Huh? We elected the ghovernment to govern well and wisely. At least, that’s what they said they do.

The Rudd Government has no mandate for its proposed Internet censorship scheme. It slipped in under the radar. There was effectively no debate about this in the lead up to the last election.

I agree with other folk who’ve commented that in order to devise a ’solution’, the ‘problem’ must be clearly defined. What is ‘the problem’? It’s not clear to me that if you get any two proponents of censorship together they’d agree about that.

That’s a problem… with censorship.

Mr Bolt seems to want ‘jihadi sites banned’. Conroy says he only wants ‘the worst of the worst’ child porn banned. ACMA applies God knows what criteria – and whatever they are, does so incompetently. Jim Wallace would doubtless have another hit list. So would Hamilton.

To say “we must solve the problem” is like saying, at the time of the Salem witch trials, that if you don’t like putting witches on trial, come up with another ’solution’.

As we now know, with the benefit of hindsight, the solution was to stop inventing witches.

Reminds me of Demolition Man, every time they swear, the fine spits out of the wall.

In Australia we do not have the same rights of freedom of speech that the Americans claim from their constitution. This plan for an Internet filter further takes our country away from a free and open society, and is likely to be abused in the future for political ends.

Filtering means tracking what sites everyone looks at – which is already done, this just makes it easier and gives a more clear-cut legal and technical framework for the government to do it.

We know how much K-Rudd loves China, and they’re a big market for our minerals. But that doesn’t mean Australian society should become more like Chinese society, or that we should try to block sites on the Internet like they do.

This is a step backward for Australia. Criminals will get around it, and find ways to get the content they want. Just like when I was 13, I somehow found a way to look at some X-rated content.

We should use all the technology at our disposal to shut down the kiddie porn, hate sites, and how-to-make-a-bomb etc… at the source. Get it off the Internet by locking up the producers. A blanket filter imposed on everyone, will not stop these things in our society – in the same way that prohibition doesn’t stop consumption.

We are not invading their privacy or denying them access to anything.

We are not flushing millions down the toilet on a scheme we know won’t work.

We aren’t accusing them of being child porn supporters.

There are plenty of filter products and a few (because they are mostly unsuccessful and fail) clean feed ISP’s. If a person is incapable of home filtering, they can buy a filtered feed…

Your motivation is pure but your idea is made of the same stuff that Conroy’s are. “We must offer a solution to cater for the incapable”. Why?

So we can legitimately enter this debate? Rubbish, we got that right when they started to dictate to us what we could do.

So we can fritter away our rights piecemeal rather than a large bite at a time? Think back to Alston and the compromises made then that puts the government closer to it’s goal of censorship now (regardless of which party is running it).

The absolute best I would be willing to even consider at this point is:

-immediate reinstatement of the 2.8 million trimmed off the OCSET budget by Rudd’s razor gang.

-an equipment subsidy to allow ISP’s to install cleanfeed gear voluntarily. The ISP would then be able to market cleanfeed plans without a large chunk of capital invested in equipment (meaning if they don’t get customers, they don’t lose as much cash). The ISP should have a contractual right to disconnect the system at any point in time that they want to and/or remove clean feed plans if they prove unprofitable.

C’est fin.