Irene Graham: Secret, unaccountable, censorship is incompatible with democracy.
Posted on the campaign blog ,
November 12th, 2008
Irene Graham is from the Libertus Foundation.
Five days before the 2007 election, the Labor Party issued a policy 'fact sheet' stating: "A Rudd Labor Government will require ISPs to offer a 'clean feed' internet service to all homes, schools and public internet points accessible by children, such as public libraries" which would prevent access to "any content that has been identified as prohibited by ACMA".
Few media outlets reported that policy and, even if many had, most voters would expect "offer" meant they would be free to decline the offer of censored Internet access.
Less than twelve months later, Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy revealed that Labor's policy statement was not trustworthy. Evidently, Labor failed to tell the voting public the truth about their plan or have changed their policy since election.
In October 2008, Senator Conroy said that ISP-level filtering would not be opt-out; all Internet users' access would be subject to blocking. He told a Senate Estimates Committee that "we are looking at two tiers - mandatory of illegal material and an option for families to get a clean feed service if they wish" and Sky News that "Clean feed is broader than the prohibited sites. You can't opt in or out of the prohibited material. The clean feed is something you can opt out". Labor had not previously mentioned "two tiers".
While the Minister frequently refers to "illegal"/"prohibited" material on ACMA's blacklist, this terminology is highly misleading. In fact, "prohibited content" includes material that is lawful to publish/distribute/obtain offline in Australia, (some is also lawful to exhibit in cinemas), and which is not illegal for Australians to view on the Internet. Material unsuitable for children is termed "prohibited content" in Commonwealth Internet censorship legislation enacted in 1999 (which Labor voted against).
Unlike Australia's offline censorship regime, the Internet censorship regime is secret and unaccountable. Offline material is classified by the Classification Board, an independent statutory body comprising publicly named members. Titles of banned and classified material are publicly available in the Board's online database. In stark contrast, decisions to add content hosted outside Australia to ACMA's blacklist are made by unnamed government agency (ACMA) staff and all information about material on ACMA's blacklist is secret. Freedom of Information legislation was changed in 2003 to exempt all such information from disclosure under FOI (changes voted against by Labor).
Moreover, ACMA's blacklist may include overseas hosted content that ACMA staff incorrectly thought "would be" prohibited if classified. In FY2007, the Classification Board found that 11 of the 28 items submitted by ACMA (presumably content hosted in Australia which ACMA is required to have classified before issuing a final take-down notice) were not "prohibited content". In FY2008, 7 of 14 were classified not "prohibited".
Secret, unaccountable, censorship is incompatible with democracy and the inappropriateness of the existing regime will be exacerbated if ACMA's blacklist is used for compulsory ISP-level blocking, instead of only provided to filter makers as currently.
Labor's intention to implement non-opt out ISP-level blocking of so-called "prohibited" content on a secret blacklist, which they voted against in 1999 and 2003, shows that Labor has changed its stripes markedly in recent years.
If Labor implements non-optional ISP-level filtering, which would be contrary to their 2007 election policy, they will prove beyond doubt that Labor is not trustworthy. Accordingly, regardless of the type/s of material Labor says will be on their secret compulsory blocking list, such statements will not be trustworthy either. Labor's intention to mandate non-optional ISP-level blocking must be opposed.
103 comments
November 12th, 2008
Hi Getup.
Please run a campaign about this.
The campaign "Olympic Silence is not Golden" was run to decry Censorship by Channel 7, when they refused to air commercials about Tibet duriong the Olympic.
You ran the campaign "Say no to Media Monopoly".
If Conroy goes ahead with the plan to censor the internet, it will be a huge blow for free speech and freedom of information.