NOCENSORSHIP.INFO

Websinthe has put together anti-censorship shirts for the March in March with all profits going to the Leukaemia Foundation.

These shirts are a great way of supporting two causes at once and for once dispelling the idea that the anti-censorship lobby is doing nothing to protect children.

So if you’re planning on attending the March in March or are just looking to support two good causes at once, it might be time to whip out the credit card and place an order or two.

Since the early days of the Censorwall issue, the DBCDE and Senator Conroy’s office have been supplying Labor MPs with a pro-forma response to questions from the public. Time and time again these responses have been debunked, disproven or shown to be misleading by numerous sources both in Australia and Internationally.

Despite this, Labor MPs continue to sign their name to the form letter.

Mark Newton of Internode has released his own form letter into the public domain to be mailed to MPs by citizens unhappy with the photocopied response they received. This letter completely tears the government position to shreds. Mark uses reasoned argument, technical evidence and well supported academic references to show that each and every point of the government position is wrong, misleading or downright harmful.

Download this letter, print it out, fill it out and send it to your local MP.

Conroy maintains 2008 line despite public outcry

Today Senator Conroy opened the 2009 ALIA Information Online conference in Sydney. His opening speech, his first speaking engagement for 2009, was attended by members of the Australian Twitter community including Crikey columnist Stilgherrian.

Senator Conroy was greeted by polite applause from a conference of people that in 2007 voiced serious concerns about the freedom of speech aspects of filtering online content.

The Senator attempted to play down the technical difficulties of ISP filtering, willing only to concede that “Broader, dynamic analysis filtering of Internet content… has raised some issues in the past.”

Again today Conroy has used the misleading term ‘live pilot’ to describe the in-house prototyping that the DBCDE will be foisting onto ISPs at some undisclosed point this month.

In another of his attempts to avoid answering public fear of civil rights infringement, he claimed once again that “the Government does not view this debate as an argument about freedom of speech.”

The Senator can view this debate any way in which he so wishes, the point remains however, that as an elected representative, his duty is to represent, not dictate. If the Government maintains this view then it is in blatant ignorance of national movement against the filter on exactly those grounds.

The public say no to government interfered Internet and it is their duty to represent that.

We, the voters, say that this is a freedom of speech issue. Regardless of political ideology, the Government is patronising voters in the most rude and irresponsible way by so arrogantly disregarding the overwhelming opposition the Censorwall has faced.

This page can be found here.

READERS of The Courier-Mail online have blasted plans for Australia’s mandatory internet filter to block as many as 10,000 websites.

The websites form a blacklist of unspecified “unwanted content”, Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy revealed in Federal Parliament.

The 10,000 blacklisted websites would be blocked in addition to 1300 websites identified by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

The majority of 271 comments posted to 14.12pm yesterday revealing fears of interference from ”Big Brother.” (more…)

This page can be found here.

This page can be found here.
Stephen Conroy
Deputy Opposition Leader in the Senate
Shadow Minister for Communications and Information Technology
ELECTION 2007
Overview

Cyber-safety skills are a vital tool for all Australian children.
Children today are ‘digital natives’. They have grown up with computers and the internet and they spend a good deal of time online while at school and at home.

(more…)