It seems that lunatic senators still want to make Australia more heavily legislated than China - Senator Helen Coonan has introduced a bill to Parliament to allow the feds to force ISPs Australia-wide to block lists that some crony will deem "offensive". The feds will wield this power on ACMA (our Communications regulation agency) who will then take out their iron rods and beat Australian ISPs into submission.
Yes, that's the same Australian ISPs who are being made responsible for what their clients do with the service they provide. It's ludicrous - if *I* choose to surf porn, download bomb recipies, read some of the already banned (in Australia) newsgroups or communicate with the Taliban using my Internet connection, this should be in no way the responsibility of my ISP.
Helen Coonan seems not to have much of a grasp of the technology behind the Internet. This follows a long trend of Australian Communications Ministers who are clueless about, well, communication. And this is not only an Australian issue, remember the Alaskan Senator, Ted Stevens, who amused the entire civillized world with his blatant misunderstanding of the Internet during an almost totally incoherent speech? He was only the chair of the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation which was discussing network neutrality (the removing of restrictions on what equipment and modes of communication allowed on the Internet without unreasonably degrading the usability of the Internet by others).
So, do we want a country where free speech is legislated against? Do we want a country where our right as adults to choose what we ourselves partake in and what we allow our children to partake in is determined by the Government and not our own morals? Well, it looks like we're moving at a reasonable pace towards a society that is allowing itself to be legislated into submission. After all, who needs to think for themselves when the government will do all of that work for us?
Regards,
The Outspoken Wookie
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