OpenNet Initiative: Australia’s content filtering “frightening”

Andrew Hendry
ARN
Friday, November 21, 2008

The principal investigator of the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) has labelled the federal government’s proposed mandatory Internet filtering scheme “frightening” and typical of non-democratic regimes.

Associate Professor, Ronald Deibert, is co-founder and principal investigator of ONI – a collaborative partnership between Harvard Law School, Oxford University, Cambridge University and the Citizen Lab at University of Toronto.

Deibert told ARN he found the proposal to implement mandatory filtering in Australia both puzzling and frightening.

“Over the last 7 years, I have closely documented patterns of Internet filtering worldwide, and typically proposals of this sort are found among non-democratic regimes,” he said. “There is a trend towards filtering of access to information involving the sexual exploitation of children, for example in Canada and the United Kingdom, but these appear to be much narrower in scope than that which is being proposed in Australia.”

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Senator Conroy’s proposal that ISPs provide a mandatory clean Internet feed to all Australians will undergo a live trial over the Christmas period. The Federal Opposition, industry and privacy groups have rejected the proposal, while the Greens have accused Conroy of misleading parliament over what other countries have trialed mandatory filtering.

Deibert, who also co-authored the book Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering, said optional filtering schemes in Canada and the UK had major transparency and accountability problems that may be duplicated, if not exacerbated, in Australia.

In Canada, for example, filtering of access to child pornography is left in the hands of private ISPs. Deibert said this lack of civilian oversight meant there was no measure of redress for sites that had been improperly blocked.

In Australia, the public will have no means to determine what sites are blocked, as recent amendments to Freedom of Information laws means the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) will administer a secret blacklist with no public oversight or accountability.

Full story here. 

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9 Responses to “OpenNet Initiative: Australia’s content filtering “frightening””

1. johan[oneUNDERgod] Says:
   November 21st, 2008 at 5:34 pm

   could it just be to squeeze more blood [revenue] from the stone [the debitor ,in this case the people] they sure dont want people to explain how come they paying double the tax they paid 10 years ago.

   btw dont perverts use file sharing [thus wont be affected?]

   clearly the topic isnt simple
   and opinion will need be limeted

   but hey let the sheeple believe the delusion
   knowing what is going on
   hasnt given me the peace of mind [that god gives]

   ah those spirit vessels made from flesh
   those spirits ’sewn into skin’ who love to sin

   each thinking their own loves a sin to be worse
   [thus true evil thrives ,[evil = good veil over vile]

2. jtc Says:
   November 21st, 2008 at 9:55 pm

   National day of protest against the filter!
   December 13th
   YOur capital city
   myspace.com/nocleanfeed for protest locations

3. Alan Says:
   November 22nd, 2008 at 12:45 am

   Big brother is watching us down under big time. They have taken our rights to defend ourselves now we have no access to the truth. Help Alex how can we access prisonplanet as it will go first!!

4. imanig Says:
   November 22nd, 2008 at 6:41 am

   i know they are sesoring you tube and google in the usa-i went to see a video on where have all the males gone===the message said;not available in your country====they could have pulled it without an esplination===NOT AVAILABLE IN YOUR COUNTRY

5. imanig Says:
   November 22nd, 2008 at 6:45 am

   i forgot to mention that i live in america====NOT AVAILABLE IN YOU COUNTRY

6. imanig Says:
   November 22nd, 2008 at 10:39 am

   went back to you tube and it now reads”removed by user”=man commits suicide as onliners urged it on=may be an open door to supression of internet http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27855263

7. bald11 Says:
   November 23rd, 2008 at 3:56 am

   Welcome to Communist Australia.
   Here we go again, the government here is trying to tell us adults what we can and cannot look at on the internet, O’h that’s right, the government doesn’t have the right to tell me what I can look at, now or ever, they can stick this filter where the sun doesn’t shine, IDIOTS the lot of them.

8. Wez the Aussie Says:
   November 23rd, 2008 at 1:49 pm

   No guns, no fireworks, chipped passports, cashless toll ways and check outs, Genetically modified food, RBT, cameras everywhere, federal government access to bank accounts and now filtered filtered internet, on top of the rest, I think us Aussies should all make a pact and committ mass suicide, why drag this out ?? The crap that the residents of this country will put up with, appears to have no boundary. I have trouble getting one person out of a hundred to listen to me, then it’s probably one in a thousand that actually believes me. At this point there’s only one other person besides myself that is actively fighting against all this. Sometimes it’s very hard to keep going in the face of such overwhelming ignorance (much of it willful) and complacency.

9. www.templibeholder.blogspot.com Says:
   November 23rd, 2008 at 8:08 pm

   They force you to vote there under penalty of law . I guess so that the losing party doesn’t need to run out the old “It was a clear vote for democracy today”.

   Here in boring old Canada we don’t have to vote if we don’t want to and we have really exercised that right here in the west coast where some fed/city elections drew only about 25% of eligible voters. The jounalists called it disgusting. I laughed for a while until the horror of the daily grind set in again.

   Would australia have charged those thousands of people if only 25% came out to vote I wonder.