The Authoritarian Left In Oz
The brand new labor government in Australia has wasted no time in setting forth their authoritarian agenda. First up: internet censorship. Civil liberty groups in Oz are going bonkers over this one, the Rudd government, however, is pushing forward.
Communications Minister Stephen Conroy, a member of the Labor team which ousted conservative prime minister John Howard in a November election, wants filters in place to shield children from online porn and violence.
Under the plan, Internet service providers would provide feeds filtered free of pornography and other inappropriate material to houses and schools.
Conroy has rejected criticism that the move will debase the freedom of the world wide web and represents a step towards the kind of Internet censorship in place in China where sites are regularly blocked and cyberdissidents arrested.
"Labor makes no apologies to those that argue that any regulation of the Internet is like going down the Chinese road," he told national radio on Monday.
"If people equate freedom of speech with watching child pornography, then the Rudd Labor government is going to disagree."
But chair of the Australian Privacy Foundation Roger Clarke said the plan would not only be ineffective but could have substantial side-effects.
"Many pages will end up getting blocked that shouldn't be blocked," he told AFP. "We don't need that, we need an open Internet."
Clarke said it was the role of parents and guardians, not the government, to protect children from inappropriate material.
"It's not the government's business to control information flows," he said.
"That's the kind of thing that goes on in oppressive countries, in authoritarian countries.
"That's not what the government is there to do."
I'm against these types of government interventions anywhere, including here in the US. Clarke is exactly right: it is not the government's job to control information, no matter what the goal is. Because this is a slippery slope - at some point, the government will decide what else you can and cannot see.
It is ironic that the left, that screams incessantly about perceived authoritarianism, is actually the first to plant a jackboot on the necks of citizens. It's always for the best of reasons, they say. For the children or some such. But the boot comes down.
Civilization, World news | Gaius Wednesday, 2 January , 2008
By Flash Gordon, Wednesday, 2 January , 2008 @ 11:31 am
Sometimes I wonder if the people of the English speaking countries are so envious of those who live under tyranny imposed by force that they have decided to vote themselves into bondage.
By martian, Wednesday, 2 January , 2008 @ 1:52 pm
Have you ever noticed that people who want to impose these draconian regulations always want to impose them to make THEM stop doing what THEY shouldn’t do - never “pass this law because I know I shouldn’t do this”? I always wonder about the motives of “holier than thou” types. It makes me wonder what activity of theirs they’re trying to divert our attention from. Maybe that’s just suspicious and cynical me.