Australian Gov't Censors Plans About Gov't Internet Censorship

from the to-avoid-premature-unnecessary-debate dept

Fri, Jul 23rd 2010 5:36am — Mike Masnick

As the Australian government pushes forward with plans to have ISPs spy on users as part of its effort to control and censor the internet, some have made a freedom of information request to see the details of the plan... and the government provided the documents with 90% of the content blacked out. Yes, the government is censoring its plans about censorship. Even better is the "reasoning" for this. Government officials defended the move by saying it:

"may lead to premature unnecessary debate and could potentially prejudice and impede government decision making".

Yes, how dare the people make their views known in a way that lets the government know they don't approve. That would be a representative government, and apparently Australia doesn't believe in such things.

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Filed Under: australia, censorship, isps, public debate, spying

18 Comments

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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jul 2010 @ 5:51am

Farce
Why do't governments give up the farce and call citizens what they really are, property.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jul 2010 @ 5:51am

Slippery Slope
They better nip this "freedom of information" thing in the bud or the next thing you know, people in Australia will start wanting things like "democracy".
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martyburns (profile), 23 Jul 2010 @ 6:03am

WTF? I need a lie down.
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Yogi, 23 Jul 2010 @ 6:05am

It's the Jews
No really, it's the Jews' fault - for inventing the word "hutzpa."

The Australian government embodies that concept admirably.
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- Dark Helmet (profile), 23 Jul 2010 @ 7:09am
  
  Re: It's the Jews
  Yogi, the title of your comment was surpremely funny, especially coming from you....
  
  Well done sir, although don't forget the Irish. I'm fairly certain that you'd have to drink a fair amount of whiskey to make a comment like the reasoning for cesoring the information we saw in this article, so we Irish are to blame as well.
  
  Damn Jewrish, screwing up a protestant nation....
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- Hephaestus (profile), 23 Jul 2010 @ 8:29am
  
  Re: It's the Jews
  Yogi is your real name Mel?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jul 2010 @ 6:07am

god tell me this comes from the onion
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Free Capitalist (profile), 23 Jul 2010 @ 6:12am

Minister of a Thousand Truths
FTA:

"More specifically, it is information concerning the development of government policy which has not been finalised, and there is a strong possibility that the policy will be amended prior to public consultation,
So just how long does it take their government experts to put a 20pt. bold, red header on the document entitling it "CHILD PORNOGRAPHY LIMITATION INITIATIVE". I mean we all know government drones are inefficient, but sheesh, get ON with it already.

At least from the article it looks like they have a Green senator starting an inquiry. Some comfort better than none.
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- TtfnJohn (profile), 23 Jul 2010 @ 8:44am
  
  Re: Minister of a Thousand Truths
  I was starting to think that the term "former penal colony" for Australia was wrong in that it appears that far too many Aussies, if polls are correct, want someone else to make their decisions for them.
  
  At least someone in the Australian Senate is questioning this. As you say some small comfort is better than none at all.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jul 2010 @ 6:30am

We also have the pirate party opposing the idea entirely.

There was a new poll done aswell finding against the other one, that people do want the internet censored, but that they dont want the government to do it, and better education and parenting would be better.
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- Big Al, 23 Jul 2010 @ 9:56am
  
  Re:
  The worrying thing is that the previous government, in a moment of blinding common sense, made filters similar to 'Net Nanny' available for free download from all ISPs, so that parents could take control of the filtering level on the family PC(s).
  However, as soon as the Rudd government took over these were withdrawn so that they would have an excuse to implement their blanket censorship.
  Consequently, for the past three years there has been no 'free' filter available if anyone required one.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 23 Jul 2010 @ 1:14pm
    
    Re: Re:
    Wasn't there a limited (try very limited) response to those filters? I seem to remember that only a small amount of people sked for them over a reasonably long period of time.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jul 2010 @ 7:00am

When copyright kills.

http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2010/transparent-medical-devices.html
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barney rumble, 23 Jul 2010 @ 8:12am

IDEA
why not just tie them to the couch and put mics up there arse and stick a camera in there faces

and internet HA you get none form now on
and they will wire one of these wireless cameras into the back of your head and it can move around 360 degrees

WERE WATCHING YOU FLINSTONE
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ChronoFish (profile), 23 Jul 2010 @ 8:23am

Open Government Promise
Right here:
http://agimo.govspace.gov.au/2010/07/16/declaration-of-open-government/

I quote myself from an earlier TechDirt posting:

"...Bottom line - can't trust the US (or any) Government..."

-CF
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Joe Secrets, 23 Jul 2010 @ 10:04am

Nothing wrong with that
There are two reasons why the Australian government is well within their rights to draft and present a plan this way:

1. Firstly, the Australian government *STATEMENT REDACT*, and *STATEMENT REDACT* with the co-operation of *STATEMENT REDACT*.

2. Lastly, it's a well known fact that *STATEMENT REDACT*. With that in mind, *STATEMENT REDACT* and *STATEMENT REDACT* for the safety and common good of Australian citizens.

I have no idea why you guys aren't getting it!
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Imachicken, 23 Jul 2010 @ 12:51pm

@Joe Secrets

Right on!
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BearGriz72 (profile), 23 Jul 2010 @ 6:49pm

Australia Will Destroy Us All
The censoring of the censorship plan by the government censors of the Commonwealth of Australia will now commence, the resulting deformation of space-time will cause the City of Canberra to implode into a Quantum Singularity. Because of its low mass (aprox. 10,000 Metric Tonnes) this microscopic black hole would normally be expected to evaporate in just under a day, while releasing every second ~17x as much energy as the largest nuclear weapon ever tested, vaporizing the Australian continent and destroying all life on earth.

However 23.3532861 hours would be more than enough time for the singularity to sink to the core of the earth and start forming an accretion disk as it gains angular momentum from the spin of the planet itself. As the Hole slowly devoured the earth it would increase in size to ~1/3 inch its energy output would decrease to almost nothing and its expected lifetime would grow to 5.68061034*10^50 years (That's a Freaking Long Time BTW)

Why does the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia want to destroy the human race??? ;)
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