcher did not inhale when testing the suspect page status]

Oh, and until that single public servant (or small coffee klatch of public servants) decided to act on Foad's stand alone complaint no-one at North Coast Voices had any idea the site existed.

However, even if ACMA decides never to mention specific banned URLs when it replies to complainants, the complainant is likely to already know the exact Internet address because they made the complaint in the first place and I'm sure that twittering a friend or two will be almost irresistible.

As for placing certain Wikileaks pages on the ACMA blacklist - what do they say about horses and stable doors?
I swear that there would be many hundreds of home PCs across the country which have looked at those Wiki pages about overseas banned URLs and more than a couple of web surfers who have taken a screen shot for posterity. [and yes, before you ask, this was another case where our anonymous researcher successfully refused to inhale]

Can you hear the cynical laughter yet Messrs Rudd and Conroy?
Or is the sound of the ocean rushing in to drown your foolish policy too loud?

Update 21 March 2009:

Wikileaks issues its own legal threat:

Anti-censorship site Wikileaks has threatened Australian Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy with criminal prosecution if he attempts to discover the source of its leaked Australian Internet blacklist. Wikileaks says that under Swedish law it is a criminal offence to try to breach confidentiality agreements between the press and sources.
Senator Conroy yesterday issued a statement in response to the release of the Australian Internet censorship list by Wikileaks, saying that his department, "is investigating this matter and is considering a range of possible actions it may take including referral to the Australian Federal Police. Any Australian involved in making this content publicly available would be at serious risk of criminal prosecution."Describing Senator Conroy as the person "responsible for Australian Internet censorship", Jay Lim, the legal adviser of Wikileaks publisher Sunshine Press stated: "Under the Swedish Constitution's Press Freedom Act, the right of a confidential press source to anonymity is protected, and criminal penalties apply to anyone acting to breach that right. "Source documents are received in Sweden and published from Sweden so as to derive maximum benefit from this legal protection."Should the Senator or anyone else attempt to discover our source we will refer the matter to the Constitutional Police for prosecution, and if necessary, ask that the Senator and anyone else involved be extradited to face justice for breaching fundamental rights."

What Senators Conroy and Fielding (as well as Usher of the Black Rod Brien Hallett) don't want Parliament to see?

The Australian Protectionist Party (APP) has declared itself and states it will be applying for status as a registered political party.
A quick look at its website points to the possibility that this is yet another far-right group which would be fairly comfortable with everyone from Howard to Hanson and perhaps even the late, unlamented Oswald Moseley.

However, it appears on first glance to avoid defamation, sedition, hate speech or incitement to violence as defined by legislation.
So in a democratic society it would normally expect to be tolerated as political opinion or dissent, even swimming against the tide as it does with a platform opposing multiculturalism and political correctness.

Or would it?

According to ABC Radio National Background Briefing on 15 March 2009 this potential political party URL is on the Australian Parliament/Websense blacklist.

Also reported to be on the blacklist is E-evolution, an online news site for the gay community.

It seems that Australian MPs are such delicate flowers that they must be protected from news about a significant group of citizens in many electorates.

The Federal Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, has baldly stated that national mandatory ISP-level filtering will be installed (whether the majority of Australians want it or not).
He is also on record as including what he terms 'unwanted' and 'inappropriate' material in content which would be subject to mandatory filtering by secret blacklist.

His lack of transparency in relation to the introduction of national Internet censorship does not impress and, his attempt to 'blame' the larger ISPs for their non-inclusion in his live filtering test and his calls to have faith in government integrity are falling on deaf ears in this house because I'm old enough to remember the prolonged fall-out from political witch hunts in the decade after World War Two.

There is nothing that Senator Conroy has put forward so far which gives me any confidence that the Rudd Government (or subsequent federal governments) would resist turning mandatory censorship to their own political or socio-economic ends.

Conroy's Clean Feed [producer/presenter Wendy Carlisle]:

Listen Now - 15032009

Download Audio - 15032009