The Australian government recently announced plans to introduce Internet filters that will block access to various websites throughout our country. Which websites? Those that our government has deemed illegal, however arbitrary that designation may be.  Such action is a blatant and unacceptable attempt to control the content that we Australians are able to view online legally.

All of us at Design Industries strongly oppose this censorship. We believe that each individual should have full freedom to browse the Internet and, in doing so, express free speech and encourage others to do so.  We believe our fellow Australian citizens possess the integrity and personal responsibility to manage and control their own Internet usage and to monitor the Internet usage of their children – without government involvement or handholding.

The Australian government has promised that the proposed Internet filters will block only those sites deemed illegal, such as child pornography sites.  In principle, this may be a defendable position. Yet the government has introduced such vague definitions that nearly any site could fall within the government’s viewing restrictions. A leaked list of proposed sites for banning included both straight and gay porn sites, gambling sites, euthanasia sites, various YouTube videos, and religious sites, among many others.

Fellow opponents of the proposed government policy claim that this move mimics the actions of the Communist Chinese government, which has already put such filters in place.  In that country, only those citizens who have been approved by authorities are permitted to post information to the web, and heavy filters are used to monitor websites and access to those websites.  Opponents of the censorship in China and the proposed censorship in Australia believe that the proposed filters will not necessarily protect children from inappropriate material, nor will they prevent criminals from accessing and distributing materials related to the sexual abuse of children, despite the government’s claims.

Google has also sided in favour of freedom of expression and does not anticipate voluntary compliance with the broad scope of restrictions proposed by the Australian government.  Such broad rules would be difficult if not impossible to enforce, especially on YouTube, which already forbids videos that portray sex, drug use, and violence.  Although Google has complied with censorship laws in China and Thailand in the past, the company recently threatened to pull out of China because of continuing requests for further censorship.  In its defence, Google has stated that the topics covered in videos on YouTube express freedom of speech, are related to important topics, and are potentially vital for democracy.

The anti-Scientology group Anonymous recently demonstrated to protest the proposed Australian filters. The organisation attacked and shut down the main websites of the government and parliament.  The group is currently planning an upcoming street protest known as Project Freeweb.

Here at Design Industries, we stand for freedom.  We are against tyranny and we believe that the Internet is and should be a neutral environment that allows for the universal expression of free speech.  Introducing Internet filters and monitoring Internet usage will limit that freedom, infringing upon the civil rights of all Australians.  Censorship by the Australian government is the precursor to a greater push for control of the Internet by corporations. The proposed actions must be nipped in the bud before they have an opportunity to take root.

We encourage our employees, clients, vendors, and other supporters to join us in taking a stand in this important cause. Become involved in the fight to maintain our freedom of expression via the Internet.

We do not support hacking and shutting down government sites. However, we do encourage like-minded supporters to contact members of parliament and support Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA), which is a non-profit organisation committed to maintaining and protecting our online freedoms.  EFA has launched a new website to serve as a campaign hub for those fighting against the government’s mandatory Internet filtering policy. You can find it at www.openInternet.com.au.  EFA has also launched a Facebook fan page for users to show their support for the cause.  Please get involved in this battle to maintain our freedom and encourage others to do so as well.  Our collective freedom of expression and the future of Australian democracy depend on it.

The Open Internet campaign emphasises that Australians want an Open Internet that is free from an impractical and costly policy of Government imposed mandatory Internet filtering.

“This policy has caused considerable anxiety amongst Australian Internet users,” said EFA Vice-Chair Colin Jacobs. “The idea that the Government will be inserting itself in every Internet connection in the country is a tough one to swallow, especially without a workable policy goal behind it.”

“Australians support an Open Internet that empowers individuals to decide what they view online,” said Peter Black, EFA’s campaign manager. “Australians support an Open Internet that trusts parents to monitor what their children view online.”

The campaign is centred around a new website, OpenInternet.com.au, blog, and Facebook fan page, that together will act as campaign hub for all the different individuals and organisations that are that are campaigning against the Government’s mandatory Internet filtering policy.

The policy, which will see all Australian Internet connections subject to a Government-controlled blacklist of banned sites, will apply to all Australian Internet connections within 12 months of the legislation being passed. Although originally touted as a “cyber-safety” policy, the resulting filter will not filter out all material unsuitable for children, instead targeting a select list of “refused classification” material, which would includes content dealing with crime, drugs and certain types of adult material.

Concerns with the list include its broad scope, its secret nature, and the inability of Australian businesses to know if and when they have been placed on the list. “One of our main concerns is how the list might expand in the future,” said Jacobs. “It’s hard to imagine both this government and every government forever, resisting temptation from special interest groups as well as electoral and media pressure.”

The Open Internet campaign marks an escalation of opposition to the plan, which will continue throughout the year. “Our goal is to ensure the Australian public know what they’re in for,” said Black. “It’s important that such a major and expensive policy gets the public scrutiny it deserves. And we believe that Open Internet portrays a positive and understandable message that will resonate with Australians who are yet to form a strong opinion on the Governmentb b-s policy.”

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About EFA:

Electronic Frontiers Australia Inc. (EFA) is a non-profit national organisation representing Internet users concerned with on-line rights and freedoms. EFA was established in 1994, is independent of government and commerce, and is funded by membership subscriptions and donations from individuals and organisations with an altruistic interest in promoting online civil liberties.

Hackers protesting government censorship of the Internet have shut down several Australian government websites in a demonstration against the announcement that filters would be imposed to block access to websites deemed offensive by the authorities.

The campaign was launched by the anti-Scientology group Anonymous in response to plans to implement a mandatory and wide-ranging internet filter modeled on that of the Communist Chinese government.

This is not the first time the group has attacked government websites, having launched a similar stunt last September.

“The main government website, www.australia.gov.au, and parliament’s www.aph.gov.au were both affected along with the sites for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy,” reports AFP.

“No one messes with our access to perfectly legal (or illegal) content for any reason,” said a statement released by the group.

The Australian government attacked the campaign as “not a legitimate form of political statement.”

Despite the Australian government promising that the Internet filter would only be used to block access to child pornography and other illegal websites, the watchdog group Electronic Frontiers Australia warned that the law will also allow the government to block any website it desires under vague definitions.

In March 2009, the Wikileaks website published a leaked secret list of sites slated to be blocked by Australia’s state-sponsored parental filter.

The list revealed that blacklisted sites included “online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.”

The filter will even block web-based games deemed unsuitable for anyone over the age of fifteen, according to the Australian government.

Calls to mandate Internet users to obtain licenses, in other words government permission, before they can post to the web have grown in recent weeks, with top Microsoft executive Craig Mundie insisting at the recent Davos Economic Forum that the Internet should be policed.

Within days, Time Magazine enthusiastically jumped on the bandwagon to back Mundie’s proposal, as authorities push for a system even more stifling than in Communist China, where only people who have been approved by the authorities would be allowed to express free speech.

ISPs across the world, including in supposed democratic countries like the UK, the US and New Zealand, have periodically blocked access to Alex Jones’ websites without justification and only restored access after a barrage of complaints.

As we have highlighted before, although the merits of hacking as a form of protest can be debated, what seems certain to happen is that governments will launch a false flag cyber attack which will cause a major catastrophe that can then be blamed on the free Internet, acting as a pretext to tighten the screws on plans for centralized regulation and censorship which are already in place.

Source Prison Planet.com – Thursday, February 11, 2010