Prime Minister, you're banned!

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd received this NSW North Coast email concerning mandatory national ISP-level Internet filtering via his online contact form on 16 December 2009:

Dear Prime Minister Rudd,

I have read the ENEX Test Lab "Internet Service Provider (ISP)Content Filtering Pilot Report" and the accompanying discussion paper.

I am sincerely concerned that your government intends to impose mandatory national ISP-level Internet filtering on Australian society.

I still consider this censorship scheme open to both bureaucratic and political abuse.

The scheme will considerably add to the end-user costs of a typical Internet connection home account and, these cost will be prohibitive for low-income households.

It is doubtful that unrestricted Internet surfing by any determined IT literate teenager would be stopped by such a filtering scheme (ditto for adults seeking unlawful or pornographic material online), but it will probably limit Internet access to a large number of citizens on the federal electoral roll who may not be as technologically savvy.

When it comes to imposing an Internet filtering scheme - this is very much a multiple player game.

So I have removed and blocked KevinRuddPM from my own Twitter account and I intend to place www.pm.gov.au on the restricted URL list created by Internet Explorer on my personal computer.

Needless to say I may become strangely blind to Labor candidates' names on the next federal ballot paper I am required to mark.

Sincerely,

[redacted]

Email your support for those little islands standing up to the big polluting nations at Copenhagen

Greens Senator Christine Milne is asking Australians to send emails supporting the stance taken by the smaller island states for strong and binding international greenhouse gas emissions targets and a meaningful climate treaty.

Please take a few minutes to email these leaders to give them your support:

• Prime Minister of Tuvalu, Mr Apisai Ielemia, can be reached via his personal secretary at mailto:%20ksaloa@gov.tv
• Prime Minister of Grenada, Mr Tillman Thomas, can be reached via mailto:%20pmoffice@gov.gd
• President Nasheed of the Maldives can be reached via mailto:%20info@presidencymaldives.gov.mv
• President Anote Tong of Kiribati can be reached via mailto:%20eni@parliament.gov.ki
• Premier of Niue, Toke Talagi, can be reached via Secretaty to Government Richarde Hipa at sog.hipa@mail.gov.nu

Or send a letter to the editor at:

• Adelaide Advertiser: submit letters at www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/news/opinion/sendletter
• The Age: email letters to letters@theage.com.au
• The Australian: email letters to letters@theaustralian.com.au
• Australian Financial Review: email letters to edletters@afr.com.au
• Canberra Times: email letters to letters.editor@canberratimes.com.au
• The Courier Mail: submit letters at www.news.com.au/couriermail/editorial/letter
• The Daily Telegraph: email letters to http://letters@dailytelegraph.com.au/
• The Herald Sun: submit letters at www.news.com.au/heraldsun/editorial/letter
• Hobart Mercury: email letters to mailto:%20mercuryedletter@dbl.newsltd.com.au
• Sydney Morning Herald: email letters to letters@smh.com.au
• The West Australian: email letters to letters@wanews.com.au

Best Oz MSM quote and image this week

Both views on Australian Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott and his faithfull sidekick Shadow Finance Minister Barnaby Joyce found at The Age on Monday 14th December 2009.

Hat tip tp Ross Gittens and Michael Mucci.











"Abbott is a phoney populist, using it to conceal his convictions; Joyce is a genuine populist, being as unthinking as the mob whose votes he seeks." Ross Gittens

Google Australia expresses concern in face of Rudd Government intention to censor its search engine

One of the interesting snippets to emerge in discussion of the Rudd Government commissioned report from Enex Test Labs is that the 'live' pilot of the proposed national Internet filtering scheme involved six out of nine of participating Internet Service Providers using filtering software which permanently locks Google's search engine into safe mode and possibly sends URL information back to the U.S. software vendor (this is a company which coincidentally seems to have a board dominated by accountants, financial advisers, venture capitalists and former investment bankers which are just the sort of people that the Global Financial Crisis has taught us to trust).
The software also locks Yahoo! search.

Anyone who has ever researched some of the more obscure historical information available using the World Wide Web will know that this safe mode frequently fails to display innocuous but often useful information and images.

Google's safe mode is of course a personal choice available to every PC user and strict search engine filtering can be locked in with password access.

Google Australia is naturally perturbed by the Rudd Government's drive to impose blanket censorship of the Australian Internet and posted this on its official blog on 16 December 2009.

A sincere thank you to Google's I.Flynn for this effort:

Our views on Mandatory ISP Filtering

At Google we are concerned by the Government's plans to introduce a mandatory filtering regime for Internet Service Providers (ISP) in Australia, the first of its kind amongst western democracies. Our primary concern is that the scope of content to be filtered is too wide.

We have a bias in favour of people's right to free expression. While we recognise that protecting the free exchange of ideas and information cannot be without some limits, we believe that more information generally means more choice, more freedom and ultimately more power for the individual.

Some limits, like child pornography, are obvious. No Australian wants that to be available – and we agree. Google, like many other Internet companies, has a global, all-product ban against child sexual abuse material and we filter out this content from our search results. But moving to a mandatory ISP filtering regime with a scope that goes well beyond such material is heavy handed and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information.

The recent report by Professors Catharine Lumby, Lelia Green, and John Hartley, Untangling The Net: The Scope of Content Caught By Mandatory Internet Filtering, has found that a wide scope of content could be prohibited under the proposed filtering regime. Refused Classification (or 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. This type of content may be unpleasant and unpalatable but we believe that government should not have the right to block information which can inform debate of controversial issues.

While the discussion on ISP filtering continues, we should all retain focus on making the Internet safer for people of all ages. Our view is that online safety should focus on user education, user empowerment through technology tools (such as SafeSearch Lock), and cooperation between law enforcement and industry partners. The government has committed to important cybersafety education and engagement programs and yesterday announced additional measures that we welcome.

Exposing politically controversial topics for public debate is vital for democracy. Homosexuality was a crime in Australia until 1976 in ACT, NSW in 1984 and 1997 in Tasmania. Political and social norms change over time and benefit from intense public scrutiny and debate. The openness of the Internet makes this all the more possible and should be protected.

The government has requested comments from interested parties on its proposals for filtering and we encourage everyone to make their views known in this important debate.

Posted by Iarla Flynn, Head of Policy, Google Australia

As I write Twitter's #nocleanfeed protest page is running at 35 tweets a minute and The Sydney Morning Herald poll this morning did not favour the Great Firewall of Australia: