Is Oz Becoming an Online Police State?

I don't really talk about the politics of other nations that often beyond the Americas. However, I can't help but find myself asking what the heck is going on with Australia. In 2007, the centre right Liberal Party of Australia was replaced with the left wing social democratic Labour Party. Since Kevin Rudd was elected Prime Minister, the country has started taking a disturbingly authoritarian turn. I've been closely following the continuing saga on Internet censorship within the country. For years, conservatives have been warning people about the dangers of left wing nanny statism. Banning smoking in cars with kids, or banning pesticides and coffee cups to keep people politically correct might seem pretty harmless but it is, to use an oft complained about term, a slippery slope. Australia has been doing what many other left leaning democracies in the west have been regarding the Internet. The basic idea was to enact a law and bureaucratic body which would blacklist websites dealing in child pornography. Internet service providers would be required to block these sites or face a fine. Those linking to those sites would also face an $11,000 fine. The concept is noble enough and I don't dispute that child pornography on the web is a vary serious issue. However, problems occur when there are no checks placed on the bureaucracy in control of what should and should not be censored. The biggest danger is when governments keep information on what is censored censored. This is the case within countries such as Australia and Denmark.

Whistle blower website Wikileaks had obtained a copy of a censored web sites list being used by the Danish government. The site soon found itself blocked by Australia. The same site managed to obtain a copy of Australia's secret list of blocked sites. On it included an American anti-abortion website as well as the innocent websites of a dentist and a tuckshop owner. Online gambling sites, Youtube links, Wikipedia entries, sites on euthanasia, legal pornography, fringe religions, fetishes, Christianity, and that of a tour operator were also blacklisted. The Australian government claims that the list is not genuine. However, media investigations seem to indicate otherwise. Reports have also come out regarding the censorship of adult content on the Internet (R and X rated) to protect children. I took a quick look through the list and discovered several legitimate porn and gambling sites including Milkmanbook (legal erotic art) and Pokerstars. This is the vary slippery slope I talked about. A tool originally just intended to filter out child porn websites is being cast wider to get rid of things the government does not approve of. Right now it may seem alright to get rid of what are widely considered social vices such as gambling and legal porn but the blocking of the anti-abortion website and particularly of Wikileaks is cause for great concern. Wikileaks has been highly critical of the Great Firewall of Australia.

Currently, most of what is on the list legitimately deserves to be there, but how far is it until the government starts manipulating bureaucrats into blocking website belonging to their critics and political opposition. This would make Australia no better than the People's Republic of China or Chavez's Venezuela. Simply put, these blacklists don't work because they are too easy to abuse. The great danger to us Canadians is that a similar firewall could easily be implemented here. Once we start restricting people from certain types of information, and more importantly restricting people from knowing what is restricted, we loose our democracy; even if the original intention was to protect the greater good.

You can visit Wikileaks for more information on this issue, including the list. I warn you not to view any of the links it contains. UK based technology site The Register has also been following the story closely.