Australians against Internet Censorship by our Government

The Labor federal government has announced plans to censor "inappropriate" material on our internet. We cannot let this happen...

The nerve of the Australian (Rudd or any other) government to tell the world, and our own people that they condemn nations such as Iran and China for "oppressing the people" with internet censorship. Now for them to turn around and say they're doing it to protect us from "inappropriate" material.

Who deems what is inappropriate? They have already stated that the blacklist will not be known by anyone except the government and law enforcement agencies.

They say its to stop things like child porn and bestiality, but once the floodgates open, it will make it much easier to slip anything the government of the day wants into the blacklist, with US, the Australian public being none the wiser.

Examples in recent history can be seen in the likes of Thailand, Norway and Denmark. Where censorship was made law under the pretext of protecting the public (children predominately) from the evils of the world. Then it was proven that the Thai government also blacklisted over 1200 websites that were critical of Thai's royal family^ (source: Sydney Morning Herald 19/03/09)

Internet censorship is crossing a very fine line. Once legislation of this magnitude is made into law, there is no turning back. The Patriot Act in the U.S.A. is one of many examples of this. Obama promised, if elected, would get rid of, he reneged, and in fact extended its length and added more to it.

The government has no right to control the one medium that is a daily part of our lives. The internet provides the entire world on a platter for all to see at the click of a button, we have to accept that no matter what, filter or not, there will always be evil on the net, but the positives by far, outweigh the negatives.